Reviews by kuvien

On Haden's first album as a band leader, Haden has some pretty eclectic song picks: three traditional Spanish songs, something from Ornette Coleman, and three pieces from one of my favorite jazz artists, Carla Bley. This makes my heart happy. I guess a couple of these tracks are political responses to the happenings of late 60s USA. Track A2, the one based on the traditional Spanish songs of the civil war, is an excellent jazz expression exploring the space and chaos of music interaction. Anyway, I've never been a fan of Ché. I know nothing about him, but his face is on everyone's T-shirt. Fuck that guy.

The problem isn't Genesis' sound. The problem is there's too much of it. So I will just take a tiny sample here for my collection. No need to keep up with the catalog of the band. I tried. It was exhausting. Something like this is just fine: a pleasant little album following a mythological theme but not sticking to just one musical theme. A lot of different things going on here without being disjointed.

The choral female vocals evoke an ethereal, pastoral atmosphere, underpinned by beautiful violins. Overall, however, this strikes me as a teensy-weensy bit inauthentic, so it will probably never rise into the upper echelon of my best folk.

Very Icelandic in feel, which isn't surprising considering her cultural heritage and the fact that she was once a member of múm, an indetronica band known for its electronics and soft vocals. This album glows in the dark, meaning it is both dark and bright, and though the colors are vibrant, they do not glare. Gyða Valtýsdóttir really strikes out on her own here, not just professionally (this isn't her first solo album) but also creatively, deciding to become comfortable in her discomfort until that discomfort--the idea of letting things be--faded into an almost Taoist abandon. In other words, not fighting the process and letting what comes come out in the music, pieces penned by her own hand, sung with her own voice.

I have quite a few 70s albums (usually rock or folk) that have side A as a collection of short songs, and then side B is one long, epic track. This format always pleases me. Not sure why. Maybe it's because side A feels like a warm-up, to get you into the show, and then side B is the main attraction? I don't know. Anyway, on paper, this album looks like the same kind of thing, but it's not. I like this album fine. Nice, solid Breton Celtic folk tunes with tinges of rock and jazz here and there. But it's not really following the format outlined above. The "one track" of side B is actually seven different songs, complete with pauses between them, all labeled as one song with seven parts. Whatever. I'm just splitting hairs.

It's a bit awkward in spots, but the overall Breton feel is cool.

Featuring the *duduk* (double reed woodwind made from apricot wood), the *blul* (a kind of Armenian shepherd’s flute), the *kamancha* (a Persian bowed string instrument), the *oud* (a short-neck lute), the *kanon* (a plucked string instrument that lies flat on the lap), the *santur* (a Persian hammered dulcimer), the *tar* (an Iranian long-necked waisted lute), the *dap* (an Iranian frame drum), the *saz* (an Ottoman long-necked lute), and the *tombak* (an Iranian goblet drum). Beautiful interpretations of Gurdjieff’s compositions by a Lebanon-born Armenian conductor immersing himself in the folk traditions from which the music sprang. What I love most about this music is the space surrounding the notes and phrases, how comfortable it is with crafting something out of the silence.

Offensively anthemic and self-huggy staring into its selfie while recording a credit card commercial.

Everything about this feels so wholesome, a bunch of ancient geezers coming back to make the beautiful music of their youth, and since the music of their youth was neo-Medieval folk, it's not like the music has aged out of fashion. These old blokes are doing what they've always done well: make solid prog. I don't consider this a comeback album. It's just a continuation. The next chapter of some guys who know what they're doing and do it with an easy confidence.

Nice acoustics blending with soaring flutes, pleasant medieval and Renaissance instrumentation. For fans of more anachronistic folk. It’s like they’re playing at a Renaissance festival, and they’re trying to convert the people to rock, though.

Side B is good, but side A, which is one epic 18-minute track, is amazing. It goes all over the place in a good way...it’s quiet and loud, playful and serious, and all the while it’s got this feeling like it should be the soundtrack to a Shakespeare play. These guys are skilled on their Renaissance instruments and use them to great evocative effect.

Welcome to your local medieval traveling faire! Come for the long instrumentals, delightful songs on the crumhorn, bassoon, and glockenspiel! Stay for the ballads about the man who sits mourning on his truelove's gravestone and won't let her ghost rest, or the tale of the woman fortune teller who knows the "maid" has slept with her master.

Excellent music full of creativity from a bunch of old dudes who have nothing to lose and are content doing what they want to do. There are serious moments, of course, but for me the best parts are the playful, silly interludes. Polished, well-executed songs.

If jazz was a statue, this album is a timelapse of that statue eroding, cracking, and falling to dust.

This out-of-the-way classic helps kick off the vanguarda paulista movement in São Paulo, a short-lived communal experimentation in the creation of music without major label backing. The avant-garde leanings of the genre enticed me to dig a little deeper, and finding this album was the result of a very short search. Side B really breaks things down--in a good way--from the beginning with a lot of experimentation with minimal percussion and silence before launching into a fuller jazzy groove.

The press release comparing these guys to Guided by Voices and The Black Keys was not encouraging, since those bands are boring, but the other press release claiming that this music is something Marc Bolan would've made if he'd heard Get Behind Me Satan intrigued me. And now I want to hunt down and beat up the guy who wrote that second press release, because there's nothing further from the truth. These poorly-constructed songs are boring, lacking all character. Grimy swampiness is not character.

Like on all her recordings, Grouper sighs and moans variously and ends up just derping ongoingly. A guitar is strummed to hoodwink people into thinking this music is deep. The album cover, however, is beautiful, a photograph of the artist as a little girl. Quite mysterious!

Have we not heard the chimes of poop world at midnight? What wind, dread sovereign, bloweth from thy butthole? Fear the storm generated by the helicoptering Emperor!

Folk music in the post-human world. This is what Agent Smith listens to after a busy day of hunting down and neutralizing escaped batteries. Not that normie Chemical Brothers shit.

I think this is all strings. Violin, viola, cello. All strings. Droning strings. Beautiful, heartbroken strings. Inevitable strings expressing dread.