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Hammock
Ensemble
Pornopop
Curium
Console
Dustin O'Halloran
Populous
Carissa's Wierd
The Earlies
Coleen
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Hammock | DARLA, 2006
Raising Your Voice…Trying
To Stop An Echo | listen |
This little gem is all silvery somnolence with sheets of guitars soft as warm
tears on a fresh white cloth. Rising high above other recent shoegaze revivalists,
Hammock has both the tunefulness and the sincerity to sweep you up and keep you
totally interested. LEE RYAN |
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Ensemble | fatcat, 2006
Ensemble | listen |
Björk-associate Olivier Alary failed to choose an original band name
and album title, but he succeeded in getting an all-star cast of wonderful
musicians together to put out a very enjoyable, frosty, delightful album.
Joined by Cat Power's Chan Marshall, Lou Barlow, and London programmer-tripper
Mileece, 'Ensemble' is a world tour of sights and sounds, with enough pop
to keep you interested and enough glitch to shake it up a bit. Interspersed
with white noise consisting of long howls of wind and closing with six
minutes of driving rain, this strange brew is a cozy keeper, a creature
comfort to let spring pass into sun. FUNKYPLAID |
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Pornopop | DYNAMOPHONE, 2006
And The Slow Songs About
The Dead Calm In Your Arms | listen |
It is a very rare thing to be moved to declare a record ‘classic’ the
first time I hear it, but this is most definitely firmly in that realm. Just
the right amounts of melody and noise, ambience and grit. The songs on ‘…and
the slow songs’ are so worn-in, timeless and instantly captivating, they
might as well be the Grimms Fairy Tales. LEE RYAN |
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Curium | DYNAMOPHONE 2006
Nowever | listen |
As creative as you can imagine, Evan Sornstein
takes his love for the accessible humanity of E.E.
Cummings' poems and sets them to evocative, transportive
electronic soundscapes. The farthest thing from
spoken word, he enlists the help of twenty-two
people from all around the world to interpret each
piece into a truly original suite of visionary
musings on life and the meaning of it, and every
one fits perfectly, surely as Cummings would have
imagined. It's not existential - it's experimental...and
experiential. FUNKYPLAID |
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Console | DISKO B, 2006
Mono | listen |
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‘Mono’ recalls the best output from
the sorely-missed This Mortal Coil project but
neatly trims off the extraneous neo-romantic atmosphere,
leaving a stark, naked group of songs that uncomfortably
intimate at times. Martin Gretschmann (of the beloved
Notwist) does everything right in the processing
of the instruments, never resorting to trend or
cliché – which means this record is
very likely to age well. LEE
RYAN |
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Dustin
O'Halloran | Splinter/Filter
2004-6
Piano
Solos 1 & 2 | listen |
Devics songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Dustin O'Halloran has more
talent in his E-string than...well, you get the drift. In addition to his
wonderful work with Sara Lov, Dustin recorded two albums of solo piano
pieces in Italy over the past few years, and both deserve mention here
for their haunting beauty, expressive honesty, and delicate vulnerability
- all of which are clearly the artist's. While simple and unaffected piano
work, there's nothing about it that allows the songs to be background music.
Each opus pries you open, demands your attention, and cuts right to your
core. If there's such a thing as 'creative reflecting music', this is surely
it.lder of Orion, and is one of my favorite releases of 2006. FUNKYPLAID |
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Populous | Morr 2006
Breathes The Best EP | listen |
Slightly redefining
their sound for this
brief release, Italy’s
Populous emerges
more unique and tuneful
than either of their
previous two releases
for Morr. ‘Quipo’ and ‘Queue
For Love’ were
both rooted in hip
hop, with layers
of eclectic melodic
gurgling on top where ‘Breathes
The Best’ comes
off more serious
and self-assured.
This is a strong
indication that the
forthcoming full-length
will be something
outstanding. LEE RYAN |
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Carissa's
Wierd | SAD ROBOT, 2002
Songs About Leaving | listen |
If you're going to mourn the death of a band, this
one seems to have ironically made the perfect music
for grieving their own demise. Imagine a room with
Will Oldham, Bright Eyes, and The Cure playing
the most plodding, brooding numbers in their collective
songbooks, each one about some kind of separation,
death, or other iteration of Going Away. Add strings,
piano, ghostly female vocals, and stream-of-consciousness
titles - and you have Carrissa's Wierd (yes, spelled
that way). The posthumous Seattle five-piece are
adored and missed, not only because they spread
equal amounts of devastating depression and tender
beauty. On their second-to-last album, 'Songs About
Leaving', they forecast their own separation, and
make you fall in love with them in spite of it. funkyplaid |
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The Earlies
The Enemy Chorus | listen |
The Earlies represent the furthest outpost of eclecticism
that my taste will allow me to enjoy. Listening
to this record, I feel taunted, challenged and,
ultimately, totally rewarded for trusting the band
to live up to their excesses. Like Sufjan, etc,
the Earlies bury their melodies within layers and
layers of arrangement, but they are there – glittering
and awaiting discovery. LEE
RYAN |
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Colleen | LEAF, 2003
Everyone Alive Wants Answers | listen |
The first full-length from Paris electronic dreamer
Cécile Schott, 'Everyone Alive Wants Answers'
is a hypnotic stare through the looking glass,
replete with aural fantasy and soundtracky aromas.
Colleen takes a host of stringed and keyed instruments
and puts them through textured electronic effects,
sometimes with crackles and hisses, sometimes with
glockenspiels, xylophones, and music boxes. The
album is ambient but much warmer than ambient;
orchestral without the clinical quality of an orchestra.
Essentially, it's like Amélie on acid. How
marvelous! funkyplaid |
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