The Great CD Listen Through - Part II, Chunk 3

[the_eggwhite]

This is a "whilst doing other things" continuation of my great CD listen through.

I listen to music a lot whilst working, so here I'm taking a couple of minutes out after each CD to type up some thoughts and post them up. It's not as thorough as I would be if I was listening at a time other than when I was working... but if I did that then I probably wouldn't finish for years.

At this point, I'm around halfway through the "A" section.


Purple Electric Violin Concerto 2
This is, I think, where Ed Alleyne Johnson's quality started to slip a bit. Well, it's the "solo" work where the quality started slipping, anyway. This, meanwhile, is decent enough... except his wife gets involved in mumbly chanty choral bits every now and then. Whilst I'm sure she's a lovely person, I find her every contribution on her husband's work jarring and artificial sounding. I'll get to their overtly joint work later. That may not be pretty.

On this re-listen, her vocals on this one are less annoying than I remember (although still quite annoying)... probably because memories of their joint work are further away. I don't get flashbacks like I used to. I think I can live with this one. Even better, without the occasional vocals making me spasm, I can appreciate the rest more... and it's actually rather good. I really quite like the twelve and a half minute long improvised track at the end.

Verdict: Keep


Ed Alleyne-Johnson - Echoes
This one was never going to be a strong one, to be fair. It's a covers album. Okay, so it's covers performed busking-style with a 5 string electric violin... but it's still covers, and I didn't like a lot of the originals to begin with. So I'll try to give it a fair shake, but I suspect there's a reason it's remained languishing, unlistened to in my CD drawers.

Upon re-listening, it just ends up sounding too much like muzak versions of the songs. Individually they're quite interesting, but played all together it just blends into an odd easy listening blur. There's good stuff in there, but it's buried in the blandness. It opens with a Coldplay cover ("Clocks"), for god's sake. It's not bad... but then, to be bad it would require substance.

Possibly good if you need familiar but different stuff for background music - or if you're just curious to listen to it. In it's favour, the liner notes say who the originals were by, too. The guy has skill (as you might guess from my habitually buying his albums) but I can't help but think it's a bit wasted on this 33-track double CD.

Then again, some of the tracks work surprisingly well. Who'd have thought that "By The Way" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers would work so well as a violin instrumental? Or "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds"?

Verdict: If it was a colour it would be BEIGE. Anyone want an inoffensive background music CD? I've got one I just don't think I'll listen to.


Ed & Denyze Alleyne-Johnson - Fly Before Dawn
Before I put this one on to play, I'm going to state that I bought this CD on the strength of half of the artists involved. From my earlier comments, you can probably pick up on the source of my disappointment with it. Denyze Alleyne-Johnson's voice just grates on my ears.

Now, I know a lot of other folks who really like bands with singers with remarkably similar voices. Bands I also get annoyed with. They're usually popular, female fronted pagan rock bands. If you like them, you might actually like this CD... unlike me. Let me know and we can try to avoid adding to landfill! I realise I'm not exactly selling it, but it's mostly just a "not my taste" thing.

That said, I'm half tempted to not even put it in the player to listen to it in case my stereo catches something. I'm certainly not going to put it in whilst I'm working... I expect the skip button to get a lot more use than it has on previous CDs!

[time passes]

I've put it on. It's actually a lot less annoying than I remember. I may have done the poor lady a bit of a disservice. I can hear good bits in there, but I still don't really like her voice. It's got that slightly nasal edge that often occurs in folky/pagan stuff - but not quite as badly as I remembered. Except for the *really bad* Jefferson Airplane cover. Folks, if you're going to cover anything previously sung by Grace Slick you need to be able to EITHER shout down foghorns whilst carrying a tune OR make a totally different take on it . If you can't do either of those then step away or learn how, because it will be an embarrasing failure otherwise.

Verdict: TO GO - let me know if I've somehow managed to sell you on it, and it'll be yours for free.

Yes, folks, I've managed to identify a CD that I want to get rid of... and another I could take or leave.


Next up:
It seems that the letter A is popular with the more mellow bands. Next up I'll be listening to three Amethystium albums - Odonata, Aphelion and Evermind.

Comments

[izzy-stradlin.livejournal.com]

Denyze Alleyne-Johnson. eurgh.

[eggwhite.livejournal.com]

Like I say, not nearly as bad as I remembered. Folks who like some of the pagan-rock type stuff (Inky Sucky, etc...) may get on okay with her voice.