Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
hello friends.
i still remember the first time i heard organ donor in like 2000..
hello friends.
i still remember the first time i heard organ donor in like 2000..
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
July 26th, 2014
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Floating Frequencies / Intuitive Synthesis Volume I + II by Eleh (recommended by t-rogdor)
Eleh is a drone/minimal ambient band formed in 1999. They're fairly prolific, with a total of 21 albums under their belt. Today I'm going to review a compilation of three albums - all simply named Floating Frequencies / Intuitive Synthesis Volume I to III. I'll try to listen to all of these by today, but I'll be splitting this to two or three reviews nonetheless. The fact that it's a compilation of three albums does compel me to splitting this compilation in the first place, unless all these tracks are connected in some form. I doubt it though.
Starting off with volume one and two. In the Ears of God is really interesting, despite being more minimal than most drone I'm familiar with. It's not particularly atmospheric, compared to Celer or Steve Roach. It almost reminds me of that one experimental album choof recommended, actually. It's minimal to the point that focusing on the components of the track is inevitable, rather than the overall atmosphere. That being said, the constant repetition of the first track is just nothing short of hypnotic. The constant humming interrupted by a raindrop or some sort at a uniform pace is very meditative. There's also some disorientation every now and then, but it's uniform enough not to give me a headache. The track does change every now and then though. Eleh changes the track subtlely enough for me to keep me intrigued for a few minutes, as there are different details that I've never felt before. Good way of keeping the track fresh, I suppose. Can't say it's always effective though, I eventually find myself zoning out in many points of the track. Of course, it's still a compelling listen.
Tone Phase 1 for 2 Guitars & 4 Oscillators is pretty neat - the constant swinging is really hypnotic. It's kinda like how focusing on Steve Roach's Darkest Before Dawn's pulse just lulls you to sleep. I get the same effect from this, though to a slightly larger extent. I feel that the oscillations here is the main appeal though, unlike the overall spatial atmosphere of Darkest Before Dawn. I wouldn't call it bad by any means, but it certainly doesn't provide as much as I'd like it to. Even with Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center: 1961-1973, another minimalistic electronic album, it made me feel isolated and distant. This... I'm not too sure what to feel. It's almost like the perfect album for schizoids. It's the textbook example of callous music, but it's also more engaging than 85% of drone music I've listened to. Didn't actually realise ten minutes have passed, I was too engrossed in the music. I could say the same for the third track, albeit this is not quite as hypnotic and more towards background music.
Admittedly, for drone (and ONLY drone) albums - I find most of them hard to listen to a second time. Not because I dislike them, but I can't really get in a mood for them. Especially ones that are incredibly callous - like this album. They usually need to have a flare, something intriguing for me to listen to again. Some of my favourite drone albums, like Daikan and Same Places, have something different from your typical drone album. Daikan for example has an extremely barren arctic feeling, while Same Places is just noisy and incredibly cathartic. This album is background music at best, albeit a little different from your typical background music like Solar One. Maybe if you're into a very specific mood (sleepy, or something similar), you'd listen to this attentively. I just never get into a mood like that. Even if I do, I'd much listen to Darkest Before Dawn than this. Far more atmospheric, more compelling and induces a very similar effect.
However, calling this an bad album would be a mistake. It is definitely an excellent piece of drone, but it's really not the drone that I'm looking for. I want something more... animated. Something more bright or dark would do, I find it a little difficult to appreciate callous music. I can't necessarily resonate with it, so I can only rely on how nice it sounds. The drones aren't very nice-sounding - they're just mesmerising. Not something that I'm looking for, at the moment. Maybe in a few years down the road I can see myself listening to this more, we'll see.
Album Highlights: Tone Phase 1 for 2 Guitars & 4 Oscillators
Track Average Rating: 3.33/5
Overall Rating: 6.5/10
Moving on to Volume Two, it isn't too different from Volume I in terms of presentation. Only three tracks and, first track is the longest and the last two tracks are related. Black Mountain 1933 is a long static drone that doesn't move anywhere. Not particularly hypnotic unlike the first album, it's more relaxing more than anything else. It's nice sounding as expected, but nothing too outstanding. I could say the same for the next two tracks, they're just more relaxing instead of hypnotic. There are no details to focus on here, maybe aside from the pulse of the tracks.
My overall thoughts regarding the first volume applies to this as well. Callous music that is intriguing but not really something that I'd visit again. I think I prefer the first volume more, mainly because there's an additional characteristic to it - hypnosis. This is just... relaxing clinical drone music. It's most definitely not bad, but I feel that there's a lot more that could be done than this. Maybe I just have to get into a specific mood for this. I'm pretty tired at the moment, but I'm not feeling the track. It just feels too distant from me to really feel anything substantial. I feel a little bit relaxed, but that's really it.
Nothing much else I could say. A somewhat decent drone album that could've been way better if there was some direction to it. The two albums are definitely unique in their own right, but unique isn't synonymous with excellent. This is just not my cup of tea. I love ambient and drone, but mainly for its cathartic and atmospheric value. This doesn't provide much catharsis and atmosphere is rather minimal. It's like background music that creates nothing but sound. Maybe that would be a good thing for some occasions, but not in this occasion.
Album Highlights: -
Track Average Rating: 3.17/5
Overall Rating: 6/10
Third volume tomorrow.Comment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
where soundcloud grabbagComment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
nice writeup !! i actually don't think i could disagree with anything you said without it being a matter of opinion. loved that you called it "perfect music for schizoids" because, welp.
intersting thing to note: i'm pretty sure the entire point of Eleh is that all their albums are explorations in making music using the base elements of sound via analog synths (hence the albums, Ode To The Sine Wave, Ode To The Square Wave, etc). doesn't change anything, i just think it's an interesting addition to the music.Originally posted by cetakaComment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
July 28th, 2014
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Two by Decibelle
Have been reviewing fairly popular albums lately, so I'll review something rather obscure today. Decibelle (formerly known as Ernula x Culian) is an ambient musician, basically one of those which you find on Bandcamp more than anything else. Fairly underrated, though nowhere as underrated as many other Bandcamp artists. She's fairly prolific, though I can't quite say that any of her works have really fazed me. While it is clear that she is improving quite substantially (Searching for Lost Love at Sea vs Tribute), her ambient tracks aren't really enough to stun me. Two is her latest work, with only one track. The track is 22 : 22, which is unsurprisingly, 22 minutes and 22 seconds long. From what I've read it is her darkest work, maybe that'd be a plus.
The track starts off with a very pristine twinkly atmosphere, but descends to something much darker within a few minutes. Very barren and large environment, but the atmosphere is not particularly intimidating. It actually reminds me of space ambient more than anything else actually - the nocturnal empty atmosphere reminds me of something Rĝ would make. That's a good thing, I find Rĝ to be pretty damn good at making atmospheres like that.
The track is incredibly varied despite being ambient, it progresses a lot within a 22 minute lifespan. In the midsection, I could compare this track to the likes of Darkest Before Dawn and Vostok. Both of the tracks I mentioned are fantastic, so it isn't a bad thing. Towards the last few minutes, it brings in noise to the table, similar to the likes of Belong and 36's Memories in Widescreen at first, but takes on its own form eventually. It's pretty different for me to listen to a super long ambient track that has variation (Disintegration Loops doesn't count), most of them are just looped to create a cathartic effect. William Basinski, Thomas Koner, Steve Roach, Celer and Hana Sumai are just a couple which constantly loop melodies to create ambient music. This does make this album unique, which is definitely a plus for the most part.
However, I can't quite say that it's as enticing as I'd like it to be. While the track is certainly not bad, I zoned out around 13 minutes in. There are probably a couple of reasons why I didn't like it as much as I'd like, but the main problem is the length. While the progression is fluid, I can't help but feel that the ideas should've been there for a little longer. The space ambient section for example, is quite different from anything else I've experienced before. It's overwhelming, but not in a way I'm familiar with. It feels a little short-lived, given the unique experience. The track is just too short as a whole. There's two or three main ideas here, but each idea should span about eight to eleven minutes. Trying to compress all these experiences into a 22 minute ambient track isn't really doable without leaving the listener a lot more to be desired. At least, that's how I see it. Other gripes I have are subjective, more than anything else. I'd like to see the track split into three distinct movements, instead of a single large piece. In addition to making the music easier to loop, it also gives each movement proportional spotlight. I feel that the back end of the track just felt a little more underwhelming than it should have, mainly because of the parts before it took most of my attention.
The track as a whole isn't bad though, it's a unique dark spacious track that just needs more polishing up on. Given Decibelle's improvement rate, I think she'd be making something really solid very soon. This album and Tribute are definitely signs of what's yet to come.
Album Highlights: -
Track Average Rating: -
Overall Rating: 6/10Comment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
Might review this along with a personal favourite album of mine when I don't feel like reviewing anything new.
Anyway, I've been dead for a while. Sorry about that.
July 31st, 2014
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Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Last album that I'll review from Ryuichi Sakamoto, as I'm not interested in his synth pop/new wave works and all that. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence is a movie based on the relationships of four people in a prisoner of war camp from World War II. I haven't watched the movie yet, although it's definitely on top in my priority list along with a couple of other movies. I'm pretty familiar with the self-titled track of the OST and thought it was one of the best tracks used in a movie soundtrack ever. I'll elaborate on it more when I talk about the tracks individually. Seeing that Sakamoto is fairly prolific and diverse, I'm not quite sure what to expect. I don't think the genres listed on RYM (electronic, new age) would do it justice, knowing Sakamoto's style of music.
Anyway, let's talk about the most popular tracks of the soundtrack: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and Forbidden Colours. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence is a blissful new age track. It's very twinkly, it almost reminds me of the sky of a winter night. Trueful to its name I suppose, it does remind me of Christmas in some occasions. It does show a sombre side, especially when other instruments other than synth is brought in. It's always nice for a track to cover both sides of the emotional spectrum, of course. While the blissful component is definitely more prominent here, Sakamoto did a good job capturing the beauty and sadness of a winter night.
Forbidden Colours is basically a longer version of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, but with David Sylvian's vocals added into the mix. His vocals do take a while to get used to, but his voice really creates a new dimension for the track. Lyrics such as "my love wears forbidden colours" further emphasises on the sombre component of the track, creating a more balanced mixture of beauty and melancholy. The instrumental is fantastic by itself, but the vocals just present the track under a different light. It's a great track, though my only issue is that Sylvian does sing in very peculiar moments of the track. Might be just me not being used to it though.
Okay, let's talk about the tracks other than the more popular ones then. Batavia is an incredibly playful electronic track with oriental percussion. Interesting mixture, but not something that I particularly like. Germination starts off quite depressing with a fairly large orchestra, but progresses to a typical track which really makes more sense in the movie more than anything else. It's not really something that you can really listen to without watching the original movie first. Not a good thing, but it is what it is.
Actually, majority of the tracks here just feel as if they're suited for the movie and nothing else. All but three tracks here are less than three minutes, so there isn't much air time for any of the tracks. It doesn't really help that these tracks don't quite evoke something in me either. The track Before the War has potential to create a far more isolative atmosphere, but it felt a little too underwhelming for me. The Seed and the Sower is the longest track aside from Lawrence and Forbidden, and is nowhere as dark as it really should be. Doesn't quite help that it's three minutes too long as well, there are multiple tracks that are darker than this and are shorter.
I could go on and elaborate more on the tracks, but I think I'd be making the review far longer than it already is. There are some good tracks like Ride Ride Ride, but these tracks are so sparse in the soundtrack it's not really worth checking out. Even then however, those "good tracks" couldn't match Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and Forbidden Colours. While most of the tracks are quite unique in terms of atmosphere (exotic) and percussion, these atmospheres are too thin for me. The percussion doesn't create anything substantial for me to enjoy as well. However, I do have to say that the latter half of the album is stronger. Sakamoto put in less emphasis on making these tracks unique, but more emphasis on the emotional/atmospheric components.
I don't have much else to say about it. The first half of the soundtrack is essentially a soundtrack doing what it's supposed to do. It's just supposed to complement the scenes in the movie, and that's it. It's a very forgettable experience and I was pretty disappointed with how it was considering the storyline of the movie. The second half of the soundtrack is definitely good, but it's not good enough for me to cover up for the mediocrity of the first half. The first and last tracks is really what saved the album for me, more than anything else. Aside from track 2 to 9 though, this is a great ambient soundtrack. I could see myself listening to this again when I'm really bored by skipping through those tracks. It's a shame that those bad tracks take up a considerable chunk of the album too, the rating could've been way higher. Oh well.
On a side note, every arrangement (orchestral, piano solo) of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence that Sakamoto has made is fantastic in their own right. The only exception would be David Sylvian's version in Secrets of the Beehive. Those arrangements aren't in this soundtrack though, but I think the rating would be slightly higher if the arrangements were included in the original soundtrack.
Album Highlights: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, Forbidden Colours
Track Average Rating: 3.03/5
Overall Rating: 6/10
That's the end of July, have been slowing down considerably. I guess that's the burnout taking its toll on me. Will stop for now, maybe I'll start again after exams.
Last edited by EzExZeRo7497; 08-1-2014, 07:52 AM.Comment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
Omfg you reviewed Shining, a comment is in order.
Alright.
First of all, thanks so much for reviewing my favorite album ever!
Secondly, I'm really surprised you had such a hard time with the production quality. It is god awful, not denying, but I thought it would be charming to you. It's like being there, in a dark garage room, pure, raw, heavy, but without sacrificing the melody to heavier noisy stuff. Imo, it adds an ambient touch, but if it is really that hard on you, you could check out the first 2 demos. They feature significantly better recording quality (nothing like actual Children of Bodom albums, though, let's not get silly) but are a little bit more balls to the wall metal. No clean and softer moments in songs, I guess they are much more black metal than raw melodic death metal.
As far as music like this... I myself have yet to find anything similar, let alone from Bodom (although the interlude in Talking of the Trees is actually used in Mask of Sanity before the solo). I'd say Shining is a mixture of True Norwegian Black Metal and Melodic Death Metal with some touches of Black Ambient, which is partly why I expected you to love it even more than I do myself. But oh well.
Otherwise, great review as always man. Let's pray that someday COB re-releases these demos as an anniversary thing or some shit. Too good and unique to be left dying out imo, and an alternative version with some top notch quality could be interesting to have around. There are some remasters/covers/rerecordings lying around on YouTube, you can check this out if you care, but imo, it sort of kills the tracks imo. Meanwhile I'll just keep hoping Mors Principium Est makes something that comes close to what IneartheD pulled together back in the day.
Last detail, if you're any familiar with newer COB, you can't possibly let slip how fantastic Raatikainen's drumworks were back then.
That's about all I had to say about it. I'm still very happy with your review, and also happy to have introduced yet another person to what I've been almost religiously listening to for the past what, 8 years?Last edited by Hateandhatred; 11-16-2014, 12:21 PM.Forgot where I put my old sig lolComment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
Haven't posted here in a while.
I think I'm going to stop reviews altogether. There are a couple of reasons why I want to stop, but I think it'd be better if I list them down instead.
1. Reviewing albums is incredibly tedious for me - most of my reviews are long-winded bs that I sprout to try to make it look substantial. I don't want to write very short reviews mainly because it feels half-assed and it doesn't get the message of a review across. I'm not sure how I managed to review ~60 albums in the first month, but it was pretty noticeable that I was reviewing albums far less frequently after.
2. I'm just burnt out. I haven't listened to anything new in a while - mainly out of a lack of interest. I don't want to force myself to listen to any more albums than I should be... that'd just ruin my experience to begin with. I'm not sure how long this burnout would last, but it'd probably take a while. Even then though, I don't really want this thread to be stuck in limbo.
3. Probably my main reason for this, but I feel that rating music (and to a smaller extent reviewing) has made enjoying music far harder than it should be. I do have rather high standards (average rating here is 5.6x, which is somewhat harsh) for music to begin with and having a rating system just makes me enjoy less albums than I'd want to. In my head whenever I look at an album I go like "Hmm... I gave this a 7.5, I could just listen to _____" instead although a 7.5/10 album is definitely a solid album. Doesn't quite help that I feel as if my ratings are completely arbitrary to begin with. I don't listen to most of my 9/10+ albums, but I listen to a couple of 7.5/10 to 8.5/10 albums fairly regularly, such as Ultra Blue. I could just readjust my ratings accordingly, but it'd take too much effort. It wouldn't be worth it if I'm so indecisive with my ratings.
That's really it, I closed my RYM account (I've been contemplating this for a while now) and marked it for deletion. I apologise for not being able to get to some of you guys' requests, but I'll probably listen to them in my free time. I COULD just make a thread like Zageron's and post songs (or albums) that I enjoy, but I don't think many people would be interested in that.
Thanks to everyone who enjoyed (and disliked) reading my reviews, I appreciate your time reading on my thoughts on albums.Comment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
Fwiw, been a blast reading through. Might just mean you need to approach music in a different way.Comment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
It's all good, I know that I would never be able to do this mainly because if there was an album I didn't like, I would probably just stop listening to it instead of powering through for the reviewOriginally posted by TC_Pr0Originally posted by Sprite-Comment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
Welp, I guess that leaves me alone on this site for the most part.
It was definitely good while it lasted, you had some very well written criticisms.The above post has a 50% chance of being useless. Potentially. Maybe.
BEST AAAs: WANDERLUST, Pandora, Necropotence, Mourning The Lost, Eradication, Feldschlacht
Hey, we need some users on this site. Please join.
And if you have not recommended any albums yet, do so. Please. I have a goal to reach. Here.
NO WAIT THAT SHIT'S OLD GO HERE INSTEAD.Comment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
I totally sympathize with you, doing one half-assed is hard for me so I can't imagine if I wrote them as long as you.
Last edited by noname219; 08-9-2014, 02:23 PM.Comment
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Re: An Album A Day Keeps The Doctor Away | 365 Album Challenge
Far more fun to read your thread than mine, I'm sure 99% of people will agree.
But a thread for sharing individual songs will attract more actual listening, since there are only a few minutes required to check out what you're sharing, and less reading. hehe
I enjoyed this thread a lot regardless.
P.S. Listen to all of my suggestions, just don't review them. ;OLast edited by Zageron; 08-10-2014, 03:54 PM.Comment
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