Trollheart

Is it? Shows what I know!

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

music_collector

Noted.

Bring on the 'attack then, or whatever nomination is next.

SGR

Maria McKee - Maria McKee

Wasn't sure what to expect going into this one. After two listens, what I got was pleasant country, pop-rock and elements of folk. She's got a pretty great voice, though not particularly unique, and the songs are nice enough. That first track is definitely the best of the bunch though. Well, maybe not, Nobody's Child is really great too.

The music often times is a bit subdued - and it's left to Maria to carry the tracks with her voice, which she does to varying degrees of success, at least to me. I'd say overall, a majority of the tracks kind of arrive and depart without making a very strong impression. The sound of the music is a little one-dimensional - but to that, the caveat is that this isn't really my preferred genre of music.

I'd like to note one line, from "Drinkin in my Sunday Dress":

"My radiator growls like Elvis after Sunday dinner"

A pleasant enough album. Don't think it's one I see myself returning to very often though.

6/10

SGR

KREAM - Liquid Lab : Volume 5

Let’s get my biases out of the way first. I’m a big house junkie, a house head if you will. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t discover my love for the genre until I was out of college - and not doing my weekly college radio DJ show any more. It’s unfortunate, because I would’ve loved to spread this genre around like a virus to all the drinking and partying college kids who listened to my shows.

Sure, I’d heard variations of house music before - Screamadelica, Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk, etc. but I never really got into what modern house music sounds like. I guess I had the prejudice, without cause, that most dance music, especially contemporary and popular stuff was just dumb shallow stuff to turn on when you turned your brain off. Around 2017, I stumbled onto a house mix created by the Youtube channel Selected - the Classics Mix that just made me feel a way music hadn’t really made me feel before.



It felt celebratory, reflective, deliberate, joyful, sad, depressed, elated, confident, vulnerable, loveless, smitten, and everything in between - and it managed to thread these emotions and sounds together seamlessly and it wasn’t just the beats or the music, it was the lyrics too. The lyrics and vocalists sold the message of the song and often times grounded the hooks.

So I explored the genre, starting with that channel - listening to as many songs as I could, branching out to other channels with a focus on house music - house calls, aero, confession, toolroom records, being some examples. Again, showing my ignorance of the genre, I thought most of these mixes, given how seamless they were in mix and transition, spent a lot of time in production - until I started to find live recordings of actual DJs mixing this music to crowds. After finding that, I realized that I was wrong - it was actually much more organic than I initially thought [there’s caveats to that I won’t get into deeply, there’s a lot of prep work most of these DJs do beforehand, hot cues, track selection, and beat matching, etc.]

Selected themselves actually started doing Selected ‘Sessions’ in which they recorded DJs doing live shows - and the one that hooked me was Sonny Fodera doing b2b (back to back, or switching on and off with who is DJ’ing during a show) with house legend MK (Marc Kinchen):



That’s it, I was sold. I started making my own mixes, inspired as I was. The first ones were bad because I had the bright idea to add samples of movie dialogue into it. Granted, there were some limited successes when I mixed the angry diatribe from the movie Network with the lead up to Fisher’s “Losing It”, but the successes in this domain were far and few between. I eventually dropped that and just started focusing on mixing the tracks. I started with no DJ controller, just Reaper, which is a DAW sort of like Audacity. As I got more and more into it, I eventually received a Pioneer DDJ400 controller as a Christmas gift from my brother and I’ve been going strong with it ever since. It’s one of those hobbies that gives me nothing but pleasure. A strong drink and session on my DJ controller as I dance my worries away just reaffirms the joy of life to me.

So anyways, I started listening to house sets whenever I could - during exercise, doing dishes, doing work, etc. I found there’s actually quite a few different styles to this genre, depending on the DJ you’re listening to - one that I liked quite a bit was bass house/g-house, implementing a slower and dirtier build-up, often with a focus on rap elements - Malaa being a genuinely great example of this style (also, he’s the one in my profile picture):



Something that’s been overlooked a bit in regards to house music is the pandemic. While many artists suffered from the lack of the ability to tour, house music actually experienced something of a renaissance. Rather that sit on their laurels, many house musicians instead continued to make music and continued to do sets/shows except they were filmed or live-streamed. This put a different kind of emphasis for the genre - on not just the mood of the music, but the elements of the environment as well and what that could add to the experience. Whether that be in the quiet spacious ambiance of Iceland, on a boat in the tranquil Grand Lake of Colorado during sunrise, inside a big air balloon sending beats out to the sky, or hell, even pretending to create a vaccine in a classroom during the set, the rules of how house music was presented and consumed changed during the pandemic and quarantine.









And then KREAM’s Liquid Lab series happened. The first one to hit Youtube was Vol. 2 in August of 2020. I remember first seeing it and listening to it, not really expecting much. But good god, I was floored. There was nothing else like it. The amount of work that went into it, and the amount of acapella tracks they mixed with backing tracks from different songs, seemingly effortlessly, blew everything else out of the water. They mixed different genres, different sounds, and somehow made it unified - its own creation, a unique piece of house art. I remember when this mix was lingering at only a few thousand views for months after it got released and commenting on the video how much more appreciation these guys deserved for their efforts. They eventually got it as they continued to release more - enhancing the production with beautiful vistas of their native country of Norway. But this mix was the first one I heard from them and will likely remain my favorite - especially given that I had it on repeat for so long before they had another entry, playing it at my wedding and playing it throughout my honeymoon as my wife and I were in a jet jacuzzi tub sipping champagne. It’s a stone cold classic. And what made it such a joy to listen to is that sense of rediscovery - and this goes for all their Liquid Lab sets. You’d recognize the backing beat from one song, but then the vocals from a different song you recognize are laid over it, creating a different vibe and offering endless excitement.



Starting the Liquid Lab Vol. 5 mix off with a song from the Christopher Nolan film Tenet is just a mark of what makes KREAM unique - I’ve never heard a house artist sample movie soundtracks in their mixes before, but it just works wonderfully here to set the mood and get things started. And this sense of uniqueness and ingenuity just continues throughout the entire mix. It’s basically a hallmark of everything I love about house. I’m glad some of you enjoyed it, I’ve been trying to evangelize these guys on here for a while now, and this is at least a bit of success in that regard.

I actually got into contemporary EDM before I got into contemporary house, and oddly enough, a KREAM song was one of the first tracks I found that I liked. Boy, has their style evolved a lot since I first heard “Taped Up Heart”:



I think they recognized this, and so they gave the song a bit of a remix, changing it to fit their new style more - and yeah, I do prefer the new version:



I’m surprised no one mentioned my favorite moment of the Liquid Lab Vol. 5 mix, that being right near the end (at 43:00), where they combine the backing tracks for Jaakob’s “Yours”, Michael Calfan’s “Could Be You” and sprinkle Frank Ocean’s vocals from “Godspeed” on top. Genius - and the feeling I get from this is the kind of stuff that doesn’t happen in other genres of music…


I will always love you
How I do
Let go of a prayer for you
Just a sweet word
The table is prepared for you
Wishing you godspeed, glory
There will be mountains you won't move
Still, I'll always be there for you
How I do
I let go of my claim on you, it's a free world
You look down on where you came from sometimes
But you'll have this place to call home, always


And then the final track explodes in celebratory bliss and elation. A complete ****ing triumph.

10/10

Trollheart

Geez, SGR, couldn't you have written more than a few lines?

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Okay we's movin' on.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

SGR

I learned from the best.

Also, you can see why I procrastinated.

Trollheart

I've listened to this album three times now and there's really only one word that describes it:

COOL

I had not expected this. I thought it might have been some sort of boring fifties style doo-wop or god knows what - I just didn't expect much. But from the moment it began I was into it, and I can't honestly say there's a track on it I don't love. It's just excellent, the more so as I had not expected to like it and thought I would either be writing a "sorry but" review or trying to find things I liked about it so as not to be dismissive.

No need. I love this. Her voice is powerful and bluesy, the songs are all catchy and heartfelt, and the musicianship is superb. Really nice pick, RS!

Rating: 10/10

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

music_collector

I give Sharon Jones an 9/10. I'm sure my head was bobbing for the whole duration of the album. It's funky. Sharon has a soulful voice. I love the horns.

She can show a lot of today's artists how it's done.

Trollheart

Guys, we have two more days and then we move on. So far we've had two reviews, NOT including that of the one whose album suggestion it is, hint hint. Can we please get our collective human waste in a nice compact bunch?

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018