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Cat Power "You Are Free"
This is my first listen to Cat Power, and overall I am pleased. If you dig female voices, lo-fi production, and very simple songwriting, you will be too. I think the album's biggest flaw also lies in its simplicity: I was waiting for one of the 14 tracks to have some sort of dynamic arc--I would settle for one loud and one soft section--but no! Kind of surprising. I think everyone's entitled to their slow and soft ballad and their amps-to-11 rock tune, but most music that people like to listen to has dynamic contrast. The instrumentals are also sometimes extremely elementary in nature (I didn't know people actually played parallel root position chords on piano except in piano lessons), but there is a time and a place for simplicity. I just wish the entire album wasn't like that. Favorite track is "Good Woman"; I like the fuzzy guitar in place of a more conventional clean one on this sad song.
Les Nubians "One Step Forward"
Funky. Groovy. Smooth. Very cool. All ways to describe Les Nubians, a duo of singing sisters from France backed up by some very cool arrangements. The sung language most often used in French, although there are spots with English and Spanish lyrics as well, but all of these songs seem to have universal appeal. Just the tones of the sounds used are enough to make this purchase worth it. The songs are interesting, well performed, and most importantly they have a great groove to them. Conventional instruments combine with electronic sounds and beats combine with ethnic instruments and it all makes sense. They are able to use drum beats, flutes, and ankle bells and yet it doesn't sound like you're in a dimly lit New Age shop about to sample tea somehow made from hemp. If I had to give it a category, I'd say R&B, although many world music influences run strongly throughout, including French but also various Latin genres as well as Western pop, hip hop, and club music. Recommended for fans of R&B, French pop, modern jazz, Latin, and anything with a groove. Isn't that most of us?
Menomena "Friend and Foe"
Ok, so this one I received perfectly fine, unlike Mines. Based on this CD, Menomena is the kind of band that was opening for the band you came to see at the local pub and you actually ended up liking and remembering. Good mix of standard rock band stuff, wacky electronics, organs, and the occasional trombone or what have you. I think maybe the sounds themselves are new and different but the way they are put together is recognizable and that's why it's easy to listen to this album. Fans of indie rock of all kinds, check them out.
Ryan Adams & the Cardinals "Cardinology"
Yeehaw, friends. Good old-fashioned songwriting with country-toned guitars. Pretty straightforward, all listenable stuff. This music would be at home on adult, pop, and college radio stations. Overdubs and well crafted mixing give these tunes a nice arc and interest. Talented playing from all instrumentalists produce a harmonious collective sound and an undeniably comfortable feel. You can hear bits and pieces of various influences, so it's hard to commit this to just one genre, but I would recommend it to fans of Wilco, Communipaw, Jackson Browne, and other "alternative country" groups, as well as listeners of Coldplay, Keane, and other pop-writers. This is also the kind of music that can be listened to by multiple generations; it could definitely be enjoyed by people in their 20s/30s and their parents. Check it out for yourself!
Air "Pocket Symphony"
Much better than the other Air record I heard and reviewed last week. First of all, these are actually songs (ok, for the most part) with structure and contrast and interest. Lots of electro sounds, weighing heavily on the brooding, wispy, and dark, but these are combined with plenty of acoustic instruments as well: drums, piano, guitars, strings, percussion. Most of these tracks have a tune that is recognizable and that you can hum. There are some more brooding pieces but the CD is not dominated by them and I like the contrast. Whatever you do, skip track 4, "Napalm Love." These are the actual lyrics: "I'm falling in love, I'm falling down, falling down, down on the ground." Later: "I'm hitting the ground, it's hurting me, hurting me, it's hurting my love." Seriously? Worst lyrics ever. With the exception of that track though, I have to give this 2007 release positive marks. Some pop influence, some trippy electronic/new agey stuff, definitely worth a listen.
Muzsikas "Blues for Transylvania"
A way cool mix of stuff on this album of traditional folk songs and melodies of Hungary and the Transylvania region. Performed on bowed string instruments, bagpipes (who knew?), and sometimes hurdy-gurdy as well as male and female vocals, a wide swath of Hungarian timbres are heard doing what they do best--playing Hungarian music. Again the influence of and/or their possibility of being mistaken for other cultures' music is staggering at times, notably bagpipes for Scotland and Ireland, but also Jewish and Russian music in their quick, foot-stomping major key jams. The second track "Istenem, Istenem (My Lord, My Lord)" features a slowly picked tamboura with such reverberation that you might think you are in for an 80's rock ballad until the vocal kicks in. Let's hope no out-of-touch shopkeepers are playing adaptations of these songs with MIDI keyboards set on "Cool Strings" and "Shakuhachi." You want the real thing? This is it. Recommended for world music enthusiasts.
Sufjan Stevens "The Age of Adz"
Before listening to this record, I heard strong language used in the opinions of friends about The Age of Adz, regarding it with a certain tone like a symphony of grandiose proportion, intricacy and artistic merit. This description couldn't be more accurate. Sufjan Stevens is clearly an extra-terrestrial, since there is just no real reason how one human being could hear and compose everything that goes into The Age of Adz. On one level there is songwriting: melody, accompaniment on an instrument, a sense of rhythm and structure. On one level there is an unbelievable sense of instrumentation, orchestration actually. The instruments and specifically the tones of all instruments (or sound sources, as the permeating electronically produced sounds should be more accurately described) are carefully constructed, mixed and laid out in stereo. Everything for a reason and so specific. This reminds me of the practice by the greatest symphonists of writing articulations like staccato-legato in one section and staccato or detache in another seemingly identical section because of a sense of necessary contrast, even upon the finest details in one instrument's part embedded in a massive score boasting 20+ different instruments. Stevens' orchestra becomes all the normal rock instruments plus brass sections, string sections, and electronic sounds and effects by the boatload, with various vocal layers. You will be hard pressed to find a record using more sonic sources this effectively. And finally there is another level that was hinted at during the majority of the record: that something about this is a bit different from everything else you've heard before, somewhat familiar but then again somewhat altogether original. This becomes apparent in the final "track," the 25-minute "Impossible Soul," a concerto for orchestra in its own right, a Mahlerian finale movement, a would-be significant compositional achievement for anyone in and of itself, which is only (and not only) the coda to this entire 75-minute album/work/symphony. The last track goes somewhere very, very new. I'm not certain that it is going too far to say it is revolutionary songwriting. In any case, I believe The Age of Adz is a significant work of music and I strongly suggest that everyone listen to it.
Taking Back Sunday "New Again"
This 2009 effort from TBS starts off on a very good foot with the title track. I'm picking up hints of metacommentary based on the fact that the sound of Taking Back Sunday has changed again with this album, and yet they still retain much of their signature sound. It's a little more advanced, a little more refined, a little more interesting rhythmically, with a little more contrast--just a little more to listen to and like. The next couple of tracks satisfy similarly, and then the sound tends to go backward in time a bit. Not a career-changing album in my opinion, but a very good one by all means. I hold a special place in my heart for Tell All Your Friends, but all TBS fans will love New Again. Also recommended for pop, rock, and punk fans.
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