Some really competent jazz that to my ears displays Coltrane's technical proficiency. I'm still trying to work out what sort of jazz I do and don't like. This is about in the middle - it didn't excite me, but I wasn't bored either. I enjoyed the energetic vs soft and quiet dynamic throughout most of the album, but I think at times I found it a bit too show-offish. Of the four Coltrane albums I've heard now I didn't like this as much as A Love Supreme or Blue Train, but more than My Favorite Things. 7/10
4. Blues & Roots by Charles Mingus
5. Joan Baez by Joan Baez
6. Elvis Is Back! by Elvis Presley
8. Soul Station by Hank Mobley
9. At Newport 1960 by Muddy Waters
10. Miriam Makeba by Miriam Makeba
11. Portrait In Jazz by Bill Evans Trio
12. Ella In Berlin by Ella Fitzgerald
13. A Date With The Everly Brothers by The Everly Brothers
14. Presents Charles Mingus by Charles Mingus
This album features one Danny Zukowski performing all duties on his only full-length release, under the misleading moniker "Cristal Webb" (I certainly wasn't expecting a man). The songs are amateurish, to be sure. But, they're warm and comfortable, and perfectly compliment the real draw here - the layers and crusty layers of lo-fidom. The folkier numbers sort of remind me of Forest, than there are some equally quaint singer-songwriter electric guitar numbers interspersed. I guess that about sums it up.
// 2
Gonna let you stick with jazz. Blues & Roots is an experience. It's very different from Giants Steps, and even from Ah Um and Black Saint. Crank it to 11.
2. Tara /--/ Rigs Of The Time
3. Sister Janet Mead /--/ The Lord's Prayer
5. Goliard /--/ Fortune My Foe
6. 山崎ハコ [Hako Yamasaki] /--/ 飛・び・ま・す (Tobimasu)
7. Sue Walker /--/ The Bard And I
8. Ann Tholsted /--/ Ann Tholsted
9. Janelle Richey /--/ Remembering
12. Nic Jones /--/ Ballads And Songs
13. Mossy Davidson's Alaska /--/ NorthWind Calling
14. Peggy Seeger /--/ Animal Folk Songs For Children: Selected From Ruth Crawford Seeger's Animal Folk Songs For Children _________________ Can you play free, or in three, or agree to try something new?
Ahwar by ندى الشاذلي [Nadah El Shazly]
I've heard it a few times before, but another listen was much needed. I still think it's a really interesting album, almost genreless. It's a bit electronic, a bit experimental, some avant-garde jazz, freak folk too, but I guess it's mostly Arabic art pop. The instrumental part is insanely good, there's too many different instruments to name, the mashup of different styles sounds great. The biggest problem is that the songs aren't really refined, and some of them drag just a bit too long. I'm now pretty familiar with the album, so I'd expect the songwriting to grow on me, but it didn't. It's moody, groovy but sometimes just not memorable enough. No matter how much I like the creativity and uniqueness, something always bugs me. The cover is fantastic though. 7.5/10
Jethro Tull - Stand Up
Nevermore - Enemies of Reality
Slowdive - Pygmalion
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Kaleidoscope
John Coltrane - Soultrane
Shape of Despair - Angels of Distress
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad Of The Broken Seas
BADBADNOTGOOD - III
XTC - Black Sea
Artificial Brain - Labyrinth Constellation _________________ Finally updated the overall chart
I listened to their self-titled debut not long ago, and this one is similar in many respects. They Might Be Giants might be a bit too witty and zany for their own good. Birdhouse In Your Soul demonstrates that they can make amazing songs. But they spend much of this album on hyperactive tossed-off ditties with a high weirdness quotient. It makes for a very fun listen, for sure. But it's hard to see many of these songs becoming personal favorites. There are plenty of great melodies, vocals, and ideas. I just wish they focused a little more on those and a little less on the lyrical humor. 3.5/5.
~~~~~
2. I accidentally didn't follow my usual practice of picking my favorite last time, so here it is. Great record from a great band:
1967: Days Of Future Passed - The Moody Blues
1970: In The Wake Of Poseidon - King Crimson
1980: Diana - Diana Ross
1981: Mambo Nassau - Lizzy Mercier Descloux
1982: For You - 山下達郎 [Tatsuro Yamashita]
1983: Soul Mining - The The
1992: Harvest Moon - Neil Young
1998: Nightfall In Middle-Earth - Blind Guardian
2001: The Photo Album - Death Cab For Cutie
2003: Rainy Day Music - The Jayhawks _________________ Add me on RYM
Enjoyable bleepy-bloopy minimalism that remains fairly engaging during it's runtime. Not much more to it than that.
I could never pass up a City Pop album! Tatsuro Yamashita it is.
Alejandra & Aeron - Be Mine
Todd Edwards- Prima Edizione
Carbonized - Disharmonization
Aviador Dro – Alas Sobre El Mundo
Untrance - Deleted Seniors
Patty Pravo- Concerto Per Patty
Ama Divers- Shadow Seeking Sun
Estradasphere- Buck Fever
Steve Roden - Crop Circles
Japanese Koto Classics by Shinichi Yuize
Another great album from Charles Mingus. After four albums now I think it's safe to say he is my favourite jazz artist so far and I look forward to hearing more of him. Some great, passionate energy that sounds like everyone is having a great time playing together. A little bit seemingly chaotic at times, but everything just seems to fit together so well. The opening track, Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, was awesome, maybe one of the best songs of his heard, and this might even be the album of his I've liked the most so far, or I am just liking his music more and more the more I hear it. 8.5/10 and the best album of 1960 I've heard, coming in at #31 on my '60s chart.
Okay I gotta hear this....check out Estradasphere- Buck Fever next.
5. Joan Baez by Joan Baez
6. Elvis Is Back! by Elvis Presley
8. Soul Station by Hank Mobley
9. At Newport 1960 by Muddy Waters
10. Miriam Makeba by Miriam Makeba
11. Portrait In Jazz by Bill Evans Trio
12. Ella In Berlin by Ella Fitzgerald
13. A Date With The Everly Brothers by The Everly Brothers
14. Presents Charles Mingus by Charles Mingus
15. Walk Don't Run by The Ventures
Kaleidoscope by Siouxsie And The Banshees
This is the fifth Siouxsie album I've heard (sixth if you count Once Upon A Time: The Singles). And they can do no wrong as far as I am concerned. I'd rank it below A Kiss In A Dreamhouse, Tinderbox and Juju, and above the debut. It's excellent, but still early in their career. But just hearing Siouxsie's voice and their instantly recognizable art rock/post punk sound is enough to make me love the album. The songwriting is very solid throughout, although the second half seemed more interesting to me. From Lunar Camel to Paradise Palace every song is fantastic, while tracks 2-5 (Tenant, Trophy, Hybrid and especially Clockface) weren't exactly highlights. Of course, the opener Happy House is a Siouxsie classic, and rightly so. Great stuff, the only "fault" is that it's not as good as some of the other entries in their discography. 8/10
(2)
Pass on one of my fave Mingus records and go with Muddy Waters at Newport just to shake things up.
Jethro Tull - Stand Up
Nevermore - Enemies of Reality
Slowdive - Pygmalion
John Coltrane - Soultrane
Shape of Despair - Angels of Distress
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad Of The Broken Seas
BADBADNOTGOOD - III
XTC - Black Sea
Artificial Brain - Labyrinth Constellation
Ka - Honor Killed The Samurai _________________ Finally updated the overall chart
Experimental Rock, Jazz-Rock
Chiptune, Jazz, Surf Rock, Avant-Garde Metal, Klezmer, Doo-Wop, Grindcore, Death Metal, Funk, Black Metal, Video Game Music, Bebop, Avant-Prog, Jazz Fusion, Arabic Music, Space Age Pop, Avant-Garde Jazz, Circus March
I'm going to say something really pretentious to start off this review. This is an album for nerds. If you don't have a background or understanding of a lot of different kinds of music, then you won't get the most out of this album. It all seems like a big inside joke, like, "see? I bet you didn't see that coming!" This album wouldn't work on any level if the musicians weren't up to the challenge of being able to play the thousand different genres on the album, but they're more than capable of handling the genre-switching ALMOST all of the time. Some of the changes can be abrupt by song-writing standards, but as long as you're not taking yourself, or this album too seriously, then It shouldn't be a problem.
I'd been searching for a band that "sounded" like Mr. Bungle for a long timeAt iand finally found them. Turns out they were right under my nose this entire time, because some of these guys have ties to Secret Chiefs 3 (Trey Spruance's band; he helps out on this album too) and even produced or helped Mr. Bungle with the incredible California. I took the liberty of listening to some other songs from other albums after I finished this one to see if the quality was consistent, and it was. Particularly the gargantuan "Hunger Strike" off of their debut album that clocks in at 20 minutes of Klezmerfied schizophrenia.
At it's heart, this album is mostly 3 things, jazz, klezmer, and metal. At least those are the things that show up the most. Everything else is just for embellishment purposes. Window dressing. But I wouldn't completely discount any of the hundreds of diversions into specific genre tropes that this album goes down, because, most of the time, it's done so well that it really doesn't matter. I just wanted to hear what was going to happen next. Like I've already said, the genre-switching is not impressive unless the performance is actually decent as well. I'd judge that if you took just the metal parts and made a metal album, or just the jazzy parts and made a jazz album, etc. that you would get a great album in that genre. Most impressive to me is the video game music that actually sounds like video game music, which is easily the biggest diversion from what is really a more focused album than what some people think. You can't make an album like this without having a vision and rigid structures.
I could go on and on about this monster of an album, but here's a couple of other thoughts.
What an absolutely amateurish looking album cover. I still haven't figured out why deer-hunting has to do with anything, but it's one of the central themes of the skits and commentary on the album, but ttheir is also some stuff about racism on here too that is kind of strange.
The best part was the three tracks:
"The Bounty Hunter"
"Super Buck II"
"Millennium Child"
Super Buck II is a cover of the Super Mario Bros 2 " Ground Theme".
There's also a video game music track called "Green Hill" which uses some Sonic samples.
I find a lot of the progressions on this album seem to have some sort of influence from a lot of soundtrack music from film or TV. 60s and 70s spy and thriller themes (think John Barry and Lalo Schifrin). Japanese video game soundtracks are an obvious influence, and I'd say anime is too, which I don't really know how to articulate, but maybe somebody will know why I'm saying if they give this a listen. There's something about a few moments here and there that make me think of the climax in an episode of something.
The more I describe this album the more ludicrous it sounds, but it's actually not quite as weird as it would seem. Disco Volante is still a much more challenging listen in my mind. I'd give it a listen if you're curious.
Alejandra & Aeron - Be Mine
Todd Edwards- Prima Edizione
Carbonized - Disharmonization
Aviador Dro – Alas Sobre El Mundo
Untrance - Deleted Seniors
Patty Pravo- Concerto Per Patty
Ama Divers- Shadow Seeking Sun
Steve Roden - Crop Circles
Japanese Koto Classics by Shinichi Yuize
This Song Is A Mess But So Am I - Church Point, LA
LEDZEP
Listen to Black Sea next, because it's my favorite from XTC.
This is a nice listen. Smooth, groovy, and goes down easy. The instrumentation ranges from gorgeous to cheese-drenched, the vocals are solid, and the songwriting (lyrics not assessed) leaves a bit to be desired. For You is my first experience with city pop. I don't hear anything superlative here, at least on first listen. I doubt the same number of people would consider this music to be cool if it sounded the same but originated from the US and had fully English lyrics. I dig it, but it sounds quite similar to styles of music that are frequently derided. In any case, I remain optimistic that city pop will have something for me to truly adore, but this isn't quite it. Maybe something with less saxophone. 3.5/5.
1950: Charlie Parker With Strings - Charlie Parker
1951: Sonatas And Interludes For Prepared Piano - Maro Ajemian
1952: City Of Glass - Stan Kenton
1953: This Modern World - Stan Kenton
1954: Images - Sarah Vaughan
1957: This Is How I Feel About Jazz - Quincy Jones
1967: Days Of Future Passed - The Moody Blues
1970: In The Wake Of Poseidon - King Crimson
1980: Diana - Diana Ross
1983: Soul Mining - The The _________________ Add me on RYM
It's about time I listened to a Muddy Waters album and I love hearing live albums. It's moments like when you get the best reaction out of the crowd so far, and want to keep it going but you realise you only have the finale to go, so you just play most of the same song again that you just played and get a crowd sing-along going. Awesome! Upbeat set that I really enjoyed, thinking this would have been great to see. 8/10, and #69 in my '60s chart.
Soul Mining has some great songs, one of the best The The albums. Have a listen Baystate.
5. Joan Baez by Joan Baez
6. Elvis Is Back! by Elvis Presley
8. Soul Station by Hank Mobley
10. Miriam Makeba by Miriam Makeba
11. Portrait In Jazz by Bill Evans Trio
12. Ella In Berlin by Ella Fitzgerald
13. A Date With The Everly Brothers by The Everly Brothers
14. Presents Charles Mingus by Charles Mingus
15. Walk Don't Run by The Ventures
16. The Big Beat by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
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