Reviews by kuvien

Let the girl take the lead vocal, and this would be better.

A slow ambient buildup at the start before getting into more structured music. No vocals until the third track, about 20 minutes in. There are some harder-sounding tracks, too, to balance the delicate, flute-driven songs. Those are the hypnotic parts.

A couple of Americans hop a plane for Morocco to play some gnawa music, except one of those Americans is Pharoah Sanders, and the place they decide to play is someone's house, where Ghania is surrounded by many of his family members as they all make a field recording album, half of which is traditional, ritualistic gnawa songs, along with a Ghania original, a Sanders original, and a strong collaboration between the two to kick off the whole session. Not only is this recording just over 70 minutes, it's meandering and ritualistic in nature--giving your mind room to wander, too--so this might test some people's patience.

I don’t have much bebop in my collection. I’m more of a jazz fusion guy, but this stuff, which I’m just scratching the surface of, though not as engaging for me as jazz fusion, is technically impressive and just plain fun. This is good first thing in the morning to set the mood for the day.

lol Only one person clapped for Belinda and then nobody clapped for the Germs. Those dirty sluts! A really piss poor live album with all the trashiness you'd expect from punk. I get a kick out of the antagonistic audience.

Gimme wide-mouthed lipstick-smeared vocals meticulously enunciating over a megaphone. Gimme a freaky lady holding the marionette strings over lazy gypsy brass with moments of bewildered, cockney hip hop cadences. What a beautiful slice of schizophrenia! Overthinking this one will drive you mad. Just kick back, and leave the door unlocked; the troupe will let itself in.

Production-wise, the band takes a sharp turn on this their third album, the first two being produced by David Bowie and Tony Visconti, respectively. Gentle Giant takes over production, giving them complete control over the sound. This is one of those concept albums where the concept is pretty thin but the music is still great, so it goes down in history as “a concept album”. I guess violins equal art, and hard rock guitars equal blue collar.

The opening track, “Proclamation”, is just that—proclaiming what a treat you’re in for (and him making a change). These blokes are nothing short of wizards and prophets, conjuring wheels within wheels of mind-blowing musical possibilities.

Well, this is their octo opus, innit? A dad joke made by a woman. OK, let’s go with that. This album is like eight rubbery arms all tied together in complicated knots, just to see how beautiful the intricacy can be.

I just love the album opens: let’s make music out of the sound of breaking glass. Brilliant! We have a personnel change on this album, perhaps explaining the slight difference in sound as the band gets away from its vocal harmonies and delves into other realms of complexity.

This is a decent debut, but their later stuff, when they find their voice, is so much better. There are some awkward spots as they try desperately to be different. Don’t worry, lads! You get there, rising above the mere fashion of the times.

Like listening to what brocade looks like. The rhythms are so intricate and interwoven, the songwriting complex and unpredictable. Remember, kids: there's "fashion" and then there's Gentle Giant. The choice is yours!

I love the complexity and technical proficiency, but those elements alone wouldn’t be enough. I like how Gentle Giant didn’t bow to the commercial fashion of the time but set out to make music that wasn’t what the listening public expected. They broke rules, and they did it well. The album, as made known by the band, is aptly named, inviting lovers of music to acquire a taste for a new kind of rock sound.

This is the audio equivalent of a cumpilation video.

Oh 1971, why do you have to be so wonderful? What a summer it must have been after this beautiful, heartbreaking album dropped! I mean, how does one sing so beautifully about the inevitable destruction of us all? The underpinnings of themes of love hold the whole message together.

Apparently this is the first album Gaughan made after taking a couple years away from music to deal with his mental illness. This is very Scottish in content, accent, and the phrasing of the flutes and fiddles. Drawing on traditional English ballads and his own adaptations of poetry, Gaughan, like Johnny Cash, is a storyteller, and he makes you believe him by the effortless power of his simple voice.

"The dispossessed come to claim what's theirs...to create a common treasury" sets the political tone of this album as Gaughan uses past injustices to highlight modern ones, namely the oppression of the poor in the UK.

Rarely has a voice resonated with me so deeply. Gaughan's natural instrument is a manly expression of pathos and fearless honesty, and he sings of love painted with pastoral poetry as well as he calls to task the powerful, greedy oppressors of the world. This is album is the very definition of "beauty in sorrow".

Finally, I must say something about "Now Westlin Winds", and specifically this rendition: it is the perfect idyllic song. It is what life can be, and few are those who experience it. And for that, my heart doubly breaks: first for the beauty of it, and then for its un-attainability.

Your music already sucks. Don't make me wait in four minutes of silence for you to hit me with your final, shitty track!

This is the album that opened my ears to the whole idea of space age pop, and though the genre isn’t something I want playing all the time, it’s nice to dip into once in a while. This album is pleasantness in music form. It’s comfortable and, strangely, organic, despite the synthetic feel of the music, but that might just be the influence of the album’s title on my opinion. I mean, I might play this while tending to my greenhouse but not if I were working in an open garden under the sun. Nature contained within artifice.

Evocative of the Scandinavian place it comes from. It's folklore music, and that's a big plus. It does exactly what it sets out to do. It has a strong mythopoeic quality without sacrificing its folk elements. The tribal drums really pound on this one, warring with the drone of the viola and the hurdy gurdy.

I guess what I like about this, apart from its transcendent beauty, is that I know all the parts of the Mass, so I can follow along and understand the meaning and significance of each part.