Reviews by kuvien

This so-called British jazz recording has a little bit of something for everyone: alto saxophonist from Jamaica, guitarist from India, female jazz vocals for those who like that sort of thing (I certainly do!), and killer support from British musicians who fill out this quartet. Jamaica? India? 1969? Ain't no way anyone is letting this one go without harping on this being "post-colonial UK jazz", fusing different sensibilities under the umbrella of post-bop. And until its repressing in 2015, people complained/celebrated its rarity, based on whether they owned the vinyl or not. There's nothing wild or out-there on this recording, though. Just some pleasant tunes, easy on the ear.

This is Harper's best album, the culmination of his career, once he's sublimated his young man anger and lets his true songwriting fire break through. There are so many gold tracks on this release. A lot of rawness and honesty here.

It's fun that this is the inaugural album of an Italian label that shares the same name as the album, or maybe it's vice-versa. Some listeners like the envelopes to be pushed off the table so they can be caught, or turned into paper airplanes and chased. But Harper is very good at pushing the envelope in a gentle way, not challenging the ear but also not insulting it. This album is another example of American jazz musicians cutting an album while touring Europe (recorded in Paris), and we the listeners reap the benefit of this double-duty workload. Actually a handful of American jazz musicians in the 70s toured or lived temporarily in Europe as they pursued not only more recording opportunities but increased cultural recognition. Harper leads his newly-formed quintet through three original compositions, and to my joy, all of side B is a sprawling 21-minute piece where gospel meets the avant.

After all the celebrations and cares and worries and joys of the year, all memory of it is washed away into the sea, just as the river carries dead leaves to the ocean, never to be seen again. And once you've learned to forget, it's time to build new memories. The tide turns.

Keeping to simple instrumentation and vocals, this album is not in any way challenging on the ear, and yet its unadorned beauty rewards a relaxed listening experience. These guys sing really well together, and the 12-string guitar gives a rich body to the songs.

Every once in a while an album comes along that is special enough to elicit several 'oh no' ejaculations of secondhand embarrassment.

Every song feels like a journey, some through the dark confines of mines, others with the thundering hoofs of swift Shadowfax under the wide sky. Some plod, other gallop, some ascend, some descend. You can even hear the approach of the Harad men on their outlandish beasts.

A highly conceptual opera relying almost solely on metaphor and personification to tell the story of two people (or, rather, the two people tell their own story, both as participants and observers) ravaged by war and transformed into mere tortured shadows of their former selves.

I want to give this guy an inverse mohawk.

Like all Hannigan recordings, this is a lovely little piece. Always charmed by her voice, her rich, nuanced delicacy. This is the first I've heard of s t a r g a z e experimental orchestral collective out of Berlin, known for collaborating with artists with an eye toward reinterpreting their works. This explains the different arrangements of Hannigan's songs.

When you start at an album with "let's get lost" sung to a winsome tune tinged with wanderlust, you're on the right track...or rather, the lost track, which is better. There is an attendant freedom and sense of exploration born of this initial declaration. She is "game" for whatever, to see what happens in her life and her relationships.

She has such a great voice, lovely, breathy, and just a touch husky to make it cute without being saccharine. A nice collection of engaging folk pop tunes. “Passenger” leading into "Safe Travels Don’t Die" is my favorite moment on this dear little album.

A smooth album from beginning to end, but what really brings out the beauty of this album are the alto flute phrasings. Lovely, elevating the earthy funk to lofty peaks.

Just so we’re all on the same page here...a sextant is a navigational instrument used to measure the angular distance between the celestial bodies and the horizon, an invaluable tool of travelers on the wide ocean. So how shall we navigate this album, and what do the heavenly bodies swirling overhead signify? First you must fearlessly set sail on this deep sea of funk, taking care not to let the progressive electronic proclamations you hear frighten you. It’s all part of the journey, and it’s going the ship is going the right way.

When is music good? You'll know when you hear it. It'll bear you away like waves on the sea; it'll ripple through you like raindrops in a puddle. This music explores the alleys and confines of the ear like soft explosions of full electric tones.

Takin' Off, Sextant, Empyrean Isles, Maiden Voyage... it seems Hancock has a thing for sailing the sea, though I'm not sure how much of the sea I hear in his music. It's all rather earthy, actually, despite its intent of being oceanic in its atmosphere. Ah, I don’t know. I guess I hear the tossing of the waves now and again.

I’m a big fan of his jazz-funk work, but this is pretty sweet, too, especially the last track, “The Egg”, what sounds like a 14-minute improvisation where space is used to more profound effect than sound, immaculately framing the sparse music.

I love the playfulness, the coolness, the confidence, the very tone of the keyboards as only Herbie can evoke it all. And that mesmerizing saxophone beguiling my soul out of its hiding place! The flute and the trombone are interstellar propulsion, gentle as a solar wind. Who knew water torture could be so damn groovy?

Bruce Hampton--maybe he was a colonel, maybe he retired?--is a trip, and I love his music, being as he is even more left-field than either Zappa or Beefheart. They wish they were as weird as he is, but Hampton doesn't have the self-consciousness of Zappa, so there's that. At the time of this album's publication, it had the dubious distinction of being its label's second-worst selling album of all time, the only thing worse being a yoga instruction LP! I bet that was just the kind of thing that would've made Hampton proud. Or not. Maybe he would've said, "Fuck you, dude. You have the luxury of wanting me to be a starving artist, but I actually wanted to be able to pay my bills." Who knows? At the end of the day, this album failed hard commercially but succeeded brilliantly in the realms of experimentalism and surrealism. We often think of the avant-garde coming out of the west, earth, or north, but not deep in the until-recently Jim Crow south. Welp, put yer ears on, folks, and listen to this weirdo sing lyrics straight out of the almanac or the local chamber of commerce.

Jazz-rock doesn't cover the music of this album, for Hampton isn't afraid to dip his fat fingers in a lot of genre pies, even straying into psychedelic folk territory. Right off the bat, the comparisons to Zappa are inevitable, but that feeling goes away pretty quickly as the album descends into wonderful absurdity (as in, chopped up meaningless lyrics). You're gonna need some kind of Rosetta Stone to figure out what he's singing about. I always listen to this album standing on my head with my legs crossed. Your poses may vary.