-
neumu
Friday, March 29, 2024 
-
-
--archival-captured-cinematronic-continuity error-daily report-datastream-depth of field--
-
--drama-44.1 khz-gramophone-inquisitive-needle drops-picture book-twinklepop--
-
Neumu = Art + Music + Words
Search Neumu:  

illustration
44.1kHz = music reviews

edited by michael goldbergcontact




Editor's note: We have activated the Neumu 44.1 kHz Archive. Use the link at the bottom of this list to access hundreds of Neumu reviews.

+ Donato Wharton - Body Isolations
+ Svalastog - Woodwork
+ Tim Hecker - Harmony In Ultraviolet
+ Rosy Parlane - Jessamine
+ Jarvis Cocker - The Jarvis Cocker Record
+ Múm - Peel Session
+ Deloris - Ten Lives
+ Minimum Chips - Lady Grey
+ Badly Drawn Boy - Born In The U.K.
+ The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls Together
+ The Blood Brothers - Young Machetes
+ The Places - Songs For Creeps
+ Camille - Le Fil
+ Wolf Eyes - Human Animal
+ Christina Carter - Electrice
+ The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
+ Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
+ Various Artists - Musics In The Margin
+ Rafael Toral - Space
+ Bob Dylan - Modern Times
+ Excepter - Alternation
+ Chris Thile - How To Grow A Woman From The Ground
+ Brad Mehldau - Live in Japan
+ M Ward - Post-War
+ Various Artists - Touch 25
+ The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely
+ The White Birch - Come Up For Air
+ Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country
+ Coachwhips - Double Death
+ Various Artists - Tibetan And Bhutanese Instrumental And Folk Music, Volume 2
+ Giuseppe Ielasi - Giuseppe Ielasi
+ Cex - Actual Fucking
+ Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche
+ Leafcutter John - The Forest And The Sea
+ Carla Bozulich - Evangelista
+ Barbara Morgenstern - The Grass Is Always Greener
+ Robin Guthrie - Continental
+ Peaches - Impeach My Bush
+ Oakley Hall - Second Guessing
+ Klee - Honeysuckle
+ The Court & Spark - Hearts
+ TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
+ Awesome Color - Awesome Color
+ Jenny Wilson - Love And Youth
+ Asobi Seksu - Citrus
+ Marsen Jules - Les Fleurs
+ The Moore Brothers - Murdered By The Moore Brothers
+ Regina Spektor - Begin To Hope
+ The 1900s - Plume Delivery EP
+ Alejandro Escovedo - The Boxing Mirror
+ Function - The Secret Miracle Fountain
+ Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
+ Loscil - Plume
+ Boris - Pink
+ Deadboy And The Elephantmen - We Are Night Sky
+ Glissandro 70 - Glissandro 70
+ Calexico - Garden Ruin (Review #2)
+ Calexico - Garden Ruin (Review #1)
+ The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
+ The Glass Family - Sleep Inside This Wheel
+ Various Artists - Songs For Sixty Five Roses
+ The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
+ Motorpsycho - Black Hole/Blank Canvas
+ The Red Krayola - Introduction
+ Metal Hearts - Socialize
+ American Princes - Less And Less
+ Sondre Lerche And The Faces Down Quartet - Duper Sessions
+ Supersilent - 7
+ Band Of Horses - Everything All The Time
+ Dudley Perkins - Expressions
+ Growing - Color Wheel
+ Red Carpet - The Noise Of Red Carpet
+ The Essex Green - Cannibal Sea
+ Espers - II
+ Wilderness - Vessel States

44.1 kHz Archive



peruse archival
snippet
    
artist
Kepler
recording
Attic Salt
Resonant
snippet
rating


Samir Khan, the singer with downbeat Canadian combo Kepler, has one of those great, yearning voices perfectly suited to his band's particular kind of melancholic alt-rock. Hear Khan sing and you immediately draw the dots, linking Mark Eitzel, Spain's Josh Haden, and Paul Westerberg, circa late-period Replacements album All Shook Down.

To be fair, Khan's voice has its own qualities and holds up pretty well in such strong company, but it might just be Kepler's curse to be always naggingly reminiscent of something else. It's a shame really, as Attic Salt has much to recommend it, coming out of a turbulent time that saw the band lose its longtime drummer to the Arcade Fire and nearly implode as a result.

The oscillating shimmer and slow crescendos of "Broken Bottles Blackened Hearts" raise the curtain, but the scene shifts immediately as the jaunty "Thoroughbred Grin" rings out, driven by a hi-hat groove. With a mood more wistful then melancholy, this marks its territory at the point where indie crosses mainstream in compelling, if restrained, performance. "My Other," "The Bedside Manner" and "You Must Admit" settle in to a mid-paced, swaying tempo. Khan's voice is, at various times, languorous, admonishing and gently pleading. Lyrically though, these songs are either cryptic or evasive, Khan stressing the general rather than the particular.

It's perhaps a testimony to the band's talents that this vagueness is offset by a consistently robust delivery, so that that it really only comes up as a kind of afterthought. It is, however, indicative of a persistent sense of something missing, that however gorgeous these songs at first appear to be, their durability is possibly lessened by their inability to pin down quite what they're about. As if in recognition of this, for its final third Attic Salt slowly winds down, retreating from the chugging groove and mild cynicism of "The National Epithet" into a dreamlike pace where otherwise thorny subjects — violence ("Days of Begging"), social class ("Rented Limousine"), fatalism ("Reward and Respite") — are rendered curiously neutral.

In the end the album's contradictory impulses, gently conveyed, blunt its impact. But they also leave a sense of puzzlement, and enough reason to keep returning to try and figure out quite how strong, or flawed, it really is.


by Tom Ridge




-
-snippetcontactsnippetcontributorssnippetvisionsnippethelpsnippetcopyrightsnippetlegalsnippetterms of usesnippetThis site is Copyright © 2003 Insider One LLC
-