Reviews by kuvien

Spoiler alert: he woke up this morning.

You ever trip and fall down a woman's vagina and realize how wonderful it is?

I'm so glad Magny feels all these things, but I don't think I'd ever have the energy to. I can, however, lie back and listen to her sing and chant and wail and grunt all night. I can be amazed that one woman is capable of so much expression. This recording has been called "back alley rhapsody", and it's perfect. That obscure, magical, out-of-the-way place where jazz and folk intersect.

An unrestrained flow of vocals protesting everything from war to social injustice to the illusions the media feeds us to keep us docile. Magny's full, smoky blues vocals stand apart from anything else I've ever heard from a female vocalist in this field.

Batshit insane vocals over the weirdest guitar and double bass plucking. Wails, whistles, chirps, trills among the drizzling music of the groaning strings. You've not heard the poem "Jabberwocky" until you've heard Magny massacre the beloved verses of the famous wordplay.

Husky, feminine rawness couched in passionate protest music. Magny is the opera diva singing over the PA system at Shawshank, and I'm the baffled prisoner standing in the exercise yard. To this day, I have no idea what she's saying, but when I hear her voice, I feel free.

What happened to the Klingon opera? The aliens must've picked up an different kind of alien crew member whose jazz influence has rubbed off on the others. The mysterious outer space feelings return on the last track, though.

The music is the foreboding herald of something terrible and wonderful that is about to happen, and so the listeners wait in equal fear and expectation of what is to come, of what the music prefigures.

Vander’s first studio release after a twenty-year break. Impressive how he took stuff he’d composed—at least in part—back in 1973 and 1974 and worked it into a new album in the 21st century. Despite this album being released in 2004, its mythological sci-fi content comes before Köhntarkösz (1974) in the narrative. I sure do like convoluted timelines! There’s a lot of Gnosticism woven in here.

Despite this album being recorded and released in the 21st century, some of the music featured here was played by the band since the mid-70s. This the third part of the Köhntarkösz trilogy, and I guess there's a story, but does it matter? Make up whatever your creative mind wants to while listening to this zeuhl space opera. I will say this, though: linking the ancient Egyptians to mysterious aliens is by no means an original idea.

The mythology continues with the Kobaïan people returning to Earth to save the planet. There are some crazy horn arrangements here.

This is cutesy, sugary pop without straying into twee territory. In some ways, they remind me as falling somewhere between and. This is soft, charming indie pop with frail vocals.

Magdalith has an amazing, unique voice, perfectly suited for avant-folk, for it equally frightens and excites. This is as freaky as the kind of vocals I like gets, and I cannot help but think that we are getting only the slightest peek into the soul of a Jewish woman scarred by the Holocaust and enamored of the Eucharist. The vocals set the piano on fire. This whole album feels like one big vocal experiment, pushing her voice to the limits of its perspicacity. Tracks 1 and 6 (the beginnings of Sides A and B) are sister tracks, songs that have only one instrument accompanying the vocals, the former a piano, the latter some kind of hand drum (sounds Middle Eastern – apologies for my untrained ear). All but two of the tracks are written by Magdalith. She works in quite a bit of ritualistic liturgical chanting of religious texts, creating a distinctly Hebrew atmosphere to the album.

Music for collectors. Music for lovers of underground scenes. And don't bother trying to get ahold of one of the limited edition cassettes with paper crochet holy image inserted. There were only 50 printed, and they've already sold out. This is the cutting agent for all the catchy, melodic music I've been singing along to lately. Magaletti's unorthodox, concrète percussion carries this weird, artsy recording.

Interesting experimentation with hip hop, fearless use of the accordion, and all the tracks are fairly short, like he's sampling the creativity of his own brain. But so many ideas flowing that he will make interesting transitions mid track.

This is basically an updating of fado, bringing in some modern sensibilities and instruments, weaving together a charming document that expresses a longing for something greater than ourselves.

This isn't my kind of music, but I just finished watching The Devil Wears Prada 2 this morning, so this is hitting me in my very gay mood right now.

A very black jazz album. Proudly black, couched in activist poetry, complete with beautiful, expressive female vocals that make the soul simultaneously ache and soar. Look at the back cover art and you'll see what this album is all about: a black mother holding up her black infant, hopeful yet realistic, strong and caring. Building a community that heals.

Beautiful, nuanced, subdued. What is it with Italians making some of the best Library Music? This has so much texture, with brass squawking like dying birds and strings droning in sustained swells, all within an electronic soundscape.

Well, you know what they say about Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette: the former sang songs lamenting marital problems but was happily married all her life, and the latter sang about the steadfastness of love but experienced messy divorces.