Reviews by kuvien

There are a lot of different things going on here without complicating the music. The mood-setting post-rock guitars and strings, the tribal drums (at times), and chanting vocals are all sometimes chaotic and frenzied, sometimes melodious and calm, but always imparting a strong sense of unity.

One of the worst albums I've ever heard.

Get some of that Soviet synthpop swing!

The arc of this album isn't hard to understand, and it's a well-structured, beautiful journey: the artist struggles to make her musical voice heard--and not because of any lack of talent or skill--within the circumstances of her chosen profession, returns home to Latvia to find solace and understanding in the summer sunsets, emerges with her voice more confident than ever, and glides to the end applying her own unique, delicate touches to some jazz standards. Zirina has heeded the wisdom of the shamans and understands that the threads of yarn that proceed from within her are her own music.

This is an excellent collaboration by three artists and an electroacoustic collective I'd never heard of until recently. Of course this kind of weird, indigenous music is right up my alley, and the noise and industrial touches hint at the unfeeling machinery of war. Quite chilling when paired with the pleas of warm, human voices. The polyphonic, singsong chanting of traditional songs from and about World War I hypnotizes me.

Shamanistic throat-singing accompanied by the deep, full tones of wooden mouth-organs, with wordless, grunting vocalizations pinned to the percussion like fluttering flags. Ah! Zehnder has worked with Hun Huur Tu? So that's where the yodeling went: lost in the mountainous alpine spaces of Tuva. There is a much stronger focus on meditative percussion than I was expecting from a member of Stimmhorn. Overall this album is a well-handled blending of nature and artifice.

A fun, quirky little electronic album featuring an almost call-and-response like structure of throat singing and the cimbalom (a type of chordophone composed of a large, trapezoidal box on legs with metal strings stretched across its top and a dampening pedal underneath).

Samba with an edge of experimentation. Samba not too sweet or safe. Certainly not boring! I've read the word "deconstructed" used a lot in discourse about this album. If by that people mean breaking down samba into its discrete elements to understand it and then reassemble it in new and creative ways with new meaning, then sure. The album art is not random, and Zé brings wire cutters to the barbed wire that excludes and a knife to the rope that binds in the strictures of tradition.

Zé, you so crazy! Stop playin'.

If I didn't hear the audience or on-stage banter, I'd never think this is a live album. The playing is so tight throughout (Zappa is playing the players as they play their instruments), the music so full, layered, and interesting, but I can't help but focus on the themes explored in the lyrics and imagery, with open digs at sex-obsession, drug use, religious adherence, and the meaningless of "higher" education. Nothing's sacred, especially the audience, which is par for the course for the unrepentant Zappa. Hollywood & Hotdogs is all I really need right now.

Guacamole queen can’t afford no shoes. This is one of Zappa’s most accessible records, so I guess the name fits: One Size Fits All. Perhaps he felt it was all a bit too generic or homogenized? I like it, but I also like his wackier stuff, and this is definitely a more streamlined prog rock sound. Get those po-jama people outta my way!

Probably Zappa at his most offensive: hating on the transes, fatties, and Christians, as well as encouraging suicidal morons to just go ahead and kill themselves. lol

The ouija of jazz-rock. A lot of weird, diverse time signatures, just like what you’d not expect when communing with those non-existent spirits. Try listening to this while walking backwards and you might just catch up to the music.

More sculpting.

If you’re going to be self-indulgent, you better be damn good at it or your art is going to fail spectacularly. Zappa is damn good, and he’s so damn self-indulgent on this triple album. So what’s the story here? Well, it’s about Joe starting a band in his garage, but he gets in trouble with the law for noise. Joe can't get over Mary (the Catholic girl) or Lucille (the girl at the hamburger joint). He's been used by heartless Catholic sluts, so he looks for love (and humiliation) in the arms of a sexbot. This is the conclusion of Joe's story, after he gets out of prison for fucking a sexbot to death and not being able to pay the company for the damage he'd caused their product. In this dystopian world, Zappa shows us his persecution complex: a world where music is outlawed (like that would ever happen!). So all Joe's got is the music in his mind, and therein he plays his last guitar solo...and this is Zappa at his best. I've got a real love-hate thing for Zappa. He's an utter douche (just watch Baby Snakes ffs), but he writes such great music. This album needs to be right up there with Part I. One simply cannot stop Joe's story with his heart and mind broken by cruel, cruel Lucille. Parts II & III are just as worthy of attention.

My friend once told me that Zappa said his guitar solos were like sculptures that he forms with the notes and structures of the music, and I later watched an interview in which Zappa said that when he went out to play live, he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do. He knew he had a certain amount of time for the solo and he had a “basic operational knowledge” of the instrument, so he just made up on the spot whatever he wanted. Oh yeah. Sure, Frank. Basic operational knowledge!

If you cut out all the speaking bits, this is an excellent album. It’s quite avant-prog in its kneading of notes and how it plays with scales like a kitten with a ball of yarn. A beautiful mess of experimentation, all tangled up but somehow able to wiggle free of its complexity. Fearless, magnificent compositions. It’d all fit right in with the RIO scene, for it embraces the dark silence as readily as the carnival glow.

This is Joe's Garage's red-headed stepchild.

I'm not sure if there's any compositional cohesion here, but is there supposed to be? Or is this Zappa fucking with the London Symphony Orchestra the way he fucked with his live audiences? Is this him getting them on their hands and knees tearing underwear from people with their teeth? Not sure. Don't care. Some noises happen in quirky sequences, and then other noises happen. It's Zappa. With the London Symphony Orchestra!

If you’re going to be self-indulgent, you better be damn good at it or your art is going to fail spectacularly. Zappa is damn good, and he’s so damn self-indulgent on this triple album. So what’s the story here? Well, it’s about Joe starting a band in his garage, but he gets in trouble with the law for noise. Joe can't get over Mary (the Catholic girl) or Lucille (the girl at the hamburger joint). He's been used by heartless Catholic sluts, so he looks for love (and humiliation) in the arms of a sexbot. This is the conclusion of Joe's story, after he gets out of prison for fucking a sexbot to death and not being able to pay the company for the damage he'd caused their product. In this dystopian world, Zappa shows us his persecution complex: a world where music is outlawed (like that would ever happen!). So all Joe's got is the music in his mind, and therein he plays his last guitar solo...and this is Zappa at his best. I've got a real love-hate thing for Zappa. He's an utter douche (just watch Baby Snakes ffs), but he writes such great music.