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03-30-2009, 05:10 AM
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#1 (permalink) |
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Barely Disheveled Zombie
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,196
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Slowly Goes The Night
Slowly Goes The Night
Rather than try and complete a Top 100 albums list, I decided to create a journal and simply try to review the best ones that would be high on my list, as well as any other albums I find along the way I feel deserve being reviewed. It SEEMS a much lazier way to go, but I will find it more motivating to attack it this way. I felt 4ZZZ deserved a thread of his own, so I am breaking away to my own. In The opening post I will be updating links to review of albums on this Journal, as well as other places, as well as showing their final score. In the future I hope to review the bare bone favourites of my library, as well as some more obscure artists that won't be mentioned elsewhere on the site. Ask for any links to download and I will endeavour to find one for you or upload the album myself. I rank albums on a scale of 1-10 based primarily on my own enjoyment, with other factors such as originality, length (ie does it feel too long or does it feel like its repeating), flow and talent/performance. I am still fairly new at reviewing (Only other ones are in the other journal) so any suggestions would be helpful! Last edited by Zarko; 02-01-2011 at 07:04 AM. |
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03-30-2009, 08:30 AM
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#6 (permalink) |
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Barely Disheveled Zombie
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,196
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Hurtbreak Wonderland – World’s End Girlfriend (2007)
 GENRES – Experimental, Electronic, Ambient, Post Rock Wandering – 1:49 Birthday Resistance – 5:23 100 Years of Choke – 13:22 Grass Ark – 10:14 Ghost Of A Horse Under The Chandelier – 7:56 The Octuple Personality And Eleven Crows – 10:32 Breath Or Castle Ballad – 3:15 Bless Yourself Bleed – 10:32 Dance For Borderline Miscanthus – 4:39 River Was Filled With Stories – 10:13 I remember buying this album the first day it was available online after experiencing ‘Dream’s End Come True’ (2002) and just KNOWING it would be one that stuck with me. Sure enough, it is probably in my top 3-4 albums that have been released in the last few years. Its just special and different over the course of the album, something new to me, and underrated in the WEG discography. This album is definitely worth a 100 MB download, if not your hard earned dosh. WEG’s name behind the scenes is Katsuhiko Maeda. Wandering as a slow introduction to the album, just a sample of what is to come. The sounds of babies crying and someone waking up and leaving in the morning signal the ‘beginning’ of some absolute quality. The piece is simple, but is meant to be listened in conjunction with ‘Birthday Resistance’, which carries over the ensemble of violinists and brass instrumentalists. Maeda comes out to shine with his mixing and production of the piece. Random spikes, glitches and alterations riddle the ensembles, as he mixes and matches sounds and samples. The electronic beats truly are a beaut, especially in conjunction with the post rock elements. Compared to his other albums, HW is quite accessible, and this isn’t a bad thing. The true gold begins with ‘100 Years Of Choke’. It begins with calming sounds of nature, before Maeda introduces his classical composition to the piece. The light pluck of strings on the shamisen is quite a delight, before the string pieces enter the fray. Just alone this would make an amazing album, as layer upon layer is added, more string pieces, drums, cymbals, and guitars become prominent. It’s a beautifully relaxing start. As the central violin takes stage, the electronic mixing becomes more prominent; however it is yet to disturb this peace. As the pieces reach their end on the composition, it almost becomes lonely, yet maintains its beauty. As more instruments are substituted for others, such as guitars and flutes, it never loses its exquisiteness or calming influence. The classical composition part reaches its apex at ~7 minutes, and it makes you wish you were simply outside, in nature on a sunny day with birds chirping, before the bombastic electronics enter the mix at around 8-9 minutes. The change in pace particularly doesn’t discount from the song. Instead it adds another layer of depth, as electronics and electrical guitar become the basis. It still evokes a feeling of beauty, yet one much harder to attain. The song quietens down for a moment, with only vocal samples and distortion, before it explodes once again in a blaze of glory. It’s hard to explain what goes on from there. It must be experienced, as instruments are found here and there, but never consistently easy to identify over the chaotic electronics. ‘Grass Ark’, however, is the true standout of the album. The song is an amalgamation of cutting, mixing and beautiful sampling, done to the point of perfection in my opinion. The piece begins similarly in construct to ‘100 Years’, however, Maeda’s role is much more prominent much earlier, as random sounds and samples are cut over the piano and strings. The variation and chaos this brings to naturals sounds is amazing. The composition of the piece is amazing, as nature and machine collide. The quality of performance from the instrumentalists must also be noted. Though not the most terribly difficult composition, it is done extremely well. The piece slows down at about the 5 minute mark, only to introduce some maniacal laugh and sounds, which are great… It is a piece that MUST be experienced… I know I may use that term a lot, but its hard enough to describe such an artists work without being able to reference specific parts. Perhaps because the electronic elements are less ‘interfering’ than they are in ‘100 years’ but this is the standout song from the album. It just flows naturally and delightfully. ‘Ghost Of A Horse Under The Chandelier’ is almost a childish to begin with, reminding me of young children who simply hit random keys to try and make something sound good without wondering about depth. The song is built around these sharp notes and short constructs. The song as a whole, however, loses itself a bit along the way. There are parts that simply seem unnecessary, despite how good they sound at times. ‘The Octuple Personality And Eleven Crows’ is a more classical construct, reminiscent of home and family (feet running past, small touches like that) and has some of the nicest electronic beats and distortion on the album, and Maeda isn’t afraid to drag those beats over key parts of the song. The saxophone performance is quite a nice quality coming out of nowhere after a distortion. The flute is the same deal, coming into fruition after a glitch. Parts of the song later of seem a bit odd, and don’t really fit in well, but I guess that’s what WEG is trying to achieve. The song truly experiences the most cacophonic sounds from the album, though it does feel too long and dragged out. ‘Breath or Castle Ballad’ is a nice intermission from the overly eclectic, and at just over 3 minutes offers a nice change in time needed to devote yourself to the song. ‘Bless Yourself Bleed’ is an interesting piece in that a fairly important factor of the piece is vocal sampling. The piece is haunting, especially the repeating words of some female voice, who is prominent enough to be heard, but overshadowed by other instruments in the way. This is before its all stripped away to a single instrument, a piano, which sounds like those old music boxes, that start playing when you open the top. This enhanced the chilling feeling, simply because those types of music boxes are always adjoined to horror parts in movies and games. The song is probably his most interesting on the album. It has solid depth that requires attention, and the electronics glitches are used to brilliantly halfway through the song. It flows extremely well, which was required after the last few songs which can get lost at times. ‘Dance For Borderline Miscanthus’ sets a more solemn tone with a deep string ensemble and ‘scrounging’ sounds in the background… The electronics used are darker compared to the light and high pitch ones found elsewhere on the album. Maeda uses cuts to interrupt the album, never allowing the listener to get comfortable with the song, and is intermittent with laughing samples and other noises. The most aggressive piece on the album, it works well in the 4 minutes its given. ‘River Was Filled With Stories’ is a nice send off to the album, and feels like a real ending song, rather than just another song, which is all that’s really needed to cap a stellar album. Whilst it may not be for everyone, it is a great change of pace for both worlds. I personally loved the simple classical composition, as well as the jazzy factors present throughout various parts of the album, and Maeda has a very good ‘knack’ at mixing and knowing when to change his electronic beats. The album isn’t always perfect. Some parts drag on, and some parts are simply unnecessary, but there is enough quality in enough of the songs to give a high score. On the personal level, I simply love it, and it was quite a difficult album to review, simply because its hard to describe. TOTAL SCORE 8.0/10 – Bless Yourself Bleed – Grass Ark PS I’ll try to move out of electronics as a sub genre with the next batch 
Last edited by Zarko; 04-14-2009 at 02:23 AM. |
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03-30-2009, 04:07 PM
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#7 (permalink) |
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why bother?
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 4,840
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Put mildly, that Nils Petter Molvaer album sounds incredible judging by the videos. I'm really liking the post-rock/ambient vibe about World's End Girlfriend and Worrytrain. A real eye-opener of a thread this.
Excellent reviews, and I'll really be looking forward to some more from you. |
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03-30-2009, 07:02 AM
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#8 (permalink) |
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Barely Disheveled Zombie
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,196
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Fog Dance, My Moth Kingdom – Worrytrain (2007)
 GENRES - Neoclassical, Ambient, Electronic, Noise Prelude For Piano And Malaria – 4:46 Celestial Police – 2:40 For Auschwitz – 3:13 Thundertrance Interlude – 3:05 Achtung, God – 3:18 Hospitalized – 1:49 Soviet Passages – 2:12 White Phosphorus Angels – 6:19 The Moth Screamed Harvest – 2:43 Saturniidae – 5:12 Cambodia (Piano Duet) – 3:45 Exorcism For Cello And Malaria – 6:54 The Trenches Choir – 8:47 Ode To Faithful Kataklysm – 2:37 End Theme – 1:48 Worrytrain is a fairly new find for me… The man behind the name, Joshua Neil Geissler, offers an experimental mix between neoclassical music, minimalism, electronics and sometimes just pure noise. Nonetheless, Fog Dance is an interesting experience. Sometimes it feels generic, yet still beautiful, and as soon as that feeling comes, it can be overtaken by a simple ‘What the **** was this bloke thinking?’ The most common instruments through the album are piano and violin, and the result is an album worth checking out. The album opens with ‘Prelude for Piano and Malaria’ which is a haunting and echoing piece performed primarily via piano. The level of resonance creates an interesting depth. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but during production it seems the actual pitch of the song was lowered, creating a thick and distorted sound rather than a clean and sharp piano key strike. As the song progresses the echoing starts to layer upon itself, creating some fascinating tones. ‘Celestial Piece’ builds on the piano work, which is a bit cleaner, with the introduction of a string ensemble. The dark tone is still present, and comes to the fore when the repetitive string pieces are interrupted by some wind instrument of some type. ‘For Auschwitz’ is a slow and sombre piece primarily made up of strings and piano work. It instills a sentiment of menace and sadness. Whilst it is sort of a ‘generic’ piece of neoclassical work, it is nonetheless a nice piece. The strings and piano work well in unison and it is simply an enjoyable construct. ‘Thundertrance Interlude’ heralds the introduction of the electronics and noise to the album. At the beginning it is a random assortment of single notes being played on various instruments, animal noises and other such things to boggle the mind. Then it is an attack of pure white noise changed across various tones and levels. 5/6ths of the song is this altered white noise. As quickly as it comes, the heavy electronics exit the scene. However, there are still prevailing elements throughout the album, rather than pure neoclassical music. ‘Achtung, God’ begins as a normal, well done, neoclassical piece, however now the backing at various places is made primarily of synth. This becomes more prominent as heavier beats start overpowering the strings and keyboard. The menace that was prevalent in past pieces has now picked up its pace. The addition really does turn the album around from a boring, generic neoclassical album to something with a bit more flavour, and this is the real beginning of the album for me. ‘Hospitalised’ remind me of music in hospitals in movies or video games… The constant ‘calming’ influence, however it is surrounded with a rather large cloud of fear and worry. The piece seems altered purely to assist in creating this effect. It’s only a short piece, but it is quite wonderful in my opinion. ‘Soviet Passages’ is a piece with a bit more oomph in it, created by the martial folk addition of war drums to the piano and droning in the background. The drums help propel the introduction of the string ensemble far more than they could achieve on their own, however, it is another short piece. ‘White Phosphorus Angels’ is reminiscent of the opening track; to the point of thinking you had pressed ‘restart album’ or something to that degree. Like the first track, it’s nice, but it becomes more interesting at about the 2/3rds mark, when the piano exits, and is replaced with an assortment of samples, that almost seem to be calling out in pain. Distorted martial drumming enters the scene again, and makes an end to this overall weird track. ‘The Moth Screamed Harvest’ opens with quite a different tone to the rest of the album. It starts with sharp noises, as someone plucks quickly at a mandolin. In the back there is a ever foreboding drone, and these never let up. It really is a nice contrast to the rest of the album which was devoted to dulled tones and noises. ‘Saturniidae’ offers up another ominous, violent piece. Heavy drums and gongs, a well as layers of random samples create some interesting and sometimes creepy depth before there is another attack of white noise. Geissler tries to fit as much destruction into the small time period before it all suddenly cuts out… And we are left with the ‘aftermath’, a destroyed world if you will, with semblances of the previous destruction floating around the place, and the only thing remaining is the quiet and dulled notes of a key stroke. ‘Cambodia (Piano Duet)’ Brings in some new instrumentation, with some light xylophone work, and the reintroduction of gongs and various such cymbals as well as some distorted vocals to make another amazing piece… The repetitive nature of the first half helps continue the dark tone of the album, despite the higher notes. However, there is a feeling of ‘light breaking through the clouds’ with the heavenly vocals, despite being impossible to hear clearly. As more beautiful tonal and keyboard work come into play, the xylophone picks up its pace until I cuts out, leaving only the light distorted background to surround the senses. ‘Exorcism For Cello And Malaria’ offers up chaos once again, as various sounds and instruments fight for supremacy over one another. They all slowly leave until only a few remain, along with the hostile background tone. This track sets the fastest pace of the album so far, and it does remind me of the ‘idea’ of an exorcism… Chaos, noise, struggle for power, raw emotion. A similar distortion is left to that at the end of ‘Cambodia’. However, rather than calming it remains indifferent and harmful rather than optimistic. ‘The Trenches Choir’ returns to neoclassical form, with more depth. For much of it is simply a pure neoclassical form, until its broken up by screeches of noise and other such electronic samples. This continues until the piano is overpowered by the distorted samples, and only they remain in their vicious glory. The track is the longest on the album, and feels unnecessarily so, but it still has some quality piano playing. ‘Ode To Faithful Kataklysm’ is a string piece until overtaken by distorted piano playing and distorted electronics. Again, its nothing particularly new to the album, however at only 2 and a half minutes, it doesn’t feel as forced as others. The final track, ‘End Theme’ is a simple piano piece pure to neoclassical form. Fog Dance, My Moth Kingdom definitely was an interesting lesson. It isn’t particularly revolutionary, and doesn’t do things the best in its genre but was worth the go through… The ideas it plays on, chaos, darkness, good, evil, destruction and beauty are all fascinatingly pursued, even if it was just a personal interpretation. At times it winded on, and struggled to hold its own weight, but it persevered. Cambodia and Saturniidae are definitely the highlight tracks. TOTAL SCORE 6.8/10 – Prelude For Piano and Malaria - Saturniidae Last edited by Zarko; 04-14-2009 at 02:23 AM. |
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03-31-2009, 06:14 AM
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#9 (permalink) |
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Ba and Be.
Join Date: May 2007
Location: This Is England
Posts: 17,331
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Can I just give you a little advice? Try spreading your reviews over a few days. That way more people may be inclined to keep coming back and digesting what you have wrote and also comments can be attributed to that album in paricular and not turn the thread into a mess.
It's a great thread for sure so don't get offended or even take my advice lol Just a tip 
__________________
“A cynic by experience, a romantic by inclination and now a hero by necessity.”
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03-31-2009, 06:16 AM
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#10 (permalink) | |
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Barely Disheveled Zombie
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,196
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Quote:
But I am bored at home jobless atm, so I have plenty of time to write em. |
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