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| Track list: 1. Norway Kitty 2. Strawberry Magnet 3. Palaces and Prisons 4. Soundtrack 5. Tufts 6. Saltwater 7. Piet 8. Roxy's Summer 9. Before 10. Japon Luvr Running time: 40 minutes Released: 2008 |
This is an oddity, as far as I recall. I believe it was a gift from someone I am no longer in touch with. I believe, too, that I didn't get on with it much (but that wasn't why contact was lost). I have no idea what to expect, so will have to simply dive in and hope for the best.
Opening lines are high pitched piano trills, a pleasant little tune, soon joined by some electronics that provide structure and percussion. I am overdue this listen - a very busy week and a wasted weekend preceded it and I am just winding down for my Sunday evening, wondering what to eat, and hoping the damp inspection I have booked for tomorrow morning gives me a path to resolving that problem so I can move on to dealing with the others. Still, enough about that - Norway Kitty is calming, relaxing, and a good antidote to stressful thoughts about the problems with being a home owner. I do wonder if there is quite enough to it beyond the 2 minute mark or so. A string melody appears for the close but it is a little out of tone with the rest somehow. Still, a decent beginning.
The same can't be said for the start of Strawberry Magnet, a horrid electronic screeching opening the tune for us. Thankfully it gives way quickly to a charming little piano melody. The electronics are still there though, and they are a little more eccentric than on the first track, a little less enjoyable. The tune did surprise me by having vocal elements. Not lyrics and singing, but vocalization that provides an element in places. Or... is that a trick of my ears and just more electronics? Yeah. Think I was mistaken - the pattern of the sounds used evoke a voice in some ways though.
A Scottish voice on Palaces and Prisons. I thought it was familiar; it's Gordon McIntyre from Ballboy. He is speaking over another layering of piano melody and electronic soundscape. I love McIntyre's voice, it is very soothing. His delivery, his pacing, is lovely and measured. It reminds me a lot of some Ballboy tracks - particularly A Europewide Search for Love and Something's Gonna Happen Soon. I like this track a lot. The next is short and flies by - but it is more of the same mix of piano and programming.
Another voice appears this time on Tufts. By this time Park Avenue Music's shtick is getting a little samey and familiar and I find myself hoping that they might mix it up in the next track or two. It isn't that I don't like what they are doing - I really do - but a really good trick does not mean it can't be one-note. That pony is going to get annoying sometime anyhow if it is all you ever get to ride. Ugh - mixing metaphors, taking it too far. Oh well. For all that I am groaning at the over-reliance on the same structures and forms, I am finding a lot to like in these tracks. The keys are used to build the sense of tone and emotion - mostly they are pleasingly charming little ditties - and at their best the electronics are understated and complement the melodies well.
The overall tempo is a slow one; these are whimsical comedown tunes, background music for modern art galleries or otherwise low key in their presentation. Piet gets to me though - here there is repetition of the main melodic hook, and given that I am already struggling with the degree of sameness between tracks, it rather hammers home that lack of diversity. Any of the tracks would be nice in the right context. I am not sure an entire album in one go is a good context for this music though. As we get into the final few tracks I find myself mentally disengaging from the sounds and from my effort to write about what I am hearing. My mind drifts back to the cricket that I have been mostly following on the radio for the past 3 days and to England's bizarre decision not to enforce the follow-on when nearly 400 to the good and amid inclement weather and cloudy skies. Conservative is too mild a rebuke. I think Roxy's Summer may just have been the most melodic of the lot here, but the distance I have put between myself and the music by letting my mind wander could be a confounding factor.
There is a different tone to the opening of Before, a little darker. It is all brought about by the swirling sounds in the electronics, almost siren like. The piano is as light as ever, cutting a path through the haze of whirling clicks and beeps. The novelty of the variant atmosphere is quickly pushed out by the familiarity of the overall pattern once the tune advances a bit further. True, the balance is different here - the keys have much less weight - but what else is really different?
The last track is the longest at over 5 minutes. Given the title it is no surprise that it has a hint of the (stereotyped) Japanese melody about it. It is somewhat telling, though, that this is about all I can find to convey about my thoughts. It's a very thin track - nice veneer, but no solidity to it. That probably sums up my thoughts about the album as a whole, really. Just to be clear I rather like each track in isolation; it's the 40 minutes of listening in one go that I don't think works. Probably that isn't what it was intended for. Probably, in this age of digital access and short attention spans, it is built for shuffle. It would be better if so, where each track can be a simple pleasure and then you get something else to change it up.
And that's that. I think it's just cheese and biscuits tonight; simple supper. No energy to cook, and no real hunger driving me.
Opening lines are high pitched piano trills, a pleasant little tune, soon joined by some electronics that provide structure and percussion. I am overdue this listen - a very busy week and a wasted weekend preceded it and I am just winding down for my Sunday evening, wondering what to eat, and hoping the damp inspection I have booked for tomorrow morning gives me a path to resolving that problem so I can move on to dealing with the others. Still, enough about that - Norway Kitty is calming, relaxing, and a good antidote to stressful thoughts about the problems with being a home owner. I do wonder if there is quite enough to it beyond the 2 minute mark or so. A string melody appears for the close but it is a little out of tone with the rest somehow. Still, a decent beginning.
The same can't be said for the start of Strawberry Magnet, a horrid electronic screeching opening the tune for us. Thankfully it gives way quickly to a charming little piano melody. The electronics are still there though, and they are a little more eccentric than on the first track, a little less enjoyable. The tune did surprise me by having vocal elements. Not lyrics and singing, but vocalization that provides an element in places. Or... is that a trick of my ears and just more electronics? Yeah. Think I was mistaken - the pattern of the sounds used evoke a voice in some ways though.
A Scottish voice on Palaces and Prisons. I thought it was familiar; it's Gordon McIntyre from Ballboy. He is speaking over another layering of piano melody and electronic soundscape. I love McIntyre's voice, it is very soothing. His delivery, his pacing, is lovely and measured. It reminds me a lot of some Ballboy tracks - particularly A Europewide Search for Love and Something's Gonna Happen Soon. I like this track a lot. The next is short and flies by - but it is more of the same mix of piano and programming.
Another voice appears this time on Tufts. By this time Park Avenue Music's shtick is getting a little samey and familiar and I find myself hoping that they might mix it up in the next track or two. It isn't that I don't like what they are doing - I really do - but a really good trick does not mean it can't be one-note. That pony is going to get annoying sometime anyhow if it is all you ever get to ride. Ugh - mixing metaphors, taking it too far. Oh well. For all that I am groaning at the over-reliance on the same structures and forms, I am finding a lot to like in these tracks. The keys are used to build the sense of tone and emotion - mostly they are pleasingly charming little ditties - and at their best the electronics are understated and complement the melodies well.
The overall tempo is a slow one; these are whimsical comedown tunes, background music for modern art galleries or otherwise low key in their presentation. Piet gets to me though - here there is repetition of the main melodic hook, and given that I am already struggling with the degree of sameness between tracks, it rather hammers home that lack of diversity. Any of the tracks would be nice in the right context. I am not sure an entire album in one go is a good context for this music though. As we get into the final few tracks I find myself mentally disengaging from the sounds and from my effort to write about what I am hearing. My mind drifts back to the cricket that I have been mostly following on the radio for the past 3 days and to England's bizarre decision not to enforce the follow-on when nearly 400 to the good and amid inclement weather and cloudy skies. Conservative is too mild a rebuke. I think Roxy's Summer may just have been the most melodic of the lot here, but the distance I have put between myself and the music by letting my mind wander could be a confounding factor.
There is a different tone to the opening of Before, a little darker. It is all brought about by the swirling sounds in the electronics, almost siren like. The piano is as light as ever, cutting a path through the haze of whirling clicks and beeps. The novelty of the variant atmosphere is quickly pushed out by the familiarity of the overall pattern once the tune advances a bit further. True, the balance is different here - the keys have much less weight - but what else is really different?
The last track is the longest at over 5 minutes. Given the title it is no surprise that it has a hint of the (stereotyped) Japanese melody about it. It is somewhat telling, though, that this is about all I can find to convey about my thoughts. It's a very thin track - nice veneer, but no solidity to it. That probably sums up my thoughts about the album as a whole, really. Just to be clear I rather like each track in isolation; it's the 40 minutes of listening in one go that I don't think works. Probably that isn't what it was intended for. Probably, in this age of digital access and short attention spans, it is built for shuffle. It would be better if so, where each track can be a simple pleasure and then you get something else to change it up.
And that's that. I think it's just cheese and biscuits tonight; simple supper. No energy to cook, and no real hunger driving me.
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