Album Club 2019: Magdalith - Magdalith
 

Magdalith - Magdalith
https://img.discogs.com/r5uZ5kilhC2P...485200.gif.jpg

Never heard this one before. On your marks...get set...goooooo!

Current Rating: 5.92 out of 10

Thoughts: Magdalith has an amazing, unique voice, perfectly suited for avant-folk, for it equally frightens and excites. This is as freaky as the kind of vocals I like gets, and I cannot help but think that we are getting only the slightest peek into the soul of a Jewish woman scarred by the Holocaust and enamored of the Eucharist. The vocals set the piano on fire. This whole album feels like one big vocal experiment, pushing her voice to the limits of its perspicacity. Her voice is at once strong yet brittle, an endlessly fascinating feat. Tracks 1 and 6 (the beginnings of Sides A and B) are sister tracks, songs that have only one instrument accompanying the vocals, the former a piano, the latter some kind of hand drum (sounds Middle Eastern – apologies for my untrained ear). All but two of the tracks are written by Magdalith. She works in quite a bit of ritualistic liturgical chanting of religious texts, creating a distinctly Hebrew atmosphere to the album.

Rating: 10/10

Pretty hard to sit through this one, honestly. Was waiting for some actually good musical ideas to materialize, but it never happened. The outré vocal performances often felt quite on the gimmicky side of things. Impressive technique, sure, but mostly, her high-velocity blubbering just sounds silly.
A few alright passages here and there, but nothing worth specifically calling attention to. I just didn't like this one at all. Not even close. What's more, I've heard it before, so there was a real feeling of "oh no not you again *groan*" - but one must suffer for the album club, so I did.

2/10? I guess so. Can't find a reason why not, except that I don't want to be yelled at.

Not sure if I would describe this experience as "enjoyable" in a comprehensive sense, but there were some numbers like '...et pour les enfants' that had a distinctive charm to them. Xylophone features prominently, as well as frequent use of the whistle register and some yodeling here n' there. There's also a certain stark beauty to the Middle Eastern melodic meanderings of 'Pop' a' Gregor' that I found rather compelling. Kinda haunting.

Have skimmed a bit of critical opinion from elsewhere about this self-titled, it seems like the goal was to provide a canvas of sorts to showcase experimental vocalizations and test the "limits" of it as an instrument. Certainly an ambitious goal, but there's a nice psychedelic underpinning to everything that I enjoy as well.

Going with a 6.5 out of 10 here methinks.

****ing Philistine...

^Grown man not able to cope with the existence of perspectives and experiences that don't match his own.

I can cope. You're a Philistine. There. I've coped.

It's ok, I'm used to MB snobbery. Naturally, I don't respect it.
It's as familiar as that particular shade of blue that defines the look of this site.
I have no respect for the musical opinions of snobs. I mainly get my recs from sites with wiser people.

**** outta here then.

No. I like this place despite some of the bad attitudes and your presence.

MB really is toxic. I'm thick skinned, so that's why I'm still around.
Newbies leave because MB has **** culture. Fact.