Saltillo - Ganglion 2006
01 A Necessary End 5:57
02 Giving In 5:22
03 Remember Me? 3:25
04 A Simple Test 5:29
05 A Hair on the Head of John the Baptist 7:32
06 Blood and Milk 3:21
07 The Opening 2:49
08 Backyard Pond 3:00
09 Grafting 4:45
10 Praise 4:12
11 I’m on the Wrong Side 2:29
12 002 F#m 3:45
Just a floating violin over what looks like a blurred wintry day. I like the look of a violin and I also like the look of a winters day. To see a busker with a violin on a cold day is one of the pleasures of travelling away from these hot climes. But the title of the album. Ganglion! Why? A medical condition but we get a violin and the perception of winter. Ganglion are removed. Remove winter? Not likely. I had high expectations of the music and was looking for a strings oriented album with bleak or sparse sounds. Not to be. To be frank this is not a bad album but it does have some issues.
First the surprise. The opening track was immediately familiar and very good. I had heard it before and in fact it was the opening song in the April MB comp and supplied by the ever reliable Demonoid. Well met sir! What a great start. A wonderful piece of string based Trip Hop. The 2nd track, Giving In, is very pleasant with vocals by a Sarah Mathews whom I have never heard of. This song could easily be on say a Moorcheba album.
Unfortunately there are few highlights to follow. It is not due to poor songs but the fact that they are far too overproduced. I am of the opinion that if the songs where stripped back and allowed to flow, cut out the far to many samples, allowed the drums to be of a more organic and softer nature, the album could have shone. A prime example of this is the potentially brilliant A Hair on the Head of John the Baptist. The Shakespearian quotes are just too much. They are too forward and wear thin when the chanting of the name of the title, in what sounds to me like blues gospel sample, is perfect. I can give many more examples but will not.
If it seems that I have made this out to be a poor album I apologise. It is not poor. In fact I suggest that those that like their Trip Hop full of samples and fully layered will get a good deal of pleasure out of this album. I would just have preferred it all touch sparser and minimalist in fact I would have preferred the strings to be more to the forefront with sparse bleak and wintry sounds in the background. Just like the cover.