Review: Glasser: Ring [B]

Artist: Glasser

Album: Ring

Released: Sept 2010

Label: True Panther Sounds

Genre: experimental pop / electronic

Purchase date: 28 Feb 2011

Format: mp3 files

Source: Amazon

Glasser is a hard act to categorize. It's another of those one-person bands: Glasser is really Cameron Mesirow, and she brings along other session musicians for her stage shows. Mesirow's voice is extremely expressive and fluid, with a very wide range. Paired with electronic instrumentation and driving percussion, the music of Glasser is arresting and hypnotic. Pitchfork and the AV Club have compared her music to that of Bjork, and I would agree that the two share some similarities on the surface. Glasser's music is brighter, and does not plumb the darkness of the human soul as Bjork so often does. I think a better comparison would be Bat For Lashes.

It took me a few listens to appreciate this record, and I do recommend it. It's kind of difficult, but I thought it was worth the effort.

Rating: B

Album listing at Amazon

Album not available at eMusic

Listen to "Home"

Review: Charlotte Gainsbourg: IRM [B+]

Artist: Charlotte Gainsbourg

Album: IRM

Released: Nov 2009

Label: Elektra Records

Genre: experimental pop

Purchase date: 09 Jan 2011

Format: AAC files

Source: iTunes

I had known that the Anglo-French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg also had a singing career, but I hadn't paid it much mind, as there are so many actors who use their fame to attempt to cash in on meager musical tallent. Then, I heard an interview with her on on World Cafe last June, and I was really struck by the music. IRM, her third album, had been on my wish list since then, and I finally got around to buying it with some extra iTunes credits.

This emotional album is a loose concept album about Gainsbourg's near-death experience in 2007 after an apparently-minor water skiing mishap. Two weeks after the accident, she walked into a hospital in Paris complaining of dizziness, blurred vision, and severed headaches, and discovered that she had a slow cerebral hemorrhage, and her skull was filling with blood. She was immediately rushed in for brain surgery. ("IRM" is the French acronym for the medical scanner called "MRI" in English).

Produced by Beck, the musical styles are all over the map. There is a touching ballad, an alt-rocker, a French cabaret number, and some electronic tracks which Gainsbourg half-raps over. She doesn't have a broad vocal range, but the stylistic changes and overall mood of the record more than compensate. The theme of the album is the thin line between life and death, and how close we all are, but how life has a way of going on regardless.

It's kind of Zen, but all-in-all, I liked this record.

Rating: B+

Album listing at Amazon

Album listing at eMusic

"Time of the Assassins" Official Video

"Heaven Can Wait" Official Video

Review: Buke and Gass: Riposte [A-]

Artist: Buke and Gass

Album: Riposte

Released: September 2010

Label: Brassland Records

Genre: Experimental pop

Purchase date: 21 December 2010

Format: mp3 files

Source: Amazon

The first full-length from this duo from Brooklyn, the band gets its name from the two homemade instruments they play: singer Arone Dyer plays a homemade baritone ukelele (or "buke"), and Aron Sanchez plays a homemade combination acoustic guitar and bass (or "gass"). They both also play foot-controlled percussion instruments, and run their instruments through effects pedals creating the sound of a full band even when it's just the two of them. This wildly creative streak runs through the music itself, which is off-kilter, chaotic, in strange time signatures, and a whole lot of fun.

Their wildness could perhaps be tamed a bit, as the middle of the album starts to run together after a while, but it is full of stand-out moments. The opener "Medulla Oblongata," "Your Face Left Before You," and "Bundletuck" are the three strongest tracks. This is a wonderfully weird acoustic album, and I recommend it strongly.

Rating: A-

Listen to "Medulla Oblongata"

View Buke and Gass performing live at NPR's Tiny Desk Concert

Album listing at Amazon

Album listing at eMusic

Review: Cloud Cult: Light Chasers [B+]

Artist: Cloud Cult

Album: Light Chasers

Released: September 2010

Label: Earthology Records

Genre: Experimental pop

Purchase Date: 6 Dec 2010

Format: mp3 files

Source: eMusic

I first encountered the Minneapolis-based experimental band Cloud Cult in 2008 on the Sound Opinions radio show a few years ago. Jim and Greg reviewed the band's last album Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying Through Tornadoes) on a "hidden gems" episode. I really liked the track they played, so I bought that album, and it became one of my favorites of the year. When performing live, the band has a lot of people on stage, and the members include a cellist, a violinist, two brass players, a bassist (playing both electric and upright), and a percussionist. Their sound can vary from classical chamber music to heavy rock (sometimes in the same song). It is this playfulness with sound and mood that drew me in.

Led by vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Chris Minowa, who is married to fellow band-mate Connie Minowa, the band often explores heavy concepts like life, death, faith, and the afterlife. This is understandable, as the Minowas lost their first child in 2002 at the age of two. Minowa used songwriting to channel his grief, but managed to keep the music playful while exploring the darkness. The Minowas had a second child in 2009 (whom they named Nova), and Light Chasers explores the life-death cycle from a much happier perspective.

Possessing extremes of dynamics, mood, and orchestration, Light Chasers is a wild ride, and ultimately an uplifting one.

Rating: B+

"Running With The Wolves" official video

Album listing at Amazon

Album listing at eMusic