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About 50%-75% of what we receive will be reviewed here. To be frank, there are plenty of review submissions that just don't fit in with what we do here, and therefore, we here at OE HQ find little interest in them. All of this in mind, it's probably a good idea to E-mail us before you send us your stuff. The usual turnaround is 4-6 weeks
Check out our classic Archive reviews section, or click HERE for some of last years reviews!
All reviews are by The Mangled Mousekeeper, unless noted. E-mail Here
Here are the latest reviews!(UPDATED 2/10/2004)
MJB - Bad Faith CD-R(Semper Lo-Fi)This agreeably dark disc captures the musical element of sadness and despair the way a home-producer would four-track a Ralph Mctell or Jimmie Spheeris(at their most desperate, of course!). This is not a bad thing, actually, it is quite the contrary. Wonderful folk-flavoured melodies invoke the most dis-heartening wintry imagery, Bleak and to the point, without forgetting his roots, and some rather killing riffs for good fun too! Standouts include the lonely "LetDown", the tasty "Apple Orchards", the wish-they-were-anthems(maybe someday!) "Kite" and "Hey 40". Even includes a great Beatles/Led Zeppelin storytime rant over some mind-numbing jamming. Pick of the litter right here, folks. Get in touch here:http://www.semperlofi.com/ |
Charles Rice Goff III/Don Campau - Re-Upholstered Vinyl CD-R(Lonely Whistle/Taped Rugs) CD-RFrom the warped minds of Charles Goff III and Don Campau comes a rather inventive split release featuring 10 cover tunes on one li'l disc that'll sure you make you grin(cheek to cheek style, not that fake half-grin that always gets you in trouble downtown!). These guys pay their musical respects to some of the greats here(David Byrne, Robert Wyatt, The Fugs, David Bowie, etc.) in about the weirdest way imaginable. Especially hot is the slap-happiest version of the Donovan classic, "Epistle to Dippy" I ever did hear! Utilizing tape speed vocal treatments, drum loops, in-and-out whirliness and a we're-having-fun-whether-you-like-it-or-not attitude that makes this disc shine with the best of the tribute discs! Get in touch here: http://www.geocities.com/padukem/ and http://lonelywhistle.tripod.com/lwcatalog/ |
Joe Piket and The Storm - The Waters of Lethe CD-RIn Greek mythology, the Lethe (pronounced "LEETH-ee") is one of the rivers that flow through the realm of Hades. Called the River of Oblivion, the shades of the dead had to drink from this river to forget about their past lives on earth. And so the main character in this Prog Rock (what else?) song sits on the banks of Lethe, pondering whether or not to drink. Soon a female vision appears to help him decide what to do, ensuring him that "darkness and fear" disappear when you drink from the Waters of Lethe." And so he drinks, and although he "lives eternally" he "just as well had not been born." Poor thing. This CD single has two versions of "The Waters of Lethe" (one a "radio edit," trimmed down to just under 4 minutes, and the "full version," which clocks in at just under 12 minutes) and a one-minute b-side. However, the b-side ("Flight"), with its brevity and feel, acts as the intro to the 12-minute version anyway. Since this is Prog Rock, I'm not sure that the radio edit will have much appeal, for in Prog Rock all is excess, and indeed, the 12-minute version does the song more justice than the 4-minute edit.The instrumentation is of professional-caliber: the bass plugs away like lightning at times; the guitar work is exceptional, especially on the solos; the drums ride the Prog into the sunset; the snyth glitters like the sun drenched waters of Lethe. The entire song, really, is very well done for what it is: one-half Andrew Lloyd Webber, one-half Yes. The part of the song I like the most is when it breaks down in the middle (somewhere in the sixth minute) and there's some nice delay on the guitar -- reminding me of the mellower parts of Yes' "Heart of the sunrise." Here I'm floating in the fantasy...Pure Prog Gold. Great work! For Joe Piket & The Storm bookings & information, contact Bernadette Giacomazzo of Worldwide Audio/AkashaMultiMedia at (516) 322-1101 * bgiacomazzo@optionline.net from Encyclopedia Mythica (online) REVIEW BY KPC |
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Jeremy Weissman - Good morning my neighbors When I was twelve, and was taking my first airplane ride, I was scared to death of the takeoff procedure. Unfortunately, on that day I had to land and takeoff on three separate occasions (I hope my mother saved a lot on the tickets for the non-direct flight). In order to get through the takeoff process without freaking out, I listened to The Cars song "Magic" in my Walkman headphones throughout each takeoff, until we were well in the air. For some reason the song calmed me down. With that in mind, in the event that one day I have the opportunity (or I am forced) to travel outside of the Earth's atmosphere, I would appreciate having this 3-track Jeremy Weissman EP along for the ride. Although it's not what I would call interstellar, it has an otherworldly tinge to it. It's like the soundtrack for a visit to a Happy Alien Carnival. The strongest track, "Oracle", not only transports me out of the atmosphere, but transforms my mood as well: not unlike The Cars "Magic", I can't be unhappy, nor can I be frightened of anything (even air travel) listening to this EP. Even with the darker elements of the closing track, "Good night, yea right" I still have a smile on my face and a groovy bounce in my step. You can contact Mr. Weissman at jlweissm@artsci.wustl.edu. REVIEW BY KPC |
Wes McDonald - Cuttin' up rocks CD(Magical Solution Records)Wes McDonald never wanted to grow up. He wanted to be nine years old forever. Adulthood is described in the title track: an endless life of "cuttin' up rocks". Still, he doesn't let this get him down; he goes on to say that even if his arms didn't work, instead of cuttin' up rocks he'd be "kickin' up dust". He paints his visual lyrics in a hard yet solemn intertwining of college and southern rock, of Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He laughs at the world for laughing at him. Yes, Wes may be a little strange, but the world that finds him strange is even stranger, so he flips the world the bird and keeps chuggin' along, with well-crafted songs and world-weary voice. Check it here: http://wmcplan.com/ REVIEW BY KPC |
Harry Salzberg - Tiger Bay CDIf Easy Listening music is created in order to lull one into a state of unconsciousness, then Mr. Salzberg has succeeded on every level. I am very much a night person. I typically stay up until after midnight -- and I was asleep by 10:30 the night I listened to this album. This mid-tempo batch of songs keeps the same instrumentation of keyboard strings, piano, drums, and rhythm guitar (with occasional flourishes of distorted solo guitar -- maybe this is what David Gilmour is doing now?) has melodies so simple that it actually teaches you the difference between New Age and Easy Listening. As soon as the music rises to a level one might call interesting, it quickly fades out so as not to offend its target audience of elderly folk, dentist's offices, elevators, religious types, and those with serious heart conditions. If you're worried you might be taking too much valium, next time try a dose of Harry Salzberg instead REVIEW BY KPC |
Jim Hollywood Tire CD(Recluse Records)Their music goes down like a sweet, smooth amber microbrew on Long Island; like looking out over The Sound in a seaside bar when the sun's going down all orange and sandy on one of those beautiful August evenings. The breeze is coming in soft and delicious like a warm piece of fruit and your girlfriend is wearing something white and airy but you know she's wearing nothing but a string bikini underneath and you know you're getting laid tonight. The jams are the 70s style that occasionally bring Blues Traveler to mind, and they have a lite harmless white-boy rapping/singing style that harkens Sugar Ray, but only after someone forgot Mark McGrath only drinks decaf. Two guitars, bass, drums. The keys are superfluous on all but two songs ("Dead girl," which is not as dark as it sounds, and "Wandering home"). I bet these guys kick big ass onstage; the somewhat stiff production sounds as if it doesn't do them justice. They are all great musicians, they can really play: they're tight and the two guitar stereo sound meshes seamlessly, the fluid bass lines & pops make you only wish it were higher in the mix, and the drums; staccato toms and soft rides have you moving your tush even though you're still sitting. Their technical prowess overshadows any pretense one might find in tracks such as "Wandering home" and "Limp rock" the latter of which is an unnecessary parody of rock/rap artists like Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock that just doesn't fit on this album at all. The only other jarring bit is the middle of the "Reggae song" in which the mellow song turns punk-ish. The punk belittles a reggae song that actually fits this band's style very well and was making my fifth beer go down even smoother than the first four. The tracks that best fit the laid-back funk-lite style are the devil-may-care "A little lovin'" and "Never gonna." The latter features a different singer for the rap, giving it a slightly harder edge. But you're still drinking that microbrew in Long Island; you never get to the gritty, dirty city. This is all sunsets and parties on the beach. REVIEW BY KPC |
Charles Goff III - Pop Psychle CD-R(Taped Rugs)Delightful disc full o' chompy nuggets, much like the liner notes describe. Lots of hooky-flavourings and pop-meanderings here. 17 cuts here, with oft-time arrangements sounding like a delightful amalgam of Early White Noise(if you know the stuff, then you know the STUFF!) and Joseph Byrd's bastard twin brother on some of those newer designer drugs that even he didn't know about in the 60's, From multiple(yes, I said Multiple!) tunes about baseball(I missed much of Rickey Henderson glory as well!) to a go-for-it-in-your-face-not-quite-what-you'd-expect-but-ya-keep-on-listening blues number(Union Blues), this is quite a dandy release, sure to please just about everyone that actually tunes in. Thumbs way the hell up. Get in touch here: http://www.geocities.com/padukem/ |
Valerie - This Is My Dream (CD-R Single)Not sure how this one fell in to my grubby paws, but this is hands down the best 9/11 song I have ever heard. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that because of some owed respect to any artist singing about such an intense tragedy, but this is a genuine heartfelt folksy ballad, complete with speech excertps from Ole Bush himself. Can you imagine how great this is? Can you beat that? It really dones't get any better than this folks. |
Ace Cole - Wildflowers CD-RAce Cole has succeeded is creating the soundtrack to the yet-to-be-made film documentary about the mid-1980s. The cheese is melting all over the keyboards and the little catchy pop riffs and changes are Pop Top 40 stuff straight from 1983. Although this is largely an instrumental CD, I can almost hear Don Henley, Phil Collins, Roland Orzabal, and even Richard Page crooning along in my head. I'm not sure why Ace has chosen to sing on only four tracks: the reggae-influenced "Sweet Jamaica," the funny-but-true "We need a hero," the white-boy gospel of "Salvation" and "Touch of jazz," which speaks for itself. His voice is very good; I just wish he would use it more often. If more of these songs had vocals, I might be less inclined to dust off the Betamax and pop in my tape of Miami Vice reruns. The quality of the playing here is top-notch, with the keys and guitar at the forefront. The guitar solos have that metallic crunch of distortion on them, and the keys plunk out toe-tappin' melodies like mad. Ace is obviously a above-average songwriter and performer. The standout on the album is the title track, which changes the mood from glitzy 80s pop to pastoral delight. Birds are chirping to open and close the track, bookending peacefully dueling acoustic steel strings which help us drift away to the meadows and forests of "Wildflowers." This track is a thing of rare beauty. An entire album of tracks like this might all meld into one and lose their uniqueness, but here amongst the pop sheen it really stands out, and the rest of the album benefits from it as well. Good work. If pop music history has taught us anything, it's that every twenty years we feel nostalgic for what was going on when we were kids; and Ace Cole is right on time to catch the 80s retro wave that will occur by the end of the first decade of the 21st Century. REVIEW BY KPC |
Walls of Genius - Raw Sewage Vol. 1 CD-RThe genius of Yoko Ono, Sonic Youth, and Devo has already been examined in the music press time and time again. These artists are groundbreaking musicians who challenged the ear and didn't work within the constraints of typical composition and song structure, and in most cases they and those like them were decades ahead of their time. After listening to this Walls of Genius compilation of material dating from 1983 and 1984, we can slap ourselves for overlooking this band while we praised the artists mentioned above. On this CD is a treasure-trove of avant noiserock that would make Kim Gordon smile, Yoko Ono blush, and John Cale stroke his chin thoughtfully (the way the Welsh sometimes do). On tracks like "Red meat/Throbbing earthworm" WoG simultaneously channels the spirits of Richard Hell and Thurman Munster; on "Making a deal with the Druids," it's as if Moe Tucker is right there in the room, thumping away; even on the more traditional acoustic boogie-woogie of "Long tall woman," Leon Redbone would be jealous. WoG's bizarro parody/homage to Cream's "I'm so glad" is not unlike Ciccone Youth's trashing Madonna with "Into the groovey"; and WoG came four years earlier! The 13-minute guitar manifesto that is "Kristin called" would fit in seamlessly on any pre-Goo Sonic Youth album. They can handle minimalism as delicate as Terry Riley, and destruction as desperate as "Sister Ray", sometimes within the same song! WoG covers all the territory you will have heard listening to any college radio station during the past two years, and they did it nearly twenty years ago. Someone needs to discover this band before it's too late. They have it all. Contact Walls Of Genius via Little Fyodor 3277 Raleigh St., Denver CO 80212-1707 and littlefyodor@yahoo.com or http://www.grantrproductions.com/pages/fyodor.html REVIEW BY KPC |
Charles Goff III - Whirledly CD-R(Taped Rugs)Okay, let me just say this to start. It sounds like an alien carnival exploded out of my keuyboard rig all over this cd(Wow, this rocks!). Okay, now that that's out of my system, I'll go on. "Tubesteak Symphony" is a wonderful, and need I say, much needed tribute to the all american cuisine(Hot Dogs), while "Marlboro" is a cool loungy smoking advertisement. Lots and lots of instrumental madness here, like what a clown's nightmares might sound like. "Queen Beatle" is a beautiful piece of rambling cover music that keeps circling in a haunted-house-muzak manner. Creatively dynamic throughout. Get in touch here: http://www.geocities.com/padukem/ |
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Cutter John CD-R Demo Weird Phish-gone-right jamming tracks with extremely messed up-and-down tape speed almost rapped vocals open the cd. Sounds like the vocals were yanked from an LP, and they heavily fucked with the turntable during playback. Very cool. Then we're off into a loose jazz feel(which is quite nice) and ZOOMPH Back to that opening weirdness. After the opening cut, the group hangs out in that loose, slightly soul-flavoured jazz combo sound, which is quite good. But as good as it does get(and it gets fairly hot), I can't get enough of those tape speed warp-vocals. You can contact Cutter John at cutterjohn@comcast.net. |
Sketch - Sketch EPIncredibly precisely ornate and mathematically arranged, with creative counterpoint balance on all 4 ends of Sketch's musical spectrum. The slick bass and drum combo make a carefully dynamic waterfall of a backdrop to the somewhat frenzied guitars. As instrumental records go, this is pretty neat. Often times these sort of records leave the listener wishing for a vocalist to break up the instrumental vaguesness, but here the repition is what holds it all together and separates the boys from the men. Not to mention some rather bizarre sudden shifts! The wonderful atonal "Chasko!) is my pick of the litter here. Cool EP Get in touch here: http://www.sketchnoise.com/ |
Jim Testa - Songs My Father Never Sang EP CDthe opening cut, "Jean Shepherd" is a great acousti-power-pop number, a la a post-pop side-trip down They Might Be Giants lane. Great toy piano and keyboard spurts all over this short release. Jim's got a quirky, semi-tonal gruffed-up voice, which works quite well as an accompaniment to this set of songs, and he presents his croonal soundwaves with class(or is that style?). "Incredible Shrinking Man" is a bizarre new wave meets doo-wop storytime number, while "Bad New York Band" might just be a humorous and ironic anthem to more then enough bands in the world. Classic! Nice EP, let's hear more, eh? Get in touch here: http://www.jerseybeat.com/jimtesta.htm |
Friends of Mescalite - Picnic at Hanging Rock CDPretty cool avant-hard-space-pysche from New York. The disc opens with an extremely elaborate eight part mini-whack-rock-opera(of sorts) about alien abductees and the usual madness that accompanies such travesties. Scott Prato's vocals are fairly strong throughout the cd, and rather melodically inventive over some asbtract chord structures and tightly knit bass-drum grooves. Not exactly lo-fi, but then again this is no big budget extravaganza, and that works for them. The Friends of Mescalite create an interesting intergalactic spectrum of sound by mixing sitars, saxophones and weird synth sounds over a crafty, propelling hard-rockin' sound Well done. Get in touch here: http://www.wooweb.com/WW/CODE/W.O.O.1.html |
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