MUSIC

194 posts in 'MUSIC'

MUSIC REVIEW [Early] . Goon Moon . Licker’s Last Leg

by Kris   ⋅   May 7, 2007   ⋅   Comment now

Bands that do it all and do it well are totally welcome in my book. Criticized by people that like their bands to be predictable, off kilter but incredible bands such as Oneida and De Novo Dahl often flitter into obscurity, satisfying only a niche audience (like me — I love ‘em!). I [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . Amy Winehouse . Back to Black

by Kris   ⋅   April 11, 2007   ⋅   Comments [5]

In Britain, there’s no escaping Amy Winehouse, the saucy crooner with the nouveau-retro backdrop. She’s finally being welcomed to the States with open arms with her album Back to Black debuting at #7.
Raised by jazz musicians and inspired by Salt -n- Pepa, Winehouse is sultry oldschool kitch with a hardened criminal-esque edge. To [...]

Alanis Morissette - “My Humps” Video

by Chris and Kris   ⋅   April 5, 2007   ⋅   Comments [5]

This comes to us from three time guest reviewer, Greg. Alanis Morissette takes a stab at the current state of the American music industry. It’s pretty smart and very funny. Check it out below:

The Valentine’s Day Spin

by Kris   ⋅   February 13, 2007   ⋅   Comments [2]

In case you’re the superficial girlie that expects Barry White and bruised roses, drugstore chocolate and wine, and a tacky diamond baguette laced heart pendant so cheap it’s best suited for a gift for your distant aunt, or if you’re the predictable guy that has to buy all that crap, here’s a slight spin on [...]

Love Psychedelico — Early Times music review

by Chris   ⋅   September 29, 2006   ⋅   Comments [3]

Love Psychedelico. So the trolling of the foreign music section at the local library has been slow going these days. Misia left me cold. BoA colored me unimpressed. Mr. Children I just wasn’t feeling. I was just about to give up on the section all together, until I came across Love Psychedelico. Their pencil-stenciled Early [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . Puffy Amiyumi . Splurge

by Chris   ⋅   August 2, 2006   ⋅   Comments [4]

If you’re not familiar with Puffy (aka: Puffy AmiYumi) your perception of J-Pop is probably colored by cute girls in cute outfits singing cute love songs into equally cute microphones. Well, Puffy may be cute, and they may do nothing more than harmonize, but that’s where the similarity ends. Their sound is a delightfully peppy [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . Lindsay Lohan . A Little More Personal (RAW)

by Chris and Kris   ⋅   July 31, 2006   ⋅   Comments [4]

Lindsay Lohan is a hot property these days. Bounding from controversy to controversy, film to film, and to feud to feud (Paris and Hillary), she can’t seem to stay out of the limelight. In fact, Kris has accurately stated Lohan is the millenial answer Tiffany, the white trash singer who took on Debbie Gibson [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . Meiko Kaji - Zenkyokushu

by Chris   ⋅   July 15, 2006   ⋅   Comments [11]

I was first introduced to Meiko Kaji’s music back in the late 1990’s with Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41. Though only my initial viewing, I found the theme song amazing, and it stuck with me long after the film. It wasn’t until later that I became a true Kaji fan. I had knowledge of her [...]

MUSIC REVIEW [GUEST] . Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance

by Chris and Kris   ⋅   April 10, 2006   ⋅   Comments [7]

When people first saw Timbaland with Bubba Sparxxx, they were probably thinking, “what is one of the greatest producers in hip-hop doing working with some pudgy white guy?” They probably would have been further confused by some of the songs on Bubba’s debut CD, Dark Days, Bright Nights which featured songs like “Bubba Talk” built [...]

“It’s hard out here for a pimp”, but it’s worse in the Big House for Yanni

by Kris   ⋅   March 8, 2006   ⋅   Comments [6]

According to his girlfriend, Yanni grabbed her, shook and threw her about. According to Yanni, his gf kicked him and he somehow hurt his piano-playing finger. He was arrested. [More..] But what the police grossly overlooked was the fact that he’s Greek. What would he be doing with a girlfriend?

MUSIC REVIEW . Curve . Doppelgänger

by Kris   ⋅   December 8, 2005   ⋅   Comment [1]

Yah, I won’t be the first to admit that Curve can be a wee-bit um, redundant, or do I mean consistent? Their shrieking wall of guitar fuzz, insistent bass, 120 minimum bpm, Toni Halliday darkly throating the epitome of whine-rock lyrics. And nevermind their internal bickering, their demise wholeheartedly encouraged by copy-cats like [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . Sea and Cake . Nassau

by Kris   ⋅   December 7, 2005   ⋅   Comments [2]

Call it “variations on a theme” that leads repeat listenings of Nassau, Sea and Cake’s second album. While each song is unique, you might swear you’ve just heard a tune on repeat for they all share the jangly-to-fret-tickled guitar of Archer Prewitt, the energetic basslines of Eric Claridge, John McEntire’s wacky tropical percussion and [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . Cat Power . Moon Pix

by Kris   ⋅   December 3, 2005   ⋅   Comment now

If Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane/Starship) and Fiona Apple had a vocal offspring, it would be Chan Marshall, aka: Cat Power. If you know me, you know why this name initially grabbed me (wow go kitties!), but the exaggerated slo-mo stylings, bare-bones instrumentation and strange scraggly drawl-singing are what kept me listening.
So its [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . Perfume Tree . Feeler

by Kris   ⋅   December 1, 2005   ⋅   Comments [2]

Sometimes I buy albums for the trippy cover art or odd titles. Prior to listening stations and ease of .mp3 sampling, that practice resulted in serendipitous yays or yeechs. Perfume Tree’s Feeler turned out to be a major yay with its bounding bass and twitchy treble elements escorting songstress Jane Tilley’s choir-pitch melodies. [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . RJD2 . Since We Last Spoke

by Kris   ⋅   November 30, 2005   ⋅   Comment now

Although I liked his more concise hip-hoppy debut Dead Ringer a lot more, Since We Last Spoke is still tops. Challenging the art of digital compositions, painting it on pudding-thick once again, I can best describe RJD2’s latest as: “throes of denomination, not domination”. Each layer, each instrument meshes and merry-go-rounds another. [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . Cibo Matto . Stereo Type A

by Kris   ⋅   November 22, 2005   ⋅   Comment [1]

Ah, fizzy J-pop with its perky jumpbeats and relentless optimism. Broadcasting from a technological mecca, laced with so much expected escapism from a turbulent, demanding society, pop music from Japan embodies either pungent cutesyness or the exact opposite– raunchy overuse of misused curse words –but only one thing can be certain: behind every foreign [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . Supreme Beings of Leisure . Divine Operating System

by Kris   ⋅   November 15, 2005   ⋅   Comment [1]

Erotic electronica. Voluptuous vocals. Simple-set rhymes with often Yoda-esque messages of empowerment and rich avid description. Brave beats and originality. Oh, Supreme Beings of Leisure, you had it once but came up short this round.
Obviously honoring the classic greats of jazz and soul with an added twist of crisp post-modernistic precision, [...]

MUSIC REVIEW . Múm . Finally We Are No One

by Kris   ⋅   November 2, 2005   ⋅   Comment now

Every so often, Tinkerbell® smokes out and pays me a visit via accidental melodies. Zippers clinking in the dryer, garbage trucks’ reverse warnings, tunnel vent floe flows. There was a phase in my life where all I wanted to listen to was my laundry machine, Sunday morning birds, the beach, and maybe Autechre. [...]

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