Reviews by kuvien

These cats are weird. Just... weird. Going to Arkansas to get control? Then taking an elevator to the Moon. Who knew that southern rock had such a strange underground scene! I both hate and love the name "Throndossull". Who or what is a "throndossull"? It just sounds dirty the way Hampton sings it. This dude seriously doesn't give a single fuck, singing off-key sometimes, even though it's obvious he can sing perfectly on-key blues tones if he wants to. The lyrics are crazy, and the music is silly and fun. Disciples of the bizarre: get on this.

Music for a selection of Dances for a Private Garden, some sweet, some somber.

From saxophones in smoky lounges to flutes on lonely mountaintops to mini piano concertos, this album runs the gamut of easy listening.

This continent-spanning album (from Spain to France to Greece and then touching as far east as Iran) boasts an impressive lineup of instruments: bagpipes, corn, cura, daf, daire, guitar, kaval, lauto, ney, oud, rebec, santoor, saz, tabla, and tambourine. I didn't know cant d'estil even existed until this album introduced me to the traditional, improvised folk singing of the Valencian region of Spain. If you're a fan of the melismatic potential of the female voice, check out this ethnic gem.

A very cinematic listening experience, definitely the kind of music that makes me visualize a film to go along with it. Something like birds flying high above deep caves, for that is what I feel in this album: a variance and a marriage between the heights and the depths, an exploration of the exhilarating expanse that both separates and binds them.

Instead of creating a new septet, Halvorson just added two more musicians to her extant quintet, specifically adding Ingrid Laubrock on tenor saxophone and Jacob Garchik on trombone, thus making this album very much a horn-based affair. This is also the first album where Halvorson includes a cover song, the other six compositions being all original pieces. Halvorson's guitar is much more part of the whole ensemble but it makes its presence known--there are moments when Mary comes crashing through the brass. She is fearless in her experimental expression.

Smooth, easy listening, take-you-by-the-hand jazz that leads you down into some wild, risk-taking disintegration, with Halvorson's guitar as the catalyzing agent boiling away all impurities. Mary is both the fire and the water, that which causes the boiling, and that which boils. Her guitar playing is that good, that creative, that transformative.

The thing about prairies is that at a glance they look like a great expanse of one type of vegetation, but when you get down into the grass and explore the spaces, you see that there is actually a wide variety of life. And that's the comparison I'm making with this cozy, yet challenging little avant chamber jazz album. This debut introduces Halvorson's bubble wrap popping drip-drop guitar playing to the world, and Pavone's violin sweeps over it like wind on the prairie, coming from whence no one knows and going to what is only someone's guess.

A short yet challenging album. Guitar, viola, and the strange voices of two women. If you can stomach Braxton's wankery, you will enjoy this neat little subversive dish.

I've been wanting to get into Mary Halvorson for a while now but was busy getting my other jazz ducks in a row. But what better way to introduce oneself to a new artist than going the route of familiarity? In this case, I'm a big fan of Robert Wyatt's and Amirtha Kidambi's works (as different as ice and fire--but both can burn), so it was easy for me slide right into this album, which isn't as much avant-garde jazz as it appears to be. Delightful twists and turns here and there, skipping along, quiet and nuanced, and then all of a sudden crunchy guitars knock you on your ass! The storytelling is just as strong in the instrumentals as in the vocals. The guitar work on the last track is so beautifully fucked up! Quite a ride.

Sometimes open-ended arguments, sometimes wall-building, sometimes meticulously filling a mold of her own design.

The lovely, crazy vocals of Amirtha Kidambi as well as Ambrose Akinmusire's smooth trumpet (that can get quite wild when agitated) accompany Halvorson's exquisite guitar, all of them walking at obtuse angles up the acute-angle walls of powerful, unconventional, eclectic jazz. I love this approach to jazz. This double album is an epic adventure that requires concentration on and appreciation of "weird" music.

More sextet magic. Halvorson solos on her guitar as well as if not better than the greatest to have ever put finger to string. Don't believe me? Never heard of this Halvorson person? Just play track 5, "Desiderata", and enter a whole new world of knowledge. Now you're one of us. A jazzhead who's beginning to understand how jazz is evolving in the 21st century.

Halvorson's exquisite guitar improvisations set amid the backdrop of a string quartet, this album was released the same day at its sister,, this one, however, revolving around Halvorson's unique musical voice, as opposed to being merely part of an improvisational bunch. Her composition and guitar playing shine here, quite impressive since this is her first time to write for a string quartet. Halvorson conjures out of her instrument the most bizarre tones, almost as if her guitar music is water that she can release as fat droplets on or dirty smears across a warped-mirror soundscape.

"Anesthesia" is simply brilliant, a brave, playful exploration of Halvorson's varied influences, and, oh my, this sextet is tight throughout, masterfully improvising rollicking tracks that (sometimes) challenge the ear but don't overstay their welcome. I love it when improvisational wanderings coalesce.

This is how I like my pop: quirky, fun, and interesting. The magical year of 1971. Basically this is proto-indie pop. A very underrated album, as good as Sparks' other good stuff.

The detritus of a post-apocalyptic folkscape among which a scraggly finderkeeper stalks from artifact to artifact, fingers itching, his gaunt face a bonemask of bewildered delight.

The perfect soundtrack to a shitty morning where you get a flat tire and all the trains are delayed. Feel worse, man!

If If you're If you're going going to going to write write an write an open open letter open letter to to the to the world world about world about contemporary contemporary political contemporary political problems problems problems problems problems problems problems problems problems problems problems, it's it's best it's best to to make to make sure sure your sure your message message is message is clear clear clear clear clear. It It took It took a a long a long time time for time for me me to me to craft craft this craft this. Sometimes when I'm wanking, I watch myself in the mirror, trying new techniques, which I then interview myself about, so I can wank while I wank.

Anesthetic for the brain, then locked inside with the loonies. Guy on one side of me is humming, the other screaming. And they seem each to know when the other is going to start / stop, jarring me and enjoying their little game. Dial tones and bleating lambs. This album dies with a phone call.