If it seems like I’m writing a lot, it’s because I’m trying to clean out my hard drive. I still can’t seem to shake this compulsion to listen to everything I acquire, just so I can write about it. That’s why I make these Slush Pile entries … so I can assuage that compulsion while not actually having to write about these albums.
I should do it more often.
I owned Uncle Tupleo’s No Depression before, and at the time, I recognized that it was good — just not what I was in the mood to listen to. It became a victim of a cash crunch and was sold to a used music shop.
I’m not sure what prompted me to give the album a second shot, especially since it was remastered a number of years ago. But in the basket it went, and I’m glad it did.
No Depression became the namesake for a style of music called any number of things — alt-country, perhaps the most enduring. There’s even a magazine named after the album.
It’s almost difficult to go back to an album that directly beget Wilco and Son Volt, while opening the door for the Old ’97s, Whiskeytown, Tift Merritt and Mindy Smith. So many bands sound like No Depression, it’s almost easy to hold a grudge against it.
Oh, who am I kidding?
In the past, I’ve accused Rufus Wainwright of being precocious, calling his voice the strange love child between Thom Yorke and Shiina Ringo. I’ve complained about his debut album being too clever by half, all the while buying up every album he’s subsequently released.
And what’s up with the pork chops on the sides of his face? Such a fabulous little hipster he is.
At some point, my initial skepticism of Wainwright turned into fandom. At some point, the news of a new Rufus Wainwright album became something to anticipate, not that I ever dreaded it.
And so Wainwright releases Release the Stars, and it’s everything listeners come to expect from a Rufus Wainwright album — all lush orchestrations and dramatic climaxes, mouthy lyrics and sweeping melodies.
It’s comfort listening, something of which I’m usually wary when I recognize it. Wainwright set expectations with his previous albums, and he meets all of them with Release the Stars. There isn’t anything really new to point out about this recent set of songs.
The last two Björk albums conditioned me to appreciate her adventurousness while not exactly liking the results.
I understood the acclaim that greeted Vespertine upon its release, but that album didn’t even seep into my subconscious. Medulla started out as a terrific departure, but repeated listening revealed thin work. It would have been more effective if she really did go completely a capella.
With that history, I approached Volta with cautious optimism. It wasn’t long before I realized I actually enjoyed the album.
I don’t take Enigma half as seriously as Michael Cretu does. If anything, his attempts at high mindedness usually end up being unintentionally humorous. I mean, what could be more obvious than sampling Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana on his previous album, The Screen Behind the Mask?
But at least he tries, and even if sampling Gregorian chant seems gimmicky, it still takes guts to do it.
At first, I listened to A Posteriori just to see if Cretu was still reaching beyond his means. In true music fan OCD fashion, I alphabetized my playlist and put Enigma right next to Eluvium’s copia. As a result, A Posteriori would start as copia would end. All that to say, I listened to A Posteriori more times than I planned.
And I have to say, it may actually be the first really decent Enigma album, if not ever then at least since MCMXC a.D.
Matthew Cooper is the focal point for a battle between two feuding muses. In one corner is the muse who directs him to explore new timbres through long, static, droning works. In the other corner is the muse who directs him to write melodic pieces with conventional but odd harmonic rhythms.
As a result, he’s created a surprising body of work, unified by its ethereal aesthetic but divergent by its working methods. That’s the $10 way of saying he has a distinct sound even when he’s writing completely different pieces.
With copia, Cooper attempts to broker a cease-fire between the two muses, hoping to demonstrate that both can inform his music simultaneously. Whatever the terms of the peace accord, it’s clear the neo-classicist in Cooper got a better deal.
I’m waiting impatiently for the management office of my apartment complex to open so I can tell them to fix the air conditioning unit that miraculously busted on Tuesday night, right before the July 4 holiday. So I’m writing this entry to kill some time.
P.S. How do you like the slight remodeling of the site? I’ve had that previous layout since 2005, so I decided to move around the furniture, as it were.
Hyakkei doesn’t strike me as a post-rock kind of band. Where post-rock by the likes of mono (who signed Hyakkei to its Human Highway label), Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai and Envy indulge in the crush of heavy guitars, Hyakkei instead aims for an uncluttered sound.
The emphasis is on the trio itself, the interplay of drums with bass, bass with guitar, guitar with drums. On Standing Still in a Moving Scene, the band’s debut album, the music is mostly genteel and melodic. At times, Hyakkei cuts loose and builds to a big climax, but its an ascent proportional to their size.
They won’t go from super soft to deafening loud with a flick of a wrist.
Long stretches of silence on this site are nothing new, but this one might be longer than most. I’m embarking on a large-scale upgrade of the code that powers this site, so I’m going to spend a good portion of my days brushing off my rusty object-oriented programing. At night, I’m working on yet more Eponymous 4 material. Essentially, I’m neglecting all my web sites.
If something interesting pops up on Bounce, of course I’ll post something, but the backlog of reviews will just have to keep piling up. In the meantime, here’s a quick preview of what I might be writing about in the distant future.
Long ago and far away, I happened upon a Livejournal writer who really, really couldn’t stand my reviews of Chara. So much so, she wished a pox on me. (Yup, fangirl.) Her valid criticism was that I didn’t listen to the lyrics, which I generally don’t for anyone. Judging by the music alone, Chara’s more recent albums didn’t really impress me, and her catalog is deep enough that exploring it would be a major undertaking.
I’m still not listening to Chara’s lyrics, but the music on Union, her first new studio album in five years, grabbed my attention. (I’m not really counting 2004’s A scenery of me.) The singles leading up to the release of Union certainly bade well.
"Sekai" found Chara really rocking out, while the electronic flourishes on "Crazy for you" made a spectacular backdrop for her unique voice. Similar to the singles leading up to Utada Hikaru’s Ultra Blue, a sense of creative clarity could be heard in Chara’s pre-release work.
And that clarity pays off on Union.