New CD CD

by New band

reviewed by seth, 2/21/2002

Sounds great! Can't stop tapping my toes and humming along.

strange letters CD

by scarlet's well

reviewed by fhazel, 4/4/2001

I've been listening to the songs on this record incessantly ever since Kate sent me an MP3 of "Why Do Spirits Haunt Ruby Auburn?" I consider the repeated listenings worthwhile, as I am laying the groundwork for my future life as the mysterious elderly American butler working for a small, wealthy family in Cornwall. As the children grow into their destined roles as participants in the timeless battle between good and evil in the universe, they will remember my strange habit of singing to myself as I performed my household duties. It will be a memory for them of simpler times, before they have to save the world.

The songs I will sing are songs from this record. The aforementioned woeful tale of Ruby Auburn will be one of them, along with "The Water-Shrew Shuffle," "Sweetmeat," and "The Captain's Song."

Depending on your taste or lack thereof, I have an appreciation for or immunity to sound of banjos and accordions, which this album is rife with. And early Kate Bush-style keyboards! And I am bound by my own English seaside butler destiny to love any song about boats or pirates. Hey, it's not saving the world, but perhaps one day I can defuse a tense situation in a bar with a sea shanty singalong. I'm afraid however, that in the same way tyrants always shoot the messenger, drunken louts always beat the shit out of the accordion player. That's why I'm memorizing the Carollian lyrics from this CD instead of memorizing fingerings on an accordion. I just want to help in my own small way.

It's great when storytellers become musicians. St. Etienne have that gift, as do Scarlet's Well. Sarah Cracknell on her own doesn't have it, I should add. Although Lipslide still has some top-notch catchphrase choruses. But there's no story there. There are no battle hymns of animal armies, village gossip set to rhyme, or whimsical mayors. Maybe that's just the modern world. We don't have villages anymore, and the animal armies are all underground.

It's rollicking, it's sinister and sexual and all that good stuff. It's on Siesta Records and Bid from the Monochrome Set is behind it. Does it sound like them? I think not, but I wouldn't know. It has girl and boy vocals. And an orchestra. And it proves the world revolves around me with it's me-tailored greatness.

So far I've memorized "The Captain's Song," "Sweetmeat," and most of "The Water-Shrew Shuffle." Nobody will ever accuse me of holding back, and if they did, I'd tell them they've got it backwards... this stupid clockwork world is holding out. Why isn't Scarlet's Well a genre instead of a gem?

chelsea 27099 CD

by vitesse

reviewed by fhazel, 3/18/2001

I was having a drink at the Waterloo Ice House one sunny late-afternoon with New Order, and a song from this album came on. Of course I'm lying... I don't drink except on Jacob's balcony. The world could learn a few lessons there.

OK, record review, let's go. Let's see... advanced capitalism! Does that phrase bring to your mind images of those posters depicting advanced gum disease like it does mine? So, we're soaking in it. Do you know what it means? Big companies start building buildings and then just kind of stop when the economy collapses. And we've got to live with it. You've seen it in action before... they build the streets but not the houses. They whet your appetite but pick your pockets at the turnstyle.

Good people need good music to live through this. But it can't be just anything. I always have need for a record that sounds bored but not ungrateful so I can drive around town. For when I'm in the city and I cannot be distracted. What is so distracting is that the world is not rocks and trees and oceans... it's concrete and smoke and electronics. So you have to fight fire with fire and cloak yourself in smoke and electronics. But not, obviously, concrete, because you would suffocate. Vitesse are a godsend. If only god had sent Joan of Arc sensual and sparkling synth-pop instead of visions. She could have written a song called "OMD" instead of being burned at the stake.

Vitesse always makes me appreciate the historical effort involved in making machines sing. The synthesizers are cool, the tape hiss is on you like freeway noise. It's like you had a sexy tour guide pointing out the city lights through the midnight fog. Later you'll go dancing, but for now you just tap your feet. Along with the gentle drum machines. Polite and unobtrusive drum machines like they were raised by an English grandmother. Not like the drum machines in that Jesus techno I hear on the bus.

You want to know what makes this album so appropriate for the time. Well, even Rock N' Roll is a lie now. It wasn't supposed to be, and that's why it hurts to hear it. It doesn't work, and they think making it louder will fix it. Nope. But synth-pop was born faking, so as the world has come around to total dishonesty, it must come to the rescue; our listening to it lays naked before us an x-ray of today's city. Only refinement can see through the calcined rebellion. Oh, it's unfocused and artifical and a little distant, but the delightful music-box melodies of Vitesse remind us that it was made in our image. You could warm up to it. It would be worth losing some sleep to try. At least, they inspire such feelings. And they're 100% irony-free! As Michael Stipe sang in "Voice of Harold" before he became imprisoned by irony, "they're real. they mean it."

There is a cat that frequents Jacob's balcony called Ock-mock. She's named after exotic crackers. A sturdily built black cat. With a bottomless black pit of a tummy to match her silky fur. No matter how many times a day you fill her dish, she eats it all and cries out for more. It's a special dish Tamara got that says "more please" at the bottom. When Ock-mock goes to cat heaven, her tombstone will read "more, please." That's what I want from Vitesse. And deep down, isn't that really what we all want? Deep down. Like an expensive toothbrush cleans.

Oh yeah, Magnetic Fields, old New Order, drummer was in Aden and Toulouse, writer for The Onion. Vitesse is French for "speed." They should call their next CD "Mille Bornes." It means "A thousand milestones" and is a fun card game I learned to play in Montreal. I never thought I'd say it, but I like this new album better than the first one, which I still love. And I should get credit for actually listening to the CD as I wrote the review.

special view CD

by the only ones

reviewed by cobra libre, 11/30/2000

This CD has a round orangish sticker on it that says "The Nice Price," but I paid $9.99 for it, and if you ask me, that price isn't so fucking nice. What about FREE--that would be a nice price. Anyway, "Another Girl, Another Planet" is one of the best pop songs ever.

roxy music CD/LP

by roxy music

reviewed by cobra libre, 9/19/2000

This is the Roxy Music record with the scantily-clad woman on the cover. More interesting, though, are the shots of the band members. Take a look at this photo of wanky guitarist Phil Manzanera. You can't fake that kind of cool. It's nothing, though, compared to the photo of Bryan Ferry (not depicted here, haha). My girlfriend loves the following lines from "If There Is Something":

I would put roses round our door
sit in the garden
growing potatoes by the score

But the best song is "Virginia Plain."

pathways and dawns CD

by peter ulrich

reviewed by fhazel, 9/16/2000

projekt put something out by an ex-4AD artist! what a coup. ex-dead can dance, even. that's like having the queen over for tea. okay, projekt has put out like a hundred records by now, so they're not really fighting off the "4AD wannabe" image anymore, but hey, goths hold grudges for a long time, and will keep bringing up that psycho stalker soulwhirlingsomewhere CD. they also apply eyeliner smudges in long lines! oh me. so, peter ulrich was the percussionist in dead can dance. possibly also the flautist's understudy. this album is produced by brendan perry (god i wish he would produce heidi berry again), who also plays the triangle on a few tracks. so does it sound like dead can dance? yes. but only spiritchaser-era dead can dance, and only sometimes. really it goes all over the place. track five, for example, sounds like flux-era love spirals downwards. the last song is like a missing track from eno's another green world. well, i'm actually listening to even as we speak's "feral pop frenzy" as i write this, so you can see i have no credibility. instead of listening to this album, it features in my daydream about having a proper job and a proper apartment, with wooden furniture and a window overlooking the tops of trees. really i have a temp job i lied my way into and... peter ulrich. OK. 6 out of 7 stars on a scale of thumbs up. i have to fold laundry now.

high ball me! CD

by moose

reviewed by fhazel, 9/16/2000

it's 3am and i have to go the train show with my dad tomorrow. so check back around saturday afternoon. in the meantime, just buy it.
























this is a test. la la la

heaven's knot CD

by spoonfed hybrid

reviewed by fhazel, 9/16/2000

ian you sly dog