rescuing musical virtue in distress.
Gedanke has passed under the reviewing pen before, as part of a triple sonic slice of lush, classic infusions of the same name. But some music seems to come even more to life when accompanied by the perfect video and the simple, graceful and effective visuals that we find it with now, are just that.... Continue Reading →
When you look back over the history of classical music, it is interesting to see how it has moved from been something exclusive, being performed for the upper echelons of society into a modern world where it has found perhaps a new found sense of purpose, being accessible to the masses by its perfect matching... Continue Reading →
Music by Gestalt is the perfect name for this wonderful project, gestalt being a word used to describe the process of a coming together of many different parts into a total which is much more than the sum of those individual components. I suspect all bands think that they are doing that but if you... Continue Reading →
If there is a gap between the saccharine rush of pop, or at least popular musical styles, and the more deft and considered compositions that exist in the orchestral and classical worlds, then perhaps it is artists such as Vincent Krennerich that are the bridge between the two. Although he is very much employing the... Continue Reading →
It’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christmas; of course, the clue is in the word but for every smiling man in a red suit that comes along, one less religious reminder is forced off of the shelf, perhaps Santa attracts more people than a baby in a stable surrounded by donkeys, cows and,... Continue Reading →
As a new music reviewer I am confronted with all sorts of music on a daily basis. It all jostles for your attention just as it will for the music buyers money and does so by using all manner of clever ploys and sonic gimmickry. But sometimes you are presented with music which is just... Continue Reading →
With instrumental music, such as this elegant offering, I find myself making the same point as I do when reviewing music with lyrics that are in a language other than my own. Take away the direct communication that the words provide and you are left with just the music itself as the bridge between the... Continue Reading →
With instrumental music, such as this elegant offering, I find myself making the same point as I do when reviewing music with lyrics that are in a language other than my own. Take away the direct communication that the words provide and you are left with just the music itself as the bridge between the... Continue Reading →
Some pop music, though using the term pop for such a song as Hello World seems to undersell its many charms, is about impact and bombast, a quick and fairly obvious hit that swaps subtlety for a sonic sugar high. Thankfully, I can report that Bianca M makes music that is the sheer opposite of... Continue Reading →
Where as music with up-front lyrics, where there is communication using the usual conventions of recognisable words and familiar language taking place, is a format in which it is relatively ease to make yourself understood, instrumental music has be much cleverer in how it interacts with the listener. In the case of Martin Ptak’s gorgeous... Continue Reading →
The instrumental pieces on The Humors, the second full-length album from NYC-based freelance guitarist Ryan Dugré, are meant to create mood and space. Drawing influence from film music, sparse scores such as Neil Young's music for Dead Man, as well as the more melancholic pieces found on Marc Ribot's Silent Movies, Ryan's music is graceful and meditative. Dugré composed the majority of the record in... Continue Reading →
As long as there has been mainstream music there has been an alternative scene. Sadly “alt” sub genres have become as calculated and predictable as those they claim to provide the escape from. Alt-rockers in particular with their complicated hair and skinny, designer ripped jeans seem to be the biggest culprits. So the obvious conclusion... Continue Reading →
By and large pop music tends to follow some pretty tried and tested templates. Most chart bound offerings fresh off the music industry production line seem to have more in common than the things that instead make them stand out from each other. Homogenisation thy name is modern pop music. But even if the creative... Continue Reading →
If at one end of the wide pop spectrum you have brash identikit, dance routine driven, short shelf-life throw-aways, Box comes from the furthest point in the opposite direction. Here Alisa Chirco has created an elegant ballad that fuses pop with more classically minded sounds. The result is a song which has enough modernity to... Continue Reading →
Despite having only encountered Floating Beauty twice before, via the single Larissa and the album that spawned it, Larva, I already look forward to any of their music which finds its way to my review pile. Why? Because musically it is so different from almost everything else that comes my way, it runs against the... Continue Reading →
If you are one of those people who shudders when confronted with the notion of someone known as a sit-com actress pursuing a career in music then Tres Hanley Millman is probably who you need to hear to break those cliched images already forming in your head. Tres has always juggled a number of disciplines,... Continue Reading →
In the movie Jerry Maguire there is the often-quoted line “you had me at hello” and when I was given the press release regarding this album it had me at “cello”. The cello is one of a handful of instruments that I never tire of hearing in music, this is partly because I’m always interested... Continue Reading →
With the warm weather comes some rather chilled music in the guise of the release of debut album "Walden" by the German composer Jochen Tiberius Koch on July 27th on Schole Records (Japanese label of Akira Kosemura, Dakota Suite, Quentin Sirjacq). It will be available in both CD & Digital form. This first album was... Continue Reading →
Outermost Edge is a collection of songs which sees contemporary classical music heading into experimental jazz territory and takes the form of sonic creations which happens as much between the notes and in the breaths between the lyrics as in the more conventional sonic communications. There is a wonderful minimalism and deft composition at work... Continue Reading →
The worlds of pop and the strains of the classical world may seem worlds apart but on Honey Dear, Daniel Alejandro proves that the two can, not only co-exist, but do so to great effect. The focal point of the song is immediately Alejandro’s voice, one which seems more usually found in the world of... Continue Reading →
Last month Floating Beauty’s gorgeous album Larva found its way to my review pile, not so much dropping into the in-box more seemingly coalescing slowly from the sound of the elements and the world around, growing from smoke like intangibility until it became perceptible to the sense. Larissa, the album’s opening track, provided my first... Continue Reading →
The artist himself describes his music as sad and epic, and to be fair, those are exactly the right words. His brand of orchestral music is build on dark swathes of classical grandeur, a bristling nervous edge which occasional spills over into outright terror and wonderful dynamic highs and lows. It broods and bristles, shudders... Continue Reading →
Larva is one of those albums which is a reviewers dream. So much music follows firm templates and, good as it may be, from a review point of view you are often just reworking the same language and over used descriptions, into slightly new forms. Larva is not like that. It is sweeping, ephemeral, restrained... Continue Reading →
A band closely associated with a previous era returning to the musical fray has a few problems when it comes to recording a new musical calling card, something to underline that this is more than just a bank balance driven, rose tinted, nostalgia trip. New material finds you ignoring your obvious selling point and the... Continue Reading →
As the central hub around which the musically intricate world of Karda Estra revolves, Richard Wileman has been responsible for a wide range of wonderfully textured, unpredictable and eclectic music. He has wandered from intense noir-ish soundtracks to sweeping celestial grandeur and embarked on everything from progressive Avant Gardening trips to jazz infused meanderings. But... Continue Reading →
It isn’t very often that new genres present themselves and if they do they normally don’t stand up to too much scrutiny, usually being akin to genre-spliced musical Frankenstein’s Monster, a revolutionary idea on paper but with an end result which is far from palatable. Caterpillar Chronicles, however, is anything but such a clumsy hybrid... Continue Reading →
It is a common misconception that making music which falls into brackets such as chilled, ambient and understated is about taking a song and stripping back to leave space. Actually it is about using the right few musical statements, the perfect notes, the most effective and concise melodies to encase that space. Knowing that, Grace... Continue Reading →
I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for kickstarter funding I can tell you I don’t have money, but what I do have is a very particular set of words. Words I have acquired over a very long career. Words that make me a nightmare for... Continue Reading →
One of the advantages of reviewing music in the rudderless way that I do, not fixed to a magazine or website, trend, genre or even brief, is that I am truly at the mercy of the Gods of Fate and the prevailing winds as to what comes my way. And whilst half of the resulting... Continue Reading →
If my first venture into The Marica Frequency’s musically strange and wonderfully hypnotic world was via the minimalism and elemental atmospherics of Hallowed Ground, this second excursion was quite a different experience. For whilst That Voice Behind is based on similar floating ethereal sounds, here it eschews the pastoral, post-folksiness understatements that were the essence... Continue Reading →