Reviews by kuvien

[https://imgur.com/8pPf3xI,I want to die.]

This is you getting packed so tightly in Styrofoam that no one remembers you, and even your dog cannot save you. Don't worry, though. The packing is so slow and torturous a process that you have plenty of time to hear your own end.

[https://imgur.com/8pPf3xI,I want to die.]

[https://imgur.com/8pPf3xI,I want to die.]

Drums, bass, piano, vocals. Merrill's easy, loose vocals backed by sometimes-laidback sometimes-wild instrumentation, just the kind of thing I'd love to hear live in a jazz bar. And hey, since this was recorded in Japan during her stay here, I could see myself going to one of these shows. There are a lot of venues in Tokyo, and this kind of recording entices me to explore more (though, of course, this music is decades out of date). Having said that, does jazz ever grow stale for a jazzhead? Nope. What I like most about this album is how easy it is on the ears, except for those more avant-garde moments, but those are the moments to live for, aren't they? Like raw ginger on the tongue, erasing all flavor that came before, preparing the palate for something new. Sposin' she was to backsass?

This one starts off with a full-on prog metal bang but doesn't stay that way for long, thus keeping it from the avant-metal genre. It's a wild and crazy ride, but it's definitely the more unusual side of prog. A lot of saxophone melody woven throughout.

A wonderful contrast of vocals and instrumentation, the former full, harmonic, yet droning, the latter sometimes sounding farther away and tinnier, as if they were recorded on a hand-held tape recorder. A dark melancholy radiating its own brightness, creating a kind of mantra. But then it switches, and the instrumentation comes in full, lush. The repetitive nature and raw, nocturnal qualities of the music at times has been likened to something an unplugged The Velvet Underground might have done, and you can especially hear that comparison on track 4. Lyrically, the album is open to interpretation, as the songwriters designed it.

I've read that Monk wrote very little of this opera down. She just had some general ideas and came into the studio and improvised a lot of what you hear on here. And that's just fine with me! Monk excels at interpretation, confident in her own skill and talent (and it's definitely a bit of both). So what is this modern opera largely without words? Is it about traveling? About following an atlas book, like a map? Or is it about Atlas himself, the god punished to hold up the world? No idea. This one is all about the strange, wordless, weird vocal gymnastics.

This kind of music is the definition of white privilege: white men raised in the suburbs in relative affluence and spoiled by their overindulging parents... so they scream into microphones because they've never experienced a single hardship and no one gave them a much-needed smack in the mouth. (Apply this review to all albums and EPs that sound like this.)

Just a note to my future self: this is one of the worst albums I've ever heard. Do not relisten.

Putting the rock aside and focusing more on the delicate progressive elements of the album, I really do feel as if the record is aptly named, for swaddling is an intricate process by which a baby is wrapped in perfect comfort and complete protection, just as we might hide from the rain or a winter gale, knowing we are safe as we gaze upon a black sky and a grey sea.

Like a lot of avant-prog-leaning music from the late-70s to the mid-80s, this album has a highly experimental, sinister feel to it. There's a cold intelligence to this exploratory music, when playfulness is serious business.

This sucks.

Very much a no-frills album, just one woman’s haunting vocals and another woman’s evocative accordion. At times quite melodic, at other times floating about into drone territory, a terrifying glimpse into either the aftermath of heartbreak or the smoking remains of a battlefield.

This didn't have to be made.

Are cops real people? Do cops dream of punk music?

Funk in the background, jazz in the foreground. Strike that. Funk providing the skeletal structure, jazz the meat. This shit is wild but tight. The band doesn't let the free get away from them. They are masters of the music, so they know when to let it go and when to rein it in.

The punctuation the vibraphone gives this album is exciting.

Beautiful piano-centered chamber jazz that explores the Scottish roots of the pianist, especially tracks 5 and 8, the former a living dance tune converted into a jazz number, the latter a pensive ballad. Relaxing, calm, lovely throughout.

I thought this would be better.