Trollheart

Title: Anabaena
Artiste: Leonid Federov
Genre: Experimental
Familiarity: Zero

Note: So here we are, about a year after I promised to review this “sometime soon” (well, not a year but it probably feels like it to Grindy!) about to keep that promise. Apologies for the delay man, but there are a number of things that put me off this initially, not least of which is the fact that it's 22 tracks long and in Russian! Because of the latter, I'm not going to be naming the tracks as I don't want to copy-and-paste 22 titles that mean nothing to me and will probably mean nothing to most of the forum, so I'll just number them. Hope that's all right with you. If not, suck it.

1. : Slow, kind of folk melody with a somewhat slurred vocal that reminds me of Waits. Nice actually. Guitar is really good.
2. : Much faster, with kind of flamenco-style percussion, odd horn sounds. Is there trombone on this album? Very frenetic.
3. : Dark, kind of lamenting vocal. Much slower and restrained. Thick bass. Suddenly kicks up and becomes pretty uptempo, good percussion and something like a kazoo going.
4. : Slower, kind of marching beat with something like tin whistle going in the background, gets into a nice groove with some trumpet or trombone contributing. Really nice instrumental ending.
5. : Seems a little confused. He's singing a sort of love ballad but the music behind him is very disjointed. Not bad though. Get some nice guitar or dobro or something and it's pretty cheerful. Very sudden ending, was not expecting that.
6. : Not really sure what to make of this. Very weird.
7. : Kind of a feeling of French chanson about this. Quite nice.
8. : Another uptempo number, nothing much to say about it really.
9. : Clever little instrumental, sounds like something out of a Polish cartoon.
10. : This has a nice kind of almost hard rock edge to it.
11. : Nice folky guitar, pretty upbeat with a kind of spoken vocal.
12. : More great bass work and some freaky percussion with a crooning vocal
13. : Harder acoustic guitar now, sort of an ominous tone to it. Reminds me a bit of Don Henley!
14. : Just going totally crazy here, like at a Russian wedding or something. Cries of “Akka-takka-takka-takka!” and everyone just flying on this one. Sounds like accordion getting in on the act there.
15. : Well if that was the wedding this is the mass! Slow, stately, grandiose with choral vocals and little if any instruments, maybe synth? Mostly vocal though.
16. : And back to the kind of staggered rhythm with another chanson-like vocal. Nowhere near as frenetic as the fourteenth track but a lot more life in it than the previous. Picking up speed as it goes, building to a crazy crescendo at the end.
17. : And this one then is a slow lament, again great bass and some really nice guitar. Guy sounds a little drunk if I'm honest.
18. : Plenty of kazoos marching happily along and meeting some jews harps on the way. Like the sort of marching rhythm. Is it an instrumental? I feel the answer is yes. Speeding up again now towards the end. Going a bit mad.
19. : And the next one is a slower song. Seeing a pattern develop here. Either someone is breathing heavily or sawing wood. Vocal is nice on this, sort of laidback.
20. : Just talking on this. Poetry? No music. At all. Not a note. Well, he sings acapella for a few moments, but other than that, nothing. I think this is the one Grindy warned me about, where he's just recording his answering machine message? I've obviously added up track times wrong as I seem to have two left, but you know, whatever.

End result: Quite enjoyable for the most part. Bit difficult trying to figure which track was which, and that kind of put a little of a dampener on it for me, but I liked pretty much all of the music. Doubt I'd be listening to more of his material, but nice for what it was. Better than some experimental music I've had to listen to, that's for sure.

So, Love or Hate? I'd have to give it a Love.

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