Reviews by kuvien

Arlette Jecquier makes this album. It's a fine experimental album full of all the avant quirkiness one would expect from a band channeling Zappa and Magma at the same time, but really, it's her vocals that hold it all together and raise the bar of excellence. Or that's just my bias talking, because I have a weak spot for weird female vocals, the more off-putting the better. Not to say this is all off-putting. The band is comfortable with experimental, structureless space as much as it follows clear synth- and bass-driven melodic lines.

$500 on Discogs? Yall wildin'

Traditional ahyewa rhythms underpinning the infectious highlife groove we all love to move to--whether you're on your feet dancing or sitting with headphones on as you bob and sway.

The bright guitars just go on and on, never letting up no matter what’s happening in the foreground, and thus laying the framework for a great party. I mean, it’s all right there in the band and album name. Fiesta.

I listened to this album because I was intrigued by the audacity of the claim by someone I know that this is the greatest jazz album of all time. It is not the greatest jazz album of all time because it doesn't say anything about the swagger of Man, drums firing like cannons to the heavens, restless spirits meant to inspire and not frighten, cacophony through caves of wonder, or the distant thunder and clarion call of terra incognita.

Get your shit together, people! I bet you could make good music if you tried.

More like guilty ears. Guiltier with each listen.

Fratti is a conduit for noise. Not in the sense that she makes Noise music but that she stands as a filter between all the mixed up sounds of the world and the ear that hears them, and she channels them through her art into unique self-expression. One might think such a conclusion is obvious (that all music artists do that), but Fratti's expert handling of the Electroacoustic and her use of such varied instrumentation create a highly experimental document that is... incomplete. But that "incompletion" is not a lack but rather an invitation for the listener to bring himself into the music, into the subtle, nuanced noise of the world.

Almost prescient in its timing, this album is the result of collaboration among people who didn’t actually spend time in one another’s company. Instead, they worked remotely in the latter half of 2019, even before the worldwide pandemic lockdown, showing what creative minds can do even when they are separated. The free-flow of ideas is demonstrated so strongly in the simultaneously ethereal and earthy textures of the music. This recording isn’t in a hurry to get anywhere, and the journey is lovely.

The electroacoustic and experimental elements of this album whisk this album out of the realm of what most people would think of as pop. Perhaps the most boring album cover I've ever seen hides one of the most interesting albums I've heard. Her personal website explains her music best in the Bio section: her sound is "derived from her classical music education and the experimental interpretation of electronic devices, as she intertwines contemporary elements such as 'shoegaze' and 'dreampop' with ancestral influences like Gregorian chanting". The result is an ethereal vocal beauty grounded in the gritty electronics and the harsher sounds of the cello.

This is fun, energetic album from its first note to its last. It's a bit zany but remains cool throughout. I love the strong accents, the diction, and the quasi-garage rock sound.

A lot of the lyrical composition is sloppy, not fitting the music precisely. I feel like some of the themes he touches on just for a line or two would have flourished in the mind of a greater singer/songwriter, but here the seeds wither and die in the shallow soil of unoriginality. In other words, I don't believe a word he sings because of the way he sings it. And folk that lacks credibility fails.

Besides, his first name is a last name, and his last name a first. Fuck that guy.

If this album had been titled Across the Pacific, I would've been quite upset, but the Baltic? Sure. It's a tiny sea, and even tinier when you realize how deceived you are by Mercator projection.

This is one of the best live albums I've ever heard. The band and crowd connect perfectly, and there's so much joy and energy jumping between them. I love the little stories Glen tells, and I especially love how the crowd sings pretty much every word to every song, sometimes taking over for the band, thus creating a perfect atmosphere. Having written all that glowing praise, though, I’ve come to realize that their studio albums, though good, just aren’t good enough for me. The band’s real fire is struck off the audience’s flint.

Soporific in its delicacy, this album put me into a state of such peace that the calm felt like slumber, and I came out the other side rested. Beautifully minimal and nuanced. The “percussion”, if it can be called that, is some kind of soft pitter patter, like padded sticks brushing against a surface.

I don't know much about post-minimalism beyond how it makes me feel. So how does this make me feel? Introspective, relaxed, calm. This music can soothe an anxious mind, pulsing at just the right frequency. As this is a double album, I enjoy it best when doing some quiet activity like reading.

The psych is great, but what really draws me to this album is the unrestrained passion of the vocalist. This is a psych rock exploration of Christian eschatology, and it's as dark and raw as one would expect a serious handling of the topic to be. From what I've read, this one-and-done album was made by five dudes in L.A. who had normal day jobs, and when they went in to record, they did it all in three hours, without retakes, and without adding in overdubs. Wow.

This is young, drug-fueled pop. “Teenage alien blues” pretty much sums up the whole lipstick-smeared search for meaning in looks and drugs.

Laura herself will send you beeswax candles with a purchase of this record. I guess that's her Christmas present to you. I'll send back a fan letter and my favorite hoodie--something to keep her warm through the long, cold winter months. In San Francisco.

Delicate art pop that has a strong emphasis on simple violins and quirky, lonely female vocals. There is a charming fragility to this music with a deliberate unfinished sound. Perhaps the most theatrical of their albums.