Pocket Symphony

Today's Music of the Day is AIR's Pocket Symphony. This album was released in 2007 and was actually purchased on CD by me; I believe I listened to it intently for a few weeks and then put it in a stack of CDs to be pawned / resold, despite not hating it. My priorities being elsewhere, this disc somehow avoided being purged from my residence and survived to make it to the office today.

The overall sound here is subtle, atmospheric, maybe a little foreboding, possibly some pretense. It's kind of a pop album, in the sense that you can slow pop down to the point where it almost puts you to sleep; I would refrain from calling this 'ambient' or 'trance', though. The album is mostly dominated by strings and keys, with vocals on about half the tracks.

This is a solid work, for the most part - the first couple instrumental tracks in particular are very good. I do think that the sound stays in its comfort zone a little too much, though; the group's previous album, Talkie Walkie, did a better job of stretching its boundaries, so Pocket Symphony, for all of its lush composition, is a bit of a letdown. In particular, the later instrumental tracks are nicely layered, but don't have much going on besides the initial blend of sounds. I do also have to call out the vocal tracks, which aren't so great - "One Hell of a Party" in particular is mediocre at best.

Overall, this album probably gets a shrug from me. "Space Maker" and "Once Upon A Time" are excellent; the other tracks fall somewhere between 'ok' and 'meh'.

In Other News:
I still don't have the new Neko Case album. WHAT IN THE NAME OF CRAP IS WRONG WITH ME.

Potluck, or Damn You Library

Today, instead of an entry focused on one album, I'm going to give some thoughts on a few albums that I got from the public library this week. And the entry is largely negative! Enjoy.

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV - I couldn't get into this one. The album was just too sparsely populated, and there wasn't enough going on to interest me at most points through I-II, so I didn't make it to III-IV, presumably. Not awful, I just couldn't see myself listening to it again.

Jethro Tull - The Very Best Of - in between the high moments, such as "Aqualung" and "Locomotive Breath", is a lot of flute-based crap that seems like it was cut from the Monty Python and the Holy Grail (or whatever the official title is) soundtrack for being too over-the top. So, yeah. Some interesting songs but mostly moments of 'how am I supposed to take this seriously?'. (Note: I initially made a typo and had written 'flute-based rap', which might actually be great. Who would do something like this? Are The Roots busy right now?)

A Fine Frenzy - One Cell in the Sea - now this wasn't half-bad. Unfortunately, the disc was scratched all to hell and I only got to listen to the first five or six songs. It seemed pleasant with a chance of interesting, though I can't say I was intrigued enough to run out and buy it.

AIR - 10,000HZ Legend - I didn't care for this one much, either. It seemed to be borderline easy listening, and just kind of mediocre. Maybe it's just that AIR's Talkie Walkie was very good and this, well, isn't so much.

Spinto Band - Moonwink - This one had a little bit of potential, maybe, but it was derailed by what I call 'Clap Your Hands Say Yeah' syndrome. By that, I mean that there was one aspect of the record - specifically in both cases, the vocals - which was so grating that it negated the other positive aspects of the record. Some of these songs might have been okay, but the singer seemed intent on just wailing through every one of them, and the entire album suffered for it. (Note: maybe these songs aren't so great, but 'horrendous' trumps 'mediocre' every time.)

So there you have it! A little ray of sunshine for your otherwise dreary Monday.

In Other News:
This is going to be a busy week. But hopefully a 'good busy' week.

Talkie Walkie

Today's Music That Somehow Jason Neglected To Write About is AIR's Talkie Walkie. This is an album that I tracked down a couple years ago, after hearing the haunting, gorgeous "Alone in Kyoto" in Lost in Translation. The movie is something I could probably write about as well; I was particularly fond of it when I saw it in the theater, and I really associate it with a particular period of my life. Regardless of what you think of it, I liked it, and the soundtrack was a large part of that.

Anyhow, Talkie Walkie is probably my favorite AIR album. If you haven't heard AIR, first of all, get out from under your rock, and second, they probably sound like, well, I'm not sure. Their music is all kind of dreamy, like an orchestra in your pocket. They aren't quite ambient, but their music is definitely something that isn't up front with what it wants. It's definitely more like a book than a movie, not immediately gratifying but worth a listen. The songs here don't quite jump out of the speakers, but they bounce enough to force the listener to pay attention. I really like the atmosphere of this album, eerie without being blatant in any regard. Songs that stand out: "Venus", "Mike Mills", of course "Alone in Kyoto".

In short, this album agrees with me; I sometimes with AIR rocked a little harder, maybe even a little at all, but I much prefer this to the Coldplays of the world. This is a good album, spooky even, definitely worth a listen.

In other news:
Man are my blog entries disjointed when I am hungry.