Reviews by kuvien

The Venn diagram intersection for people who like "intelligent" sci-fi films and people who listen to albums that "break" them.

I like how the black metal vocals and the soaring, guitar-driven melodies are sandwiched between a rather cinematic soundscape at the beginning and end of the album. And the Russian female spoken parts are just the perfect touch to the atmosphere.

Like some juju shaman went to Japan and went native, trading one swamp for another. This is like being at some esoteric religious service, where the tapes are spiritual objects.

When people these days say rock is dead, I say listen to this album. So much energy and creativity, able to be both technically proficient and playful at the same time. This gem really keeps the tradition of prog rock alive without being derivative.

Karaindrou has been making film scores since the early 80s, for which she has been honored at film festivals. Honestly this recording sounds like it could be a film score, too, though it isn’t. Whereas is primarily political or based on the work of poets, neo kyma is more melancholic and explores themes of love.

You kind of have to take the band at their word here: they are explicit about their inspiration for this album, namely the Vistula, Poland's longest river, and the cultural distinctiveness of Urzecze, a region just west of Warsaw. Tracks like "Potopielka" flow slowly and inexorably, drawing you down into them whether you want to go or not. One might call it a seduction. I feel like the second half of the album gets bigger and sexier, losing some of its earlier shyness.

This classic album has some of the most epic, chillest vibes you can imagine.

Now this is scary requiem Mass music. Pretty sure I'd be quite unsettled sitting there if this was the music that accompanied. The dead--both the just and the damned--whisper to me, but they are both equally frightening to me since I am still in the flesh. I lost it at "Confutatis", as the track demonstrates the eternal silencing of those consigned to flames of woe. Mercy lies at the core of this heartbreaking pathos, and hope returns from beyond the grave with the "Offertorium". Many times while listening to this I shook my head in disbelief at how equally beautiful and frightening this music is. Kuran masterfully takes my fear, however, and translates it into a vision of merciful light. The final track--I guess the encore of this live performance?--has a much-needed playfulness to it. Still... the weeping, sinister strings are a little frightening.

As linguistic-minority female-led folk music, this kind of vocal- and kannel-led expression fascinates me, the original compositions herein drawing upon regilaul chants (the epic poetry of Estonia) to evoke sylvan feelings and provoke concern for environmental destruction and the depopulation of rural areas as recent demographic shifts pose an existential threat to Kalkun's culture. This is yet another fine example in the tapestry of music from around the world accessible to everyone who arms himself with curiosity and puts his ears on.

An excellent preservation and performance of Medieval folk passed down through the ages, this album features a highly-skilled quintet playing a wide range of traditional instruments, from lyre to kantele to dulcimer, just to name a few. The vocalist leads the listener into the past and into mystery.

Everything I like in jazz thrown into one album: fearless exploration of the space between the notes, free, meandering instrumentals that are in no hurry to get where they’re going, beautiful yet quirky female vocals. The poetry of Robert Frost seems like a tame choice, but it’s handled experimentally within the octet’s contributory framework.

Having been to Ryoanji, I think I understand the second track. Of course, the garden wasn't made for someone of my height, so when I said I could see all the rocks at the same time, I kind of ruined a bunch of junior high school kids' trip. MOUSHIWAKEGOZAIMASEN.

Upon the release of this collaborative album, Jacek Kaczmarski wrote (and I'm paraphrasing here), "The program of this album consists of songs in which we try to look at how people behave in transient situations, on crisis days, what they do with the freedom of choice when they think they have none...this is also an exploration of the history of Europe, which is full of dramas, tragedies, crimes, and religious and economic wars, which we were once part of and will be part of again." Whether whispering or growling in their singing, there is an unconquerable manly swagger and grit in this raw, straightforward music, and the vocals are almost always accompanied by forceful, satisfying piano playing.

Poetry for voivodes, when you're obliged to sing truth to power. History, ultimately, is written by the declaiming poets, not the winners now in their graves.

Like a lot of ambient albums with drone elements, this is another example of sitting at the heart of a living machine, listening to the rhythm of its pulse.

None of these songs are original, but they are all originally played and sung by a Belgian band right in the thick of the rock in opposition avant-prog movement of the late 70s and early 80s, making consciously un-commercial music for the heck of it. Enjoy this antiquated music from yesteryear, giggle at its feigned innocence, indulge in the chamber-music interplay among a selection of woodwinds and strings. This is wonderful music cosplay!

An eight-person collective (plus two more featured on individual tracks) of Rock in Opposition and classical artists either independent or hailing from established bands such as Aksak Maboul, Univers Zéro, and Art Zoyd get together and bring all their chamber music ("classical") instruments and get very proggy. I mean, when you have a bassoon bopping along like this, it just screams RIO. Violins takes over, singing and groaning, and all along, the piano underpins everything, including the flute arpeggios. Very cozy, this one!

Part of John Zorn's Tzadik label's series on Radical Jewish Culture, this album adds a complicated voice to the grand adventure of Jewish musical thinkers who want to hunt for and uncover the treasures within their cultural consciousness. Kiczkovsky is complicated, as I wrote before, her Polish and Spanish roots transplanted to Argentina, and then over to Israel, and then finally taking root again in Mexico. Experimentation and vocal improvisation underpin the artist's exploration of her Jewish-Spanish identity, expressing herself in uniquely subcultural tongues. The album's raison d'etre is no secret, right there in the title: "Songs for a Diaspora". For all the Jews scattered around the world, all of them immersed in their own local cultures that not only evolved into their own thing but retained that essential part of what it means to be Jewish.

Do yourself a favor and listen to this. Bonus points if you don't listen alone.

I had to do a double-take at what I was listening to when the female vocals came in on the first track. I didn't remember there being a woman in the band... ah. There wasn't. I remembered Jrpjej's music as being very, very masculine, but the 2020 pandemic took its toll on the band. They lost their main vocalist, and another member left the quartet. That left only two guys. They reformed as a trio, taking on a new vocalist, a woman. Excellent. Foreign female folk vocals do it for me every time anyway! Jrpjej appears to be on a mission to stretch the conceptions of what "traditional" music is or can be, bringing into this specific folk tradition foreign instruments such as the guitar, the cello, and German bagpipes. Still, this music strikes me as barebones, despite how "post-traditional" it's trying to be.