Nice Beatles-influenced string introduction to the album. This first track is nice but I certainly hope that the album offers up something a little more diverse and interesting than this because listening to more than 30 seconds of that theme feels like a waste of time. About halfway through the track it gets more interesting with some instrumental conversation trading phrases and taking a slower, sparse approach. This I love.
The first Zopf track starts off by playing around with minimalist microtonal melodies which is pretty cool. I feel like the guitar could be doing some much more interesting things and is kind of added as an afterthought for accessibility.
The second Zopf track is a nice little acoustic ballad with great vocal harmonies after it picks up. Kind of middle ground track but it gives me hope that this won't be a monotonous listen. The transition from this track to Surface Tension is incredibly fluid.
Surface Tension is the best track so far. Melodically and harmonically it's a really lovely piece despite being very by the books. Books written by The Beatles.
Milk has cool sounds and approaches but fails to grip me even though it's probably the most experimental or innovative track so far on the record.
The Zopf series carries on with the track Coronation and it's nice and all but why make this music? It doesn't feel like they want to make an impression on me with these tracks.
Gile Farnaby's Dream is far too upbeat. It came years before La Bamba came out, but the similarity of the melodies only annoys me.
Pigtail is nice, I really like when they take a step back and go meditative with the interesting electronics. I wish that they had extended that track and went other places with it.
The Sound of Someone You Love starts off with lowkey acoustic guitar who let the violin take the lead at points that just saunters for about 7 minutes before it starts to actually get interesting with the ascending climax it hits that it tosses around a bit before descending back into some stuff that's...pleasant I guess.
Hugebaby is another ballady song that has some more interesting melodic moments but again feels like another track that doesn't do much when noticed.
The closer, Chartered Flight, feels like the reason behind releasing this album as it's my favourite. It's darker and has the more pop-driven interludes filtered through a minimalist lens that might even listen to Bitches Brew occasionally. If this were the only track on a single I'd give it a 7.5/10.
My biggest gripe with this album is that it's just nice. It's not bad, it's not amazing, I even hesitate to call it good. It's just there for your background and not much else. Maybe it's because the album tries to please to many people and ends up diluting all of its stronger points. It doesn't connect experimental, classical, and pop music in a meaningful or new way even though it sounds like this is the goal of the group. It might just be the inclusion of the violin that makes me think this, but if I want something of this vein I think I'm going to stick with Tin Hat or Robert Wyatt. I'm going to give it a neutral score of 5/10.
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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.
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