Reviews by kuvien

I imagine just being in the same room with Braxton would make things wild, and it does here, too, but since Braxton is not in charge, the craziness is lessened, making the avant quite accessible to anyone who might not have the appetite for the weird and inaccessible. Holland's double bass pirouettes around Rivers' and Braxton's playful, braying reeds. The impressive restraint exercised on this album cannot help but delight the ear.

Okay, never mind that there are 12 tracks when the album’s title is “Eleven dances to fight migraines”. Maybe that first part of the first track—that silly little intro?--doesn’t count. I’ve never had a migraine, so I have no idea if this music would help fight against what I understand is rather crippling pain. Perhaps it helps one make sense of the colors exploding in his brain as he lies in the dark. But I’ve heard that when you’ve got a migraine, you don’t want any stimuli, and that would include music. Well, anyway, since I don’t have migraines, I’m able to enjoy this lush, quirky, silly little collaboration of an album. It’s rather disjointed, like vignettes of songs all put together. One thing I love about RIO bands is how many instruments they employ. And the singing—always surreal and atmospheric—with some interesting choral experimentation. Anyway, back to migraines...I’m pretty sure the annoying little girl on “Tous les trucs qu'il y a là dehors” would send anyone who has a tendency to get migraines immediately into very painful territory. I hate it when people let their kids sing on their albums.

The first four tracks ease you in, the modern classical equivalent of easy-listening, but "Spiritus sanctus" raises pulses. As it should. I first became familiar with Hildegard von Bingen's work on, and her inspiration does not fail to disappoint here, either, even if it is only a thread in the tapestry. Judith Steenbrink's arrangements of mystical, Medieval poetry (from Hadewijch of Brabant) sets a slow-burning flame at the heart of the music, inviting you closer. You can enjoy the glow from a distance, or you can venture in a little closer and feel its warmth. Holland Baroque's strings dominate but graciously give way enough to allow Bastarda's clarinets room to express sinuous and sonorous phrases that enchant the ear.

Quite an eclectic album here. Controlled psychedelic chaos railroaded by driving beats, lazy saxophones filling in the atmosphere like slowly inflating balloons. There’s an electronic motif throughout, of course, but it’s not purely an electronic album by any stretch. The music sometimes sounds like the roars and trumpets of animals—like I’m strolling through a spiritual zoo or riding on a spiritual safari.

Inspired by the writings of ancient saints and the verses of modern poets, Höghielm makes the esoteric and the avant-garde accessible, comprehensible, and enjoyable. In addition to wordless vocalization, she sings lyrics in Russian, old Gotlandic, Latin, and Swedish.

My mother-in-law told me about this turd. That's the first and last rec I ever take from her.

Alice in Wonderland if Alice was Dante and Wonderland was Hell. Go from cavern to cavern, observe and/or suffer. Not the ear-rape some of these other records have been, but just as disturbing.

led me to, and Meredith Monk led me to,, and others, and then I realized that I really dig interesting, minimal vocal work that embraces this bare-bones approach to texture and acoustic space. And so I came back around full circle to this, an excellent companion piece to Tabula rasa. The last third of this hour-long recording is a beautiful, expansive, meditative work that could soothe the most troubled mind. Pärt is medicine.

Sit with the garden door off your listening room open, enjoy the sunshine and Hill’s Point of Departure with Kenny Dorham, Eric Dolphy, Joe Henderson, Richard Davis, and Anthony Williams.

The vibraphone gives this album such a playful warmth amid all the chaotic improvisation that just dances and trips along, trying to lose its footing within the unorthodox rhythms.

I’m writing this little entry on very little sleep. A typhoon kept me up all night—and then the power went out. Trees being uprooted. I ran to the store in the middle of the night and bought a lot of ice so I could throw my perishables into a cooler. I’ve got the sound of that typhoon ringing in my memory, so this album’s first track is par for the course. A pretty wild ride that eventually settles into something—though not predictable—at least calmer than before. There is a kind of placidity after the storm.

A full, lush sound, and if he was going for warmth, he nailed it.

It's amazing how this obscure gem seems to be the blueprint for a lot of indie folk in the 21st century. The underpinned structure of the cello, the easy melodies, the confessional lyrics, twinkling mandolin giving just a tinge of psychedelia.

Is this guy for real? Every cliché conceivable employed by your lame uncle.

To quote the great Dana Scully, "There are hits, and there are misses...and then there are misses." This band is to paganism what Protestantism is to Christianity: a slick, cheap, watered-down version of something that has real power but they can only ape. They sing of blood, but none flows. They sing of dancing, but nothing moves. Once you've heard what pagan folk is capable of, this is nothing more than a silly pantomime. The atmosphere of this album is nothing more than the name of the band (cringe!!) and the cover art, which is as bland and as boring as the music. Oh, and their rendition of "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" might just be, in the context of this album, the worst thing ever made by a human.

Sandbox jazz. Here's the music. There's no plan, no agenda, no schedule. Do whatever you want with it. And they do. Hersch and Spalding spark some understated magic, charming interactions with the crowd, and lovely singing interspersed with dexterous scat.

12 tracks on this split, the first seven belonging to the French anti-folk band Herman Dune, the last five played by experimental folk collective Cerberus Shoal hailing from the USA. Herman Dune inserts silly little acoustic aside breakdowns of harmonicas and bells among their four longer "proper" songs, separating the sparse introspections. They do some excellent violin work here. Cerberus Shoal kicks off their half of the split with an intro much weirder than anything Dune does, but that's expected. I've mentioned it before in my other responses to Shoal music, but when they ditched boring-ass post-rock and were brave enough to follow their freak, they actually got good. This collective is very good at constructing quiet folk epics that hang together on rust and stitches.

A highly experimental and beautiful album, able to explore soothing melodies and then break them down into tiny pieces, at once accessible and avant-garde. This record seems to ride the line between the softer Canterbury scene sounds and the more experimental tastes of the RIO crowd.

More free improvisation on oboes and bassoons in rock music, please! This is a perfect album example of the old phrase, “Necessity is the mother of invention”. Perhaps they should’ve named this Necessity, since it was necessary for them to indulge in free improv and other experimental techniques with tapes and whatnot to fill out the album, since they didn’t have enough material to make an LP. This is what makes music grand: put some talented, creative, innovative musicians in the studio and see what happens.

When you fertilize an egg with song, prepare yourself for the beast that will grow from it—but don’t try to tame it. Enjoy its unexpected, maddening beauty.