Zhanteimi

What a terribly bland album that's so inoffensive it's offensive! On a couple of their tracks, it's like they're looking through a window at their old ways of playing and songwriting and trying to imitate it but failing. Wow, how much do you have to suck to fail at failing? This album is so shockingly bad I don't know where to begin. Every song sounding the same? Every song sounding like a bad copy of Coldplay ten years too late? The banal lyrics not matching the tunes? It's like one guy brought in a shitty song, and another brought in shitty lyrics and they just threw them together in the most awkward way imaginable. I actually grew angrier as the album progressed.

Fuck this album, and fuck this band.

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Zhanteimi

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Frownland

I saw a review with a headline that touted it as "their most experimental to date" .

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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.

Zhanteimi

I’m writing this little entry on very little sleep. A typhoon kept me up all night—and then the power went out. Trees being uprooted. I ran to the store in the middle of the night and bought a lot of ice so I could throw my perishables into a cooler. I’ve got the sound of that typhoon ringing in my memory, so this album’s first track is par for the course. A pretty wild ride that eventually settles into something—though not predictable—at least calmer than before. There is a kind of placidity after the storm.

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Zhanteimi

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Zhanteimi

This topic is more for those of us who curate their collections, not just stream or playlist music.

My current listening project is having an unintended side effect on my collection. I'm coming across albums and/or bands that are in my collection and...I'm not sure why they're there. I guess I liked them well enough at one time, but now I just don't care. I've moved on, outgrown them, or have refined my tastes. The most recent casualties are Explosions in the Sky, Mastodon, Ozric Tentacles, Soen, Judee Sill, The Byrds, Lambchop, The Frames, and Dire Straits. I just found myself shrugging and thinking "no, not really, no".

This goes hand-in-hand with my reason for listening to music: I am creating a virtual Museum, a place where I can "walk" the halls and whatever I hear is amazing to my ears. And thus, anything that doesn't rise to that level gets cut.

I did a huge purging a year ago (EDM, mostly) and thought I was done, but this random listening thing is now calling up albums and bands that slipped through the cracks. So, I'm making brutal cuts as I refine, prune, and make things perfect.

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Zhanteimi

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Zhanteimi

Canterbury scene artists just don’t do catchy love songs well. I think it’s because a lot of the blokes are, at least in part, brains in jars. They’re very good at tongue-in-cheek love songs like “Golf Girl”, but that’s because they approach love as a kind of curious puzzle. At least that’s my impression. This album is the farthest thing from hot blood, so Caravan is at its best when they stick to mellow, quirky optimism.

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Zhanteimi

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Zhanteimi

Okay, well Egypt is where these three dudes jammed this. One only of the guys is from Egypt, actually, the other two being from Libya and the States. But still. Egypt is where the magic happened. Besides, the cover art is unashamedly Egyptian. This album rocks, but what I like best is when the music leaves the rock behind and descends into some interesting experimental soundscapes. On the long seventh track, I enjoyed the breakdown of structure.

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Zhanteimi

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Zhanteimi

I really like the long instrumental intro of the album before he ever sings a word. The simple acoustic suite really sets the mood, making the title track (below), with all its quiet earnestness, snag my attention. It’s funny. I’ve gotten to the point where I can recognize Child Ballads by their storytelling, and this one is another excellent example from the long list of traditional folk songs of the British Isles.

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Zhanteimi

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Zhanteimi

Okay, never mind that there are 12 tracks when the album’s title is “Eleven dances to fight migraines”. Maybe that first part of the first track—that silly little intro?--doesn’t count. I’ve never had a migraine, so I have no idea if this music would help fight against what I understand is rather crippling pain. Perhaps it helps one make sense of the colors exploding in his brain as he lies in the dark. But I’ve heard that when you’ve got a migraine, you don’t want any stimuli, and that would include music. Well, anyway, since I don’t have migraines, I’m able to enjoy this lush, quirky, silly little collaboration of an album. It’s rather disjointed, like vignettes of songs all put together. One thing I love about RIO bands is how many instruments they employ. And the singing—always surreal and atmospheric—with some interesting choral experimentation. Anyway, back to migraines...I’m pretty sure the annoying little girl on “Tous les trucs qu'il y a là dehors” would send anyone who has a tendency to get migraines immediately into very painful territory. I hate it when people let their kids sing on their albums.

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Zhanteimi

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Zhanteimi

These guys rock, and it would’ve been fun to have caught one of their live shows. They have a lot of positive energy and are able to rock out and soothe with equal proficiency. And then we get to the title suite, the concerto itself, a magnificent twenty-minute opus wherein you hear all the maturity and passion Focus is able to muster. Some strong Floyd-esque guitar licks on display here, too. Everything before this is appetizers—damn good appetizers, though.

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Zhanteimi

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Frownland

Nice. I assume that you know about Aksak Maboul's non-collaborative RIO records right?

Is there yodeling though?

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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.