bye bye emusic.com

iTunes younger, cheaper, cooler cousin is no longer very young, very cheap nor very cool.

What with the creeping prices the leaking of indies and embracing of mainstream, eTunes… i mean emusic  has just become a smaller, cheaper, crapper version of iTunes.

I’ve bailed after finding less and less of your catalogue appealing each month I was struggling to actually fill my (much diminished for the money) download quota.

 

What started out as a really cheap, risk free way of finding new bands became a much less cheap way of wading through mounds of crap, old music to discover the occasional gem.

Neither am I a diamond miner, nor am I a long-tail cool-aid drinker so I’m afraid I’ve had to say good bye after a fun (at first) five years…. I kept holding out on the hope that one day you would come to your senses. But you never did, so I guess it’s…

 

…Good Bye Emusic…

 

emusic download manager blues and repurchasing

emusic is really starting to take the piss. Price hikes and monthly song quota cuts has already dented its once proud image as “iTunes’s younger, cooler brother.”

Now we have a site with buggy, sub standard download software and a policy which aims to make you repurchase tracks that have failed to download fully.

OK, so what happened?

I clicked on the download button, and the album started to download. (Much slower than it used to, I might add.) I then paused the download momentarily by accident (clicking the pause button).

When I clicked resume, it resumed from the next song! I now had two 30 second snippets. Nonplussed, I cancelled the download in the hope that I could restart it… Nope

Going back to the website, I found that there was no longer an option to complete your album… I’d have to pay the whole $6 to download the whole album again!

It’s a download site, for fuck’s sake and they’re charging me PER DOWNLOAD, when it’s THEIR SOFTWARE THAT’S BROKEN.

I really think that this time, I’m done with emusic.

For reference, here’s the mail I sent to their customer support… Not my most eloquent prose, I must admit.

"To whom it may concern"
I paused the download.... when I resumed, 
it tried to download the next track... 
I now have four half downloaded tracks....
I thought if I cancelled the downloads,
and reselected them manually I'd be ok...
but IT SAYS I ALREADY DOWNLOADED THE TRACKS.
With the OPTION OF REPURCHASING (WHAT THE F***?!)
ARE YOU KIDDING!
This is not good enough... You are not iTunes,
the only thing you have going for you is that
your prices are cheap... If you can't make a
system as painless as iTunes you will
go out of business.
Please let me redownload the songs which I paid
for but now don't have.
The album is
http://www.emusic.com/album/modwheelmood-Pearls-to-Pigs-MP3-Download/11475231.html

It says I have 7 tracks but I don't.
I'm getting sick of music's draconian "REPURCHASE"
policies requiring me to justify my existence
every time you have a bug in your software.
Yours, Disgruntled,

Craig Lloyd.

Album Review: People of Earth — Dr. Steel

Was I reviewing an album or a complete online persona? (luv the teddy)

How I found him.

I was checking some suggested artists out on LAST.FM when I came across Ronald McDonald as a suggested artist…. FTW? So, I clicked only to find Steampunk among the genres connected to The Red Haired Clown. I was surprised to find the steampunk actually existed as a music genre, and as a fan of brass goggles (not the clown), I clicked the tag and was presented with a list of thumbnails of artists associated with Steampunk… And there he was, his iconic profile, a beacon of light among the dully and morbidly Gothic profiles that were plugging themselves by adding the avant-garde  SteamPunk tag to their profile.

I’m really sorry, but even Emilie Autumn, who classes herself as Victoriandustrial, was far more Steampunk than any of the emo faces I saw here! And so I was compelled to click on the austere, out-of-place-in-his-own-genre profile of Dr. Steel.

Overview

As I always do before I listen to a new artist, I clicked on his gallery and was confronted with a menagerie of slick images. The sheer imagination, originality and production values of the photos effectively demonstrated what a consummate detail-artist he is. Not only that, but the wide range of influences, including Vaudeville, Jules Verne, Victorian, Lincoln, Industrial, Frankenstein, Tom Waits, Nine Inch Nails, Vlad Tepez and Marilyn Manson are truly a delight to behold.

More importantly, although coming across as intensely, almost pretentiously stylish and cool, there was an immediate intelligence matched with an equal aura of playfulness and frivolity  to the images that was outstanding.

On the Dr. Steel profile page of Last.fm  there was a suggestion of the Dr. Steel Show, so heading over to Youtube I soon found them and each one just has to be watched!

Dr. Steel Show

• Ep #1

• Ep #2

• Ep #3 – doubling as Back and Forth music video.

Immediately beguiled, I headed over to emusic.com in the hope that his albums would be available; they were!

He has made only three albums since 2001 so was clearly not what one would call prolific, nor, by his mere 13,000 odd LAST.FM listeners could he be considered in any way mainstream…

I listened to the 30 second clips before choosing People of Earth as my first album.

People of Earth

Dr. Steel - People of Earth

First up, the song titles are a mixture of Frank Black and Frank Zappa. Fibonacci Sequence… C’mon Seriously? And he made a song about it? What is this, the The Songatron?

1. Imagination
2. Fibonacci Sequence
3. Planet X Marks the Spot
4. Back and Forth
5. Bogeyman Boogie
6. Ode to Revenge
7. Glutton
8. Secret Message
9. Atomic Superstar
10. We Decide
11. Winky in C Minor
12. The Singularity

This album has a number of highlights, from the high energy glam rock opening of Imagination through to the grind-rock of The Singularity, there is a cohesion and theme which sets this album apart from a number of concepts.

The second track, Fibonacchi Sequence is a remarkably unbalancing mix of absurdism and industrial rap, which somehow manages to cover the subject with humor.

The first real highlight of the album comes with Planet X Marks the Spot, an upbeat number cleverly bemoaning the mess that humans have got themselves into. The faithful sampled Mariachi strings and brass, keep the pace and energy levels high with a catchy hook being peppered throughout the song. As the most instrumented song on the album, It also features accordion, saw and bow, music box and steel piano.

Dr. Steel rages against blind consumerism in the catchiest song of the album, Back and Forth (as played in Dr. Steel Show Part 3 – above), which combines an outstanding combination of the swinging 20’s muted trumpets and double bass on top of throaty lyrics.

The weakest part of the album is the instrumental Bogeyman Boogie, which while having an attractive Spanish Guitar riff, comes across as a pale Zappaesque imitation shot through with rather nasty Scoobie Doo cartoonish sound effects… Sorry but this one’s not a keeper.

Dr. Steel gets himself all glammed up and dramatic with the unsettling Ode to Revenge, a Gothic Opera which flits somewhere between Tom Waits at his creepiest and Joe Cocker on heroin. It spins the background story of frustration at modern (American) society and a Fight Club like desire to “Burn it All Down”

Glutton is a Metal-driven, stadium-filling power anthem which has Dr. Steel screaming his way though the track at breakneck pace. This is perhaps the only song you’ll ever heard featuring a Dalek chorus.

He breaks out a Bowie-like spread of electronica for Secret Message, a song which seems to me to suggest someone going mad and beginning to spot messages and patterns in the static.

Atomic Superstar is a curious ode to Godzilla as he rampages through the centre of Tokyo. Fun, perhaps but, but it comes across more a confused and incoherent mess of disparate styles rather than meshing like the other, superior tracks on this album. not as memorable as the other tracks on the album.

Another excellent track can be found in We Decide. Which has Dr. Steels relates a cleverly crafted story in a close miked radio croon over Spanish guitar, accordion and double bass with a simple and very catchy riff. It is notable for its lower tone, more laid back instrumentation and harmonic backing choir.

The Doctor gets all “Nightmare Before Christmas” for Winky in C Minor, another instrumental which comes across more stocking filler than wanted present.

It does however prepare the listener well for the darkest and lyrically most interesting number of the album, The Singularity, which is a darkly brooding rock track on the convergence of humans and technology and the transcendence of genetics.

All in all, Dr. Steel has produced another album, which while not being Earth shatteringly epic in any way, does set out to do what it was meant to… Entertain.

It is an excellent example of production, flair for the humorous and is very, very catchy.

Give Dr. Steel a listen on You Tube.

Elbow: One Day Like This Featured in Apple’s new Macbook Air Commercial

I just watched the recent Apple Stevenote (keynote speech by Steve Jobs) and as usual, Apple chose some uplifting music for the Macbook Air advert at the end of the show, to which I found myself humming along.

Then it hit me who the song was by!

ELBOW!

A rather stoned looking Elbow winning the Mercury Music Prize.

It would seem that Elbow, the band named after what the Singing Detective described as the “loveliest word in the English language,” have finally “arrived!”.

Was it the Murcury Prize they won a few years back that would ear mark them for success? Nope.

Was it the fantastic performance of said song at Glastonbury in the same year? Nope…

No, Apple’s choice of backing track for their new Macbook Air 13″ and 11″ might just prove the break this epically talented band needs to get them and their remarkable back catalogue spanning 20 years or so, some much needed air time.

Here’s hoping that a day like this is just what elbow need to nudge them into the spotlight.

Album Review: Cloud Cult – Who Killed Puck?

Cloud Cult is a band with a long history that I have just started to appreciate. They are hard to identify because of their eclectic mix of acoustic and wired instruments with genre busting arrangements swinging from lo-fi to orchestral not just within any particular album, but within a single track!

As concept or “story” albums go, this one’s story is somewhat low key. It is a loosely themed collection of songs telling the story of the birth of “Puck” his alienation from society, his initial attempts to fit and final rejection ending in death. Depressing subject matter, perhaps, but delivered with a lyricism of startling compassion and warmth that sounds more “hope springs eternal” than Armageddon.

At first I was a little underwhelmed, but having become a fan of The Mountain Goats, Elliott Smith and Lost in the Trees, I knew that repeated listens would bear dividends… And I wasn’t mistaken. What at first appears to be a mishmash of unrelated tracks, or unrelated verses within the tracks, turns out on careful listening to be a finely crafted story of the demise of a young man who had done nothing to deserve his fate.

Who Killed Puck?

1. Where it starts – A track I prefer to think of as “I found God” since that lyric is repeated throughout the whole song. It is a coming of age classic where a boy is constantly reaching higher highs and lower lows on his trip through adolescent to adulthood. Repetitious and remarkably catchy, the simple construction belies the multilayered music that builds slowly throughout the track. It would appear to be the story of the meeting of Puck’s parents.
2. Conception – One voice, one guitar, recorded on a tape deck and filtered to death doesnt get much lower fi than this. A killer melody tugs on the heartstrings and makes this track a Low-Fi masterpiece. Seems to be talking about the soul of Puck moving into its host…
3. 9 Months – a meandering, instrumental track that sways from a Mike Oldfield, Amarok-style multilayered drum heavy “native” rhythm to his electric-guitar heavy, riff laden and back without going anywhere… An ode to Oldfield, perhaps… There is a sense of frustration in the song but it’s title would suggest it is the birth of Puck…. Ending inthe whispered lines “I am Human”.
4. Pucks 6th Birthday – a Micro segue of a warbling childlike taunt…. unsettling stuff. Thankfully short.
5. Becoming One of You – The story of a boy who does anything and everything to fit in with the crowd, ultimately ending in disappointment and rejection. The Eels could have sung the first minute or so of this song, but the almost Heavy Metal like bass and electric guitar which come into the forefront as the track progresses might give the fact away that it wasn’t. At just under a half of the way through, the song takes a left turn and heads into familiar electronica overladen guitarwork with repeated lyrics, as is common throughout the tracks on this album…
6. Ad Brainwash (Part 1) – A minute or so is samples and sounds from the swinging sixties, highlighting consumerism and idleness which blurs into the main event:
   6 Days – One of the highlights of the album. A mutating rhythm underlies a narrated discussion on the brevity of Human existence. Based on a speech by David Brower, an environmentalist and the founder of Friends of the Earth. Nice, but I don’t see how it furthers the concept of the album.

   The lyrics are so compelling, I took the liberty of quoting them here:
   
   Compare the 6 days of the book of Genesis
   to the 4 billion years of geologic time.
   On this scale, 1 day equals about 666 billion years.
   All day Monday, until Tuesday noon
   creation was busy getting the earth going.
   Life began on Tuesday noon
   and the beautiful organic wholeness of it
   developed over the next 4 days.
   At 4 P.M. Saturday, the big reptiles came.
   5 hours later, when the redwoods appeared
   there were no longer big reptiles.
   At 3 minutes before midnight, man appeared.
   One-fourth of a second before midnight, Christ revolted.
   One-fortieth of a second before midnight, the industrial revolution began.
   We are surrounded by people who think
   that what we have been doing for
   one-fortieth of a second can go on indefinitely.
   They are considered normal.
   But they are stark. raving. mad.
   

7. Pretty – Puck finds temporary solace in the infatuation with a girl. The key word being temporary. Starting off with one voice, one guitar, the song builds into one of the strongest, most a soaring climaxes of the album.
8. Sane As Can Be – The song starts off as a gentle acoustic track marks the middle of the album and is perhaps the turning point in Puck’s life as he goes over the edge as he reveals his secrets and philosophy to his girlfriend, who appears to reject him. This turning point comes as the song flips to an electric guitar track with some fine Metal drumming. Comparisons might be drawn to About a Boy mutating into Susu or Spoon.
9. Do You Ever Think About – Segue hears two people discuss suicide as its rhythms build into something which would have fit on the heavier bits of “War of the Worlds”
10. Ad Brainwash (pt 2) – Are two segues in a row technically segues at all? Who knows.
11. Ready To Fight – This song continues on where from Becoming One of You left off and reveals Pucks anger boil over and his rejection of society and its values.
12. Who Killed Puck? – A “noise track” more than a song. You can quite literally hear Puck’s whole life flashing in front of him with lyrics from ‘conception’ leaking in in the background, suggesting his soul’s return to the ether.
13. You Can’t Come Back Again / Close – A beautiful ode to the end of life… turning full circle to ‘Conception’. Again building into a climax of Mike Oldfield “Guitars” proportions.This is where the fun ends, so you might as well stop listening here.
14. Bonus track 1: Lies – A funky yet unremarkable track about, funnily enough, Lies. If it were to fit into the album, it would have been something that Puck got angry about.
15. Bonus Track 2: The Yin and Yan of Sex: A dull closing track. enough said.

Some inspiring Music…

OK I admit this is a recycled post… It’s late, I was asked by a pal on facebook to offer some music suggestions… Half way though, I realised I was actually listing music I like…

Anyway…
I’m avoiding my mainstream faves, like Radiohead, PJ Harvey, The Pixies etc. and it’s a time limited (I gave myself 20 mins to compile this and not a minute more…) report so don’t say “sux compared to xxxx or what about”…. unless you’re offering me some hints on what to listen to…

Here’s some music by people who actually mean what they sing…

Angela Ai – She’s an ABC, somewhat Christian overtones, Piano heavy, Broadwayesque, moments of shining beauty from the darkness.

Tom Waits – Kentucky Bourbon Fried Blues from a man who practically lived on the streets to get his inspiration.

Damien Rice – Awesome emotion, Catholic upbringing, the guy literally has to be carried off of stage on a stretcher.

Magdalen Hsu Li – OMG real life slapyaindaface songs! A truly beautiful person who quite literally went through hell. Famous for her classic, “Fuck Bush” which is actually far lower quality than her usual stuff.

And the rest:
who else who else…

Sia… what a soulful woman. luv luv!!!

Imogen Heap… Best full on fem voice since the Annie Lennox of Eurythmics and solo fame.

Sarah Nixey of Black Box Recorder – Political and Social disconnect brought to life in song.

Emilie Autumn – Life vs. Death, Religion vs. Sex. Violin vs. Rock. Awesome talent, unique voice: Mega intelligent, witty, a gorgeous lolita and a great songwriter (she’s actually one of the finest living violinists on the planet) she’s also a bag of pure contradiction.

The Decemberists – Widest eclectic vocabulary of any band, mixed in with a sweeping vista of influences.

Savatage – Metal – As is often the case with metal, heavy moral/corruption overtones but played out to a T… have Two great albums, Gutter Ballet and Streets.

Gregory Hoskins: Fund this guy randomly last moth… Mix of Sting, Paul Simon and Buena Vista Social Club. The guy is gold.

Didn’t have much to go on but I hope this helps.

’nuff already. I’m off to watch Battlestar Galactica.

The L Word – An Update

(NO SPOILERS, DON’T WORRY!!!)

In my original post, https://nanchatte.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-l-word/ I mentioned that I was rather disappointed at how the show the L Word was shaping up. I thought it was time for an update.

I complained that after eight episodes the program was apparently going nowhere. Well, it would appear that I have managed to manage (!) my expectations.

I am now currently half way through the second series and things have changed quite a lot.

At last, they have created an overall story that permeates the whole series, pushing weekly events into the background for the greater good. Sure there are still titbits that a casual viewer can enjoy, but the story has found its own pace and style and now rewards continued viewing.

The characters are becoming fuller, less random and more interesting with every episode. Minor roles have also become more interesting and stimulating. Real surprises await the viewers and well written, quirky humour litters the whole story.

More importantly, they’ve got the sex scenes under control. I am not a prude, by any stretch of the imagination but by the end of the first series, I was just getting annoyed at the random and graphic nature of the sex that seemed to be added to every second scene, regardless of whether one was needed or not. This second series is like the second year of any long-term relationship. The sex has got a lot more thoughtful, less random and more meaningful. It’s actually now used to enhance rather than obstruct the flow of the story.

Most importantly though, the story threads are themselves heart-warming, touching, funny and moving and sometimes even thought-provoking!

Even the token straight male part has managed to redeem himself with a bit of depth and character!

It’s as if the show itself now has the confidence to carry itself with its audience in the directions it originally intended to go without recourse to cheap titillation.

Whatever the cause is, I’m happy to invest another 13 or so hours in this series.

The L Word – A case of managing expectations

I’ve just started watching the L word – I know a few of you PMed me and were wondering when I’d get round to it. Well, just to let you know: I got ’round to it!

Oh, yeah right, I hear you saying… here’s a guy who thinks he’s keeping up with the Jones’…

So, I realise that there are like, already 6 seasons and I’m far behind everyone else. but, hey… I’ve been tired.

Watching the first series has been a serious exercise in expectation management. Let me tell you why.

Fox Television’s “24” started a revolution in modern television action drama programming. Indeed, we might think of Pre-24 and Post-24 action and drama series programming as fundamentally different entities.

Pre 24 TV drama series, might include typical sleuth programmes such as Cracker, Taggart and Morse where a case is solved each week and the reset button is pressed. Even shows where continuity would have added so much, like the eponymous X-Files that were opened and closed conveniently each episode were crippled by the Scooby Doo Syndrome where audiences were forced to suffer from lines like “If it wasn’t for that gosh-darn-it dog and those pesky kids!” week after week after week. Promises of deep, intriguing and rewarding viewing were stunted by the “43 minute memory span” of a typical episode.

In X-Files, for example, it got to the point where I’d slap my forehead and shout things like,

“For Fuck’s Sake Scully Open Your God Damn Eyes!!! You Lost Two Hours of Your Life when You Were Taken on Board an Extraterrestrial Spacecraft Last Week, Experimented On and had some kind of Alien Chip Implanted in you and Now You’re Going on and on Like an Old Woman About a Man Who Claims to have seen an Alien!?!”

and I just plain lost interest at the end of season Five.

It would appear that Sci Fi suffered the most. It was as if no studio wanted to give their viewers credit for continued interest, despite the seven year run of, say, Star Trek Next Generation, which had only insignificant episode to episode connections but would have done much better with stronger ones.

Notable TV exceptions to this sad situation included lower budget classics such as the socio-religio-sci-fi epic “Babylon 5”, where individual episodes (after the experimental first season) were bound to a strong story arc with deep character development and long evolving plot threads. Yet still, one show “cheap shots” would take precedence over continuity. The more modern “The 4400” and “Taken” also took steps to fortify the overall story even at the expense of a little viewer responsibility.

The breakthrough was arguably reached with Firefly (by Buffy’s Joss Whedon) which spent it’s whole, tragically and unforgivably truncated 14 episode life, just building up the characters’ backgrounds and relationships one by one without even getting to the core of the story! How’s THAT for character development?  Sadly this show was voted out with a “paltry” 6 million viewers, just below the contract renewal threshold. Still, it wasn’t bad figure for a country and western infused sci-fi potpourri that tackled rocky topics such as blind loyalty, freedom of expression and sexuality, religious beliefs vs atheism, the connections between politics and syndicated crime head on, sometimes all in the same episode!

Among this suffering there was, ironically, a raft of cheesy melodramas and two-bit soaps and even crappy sitcoms that often had far deeper arcs and much more intricately twisted plots, not to mention the obligatory “previously…” bit at the beginning of every week to key the audience in to any recent developments they may have missed/forgotten/not bothered to consider/just made up. And this is exactly the sort of TV where this kind of thing is least necessary, where daily plots would probably have sufficed.

Bring out the Jack!
But the Jack’s Sleeping!
Then You’ll just go and have to wake him up!

On the fateful day of 6th of November 2001, Drama programming would forever be changed when Jack Bauer blazed onto the screen and single handedly saved America from all manner of evils, in one of the hottest, most radical concept series of all times. Built on a Hollywood Film budget with A-grade actors and actresses, the best production and editing ever used on TV and special effects that other series would have died for, 24 forwent or paid to get rid of all of the the baggage that held down other series and had the balls to expect, nay, demand its audience to watch once a week, every week, without fail, or else!

And they did, in their millions and millions.

Drama watchers were no longer treated like second class goldfish, but were rather treated to a new, rich experience that turned the whole perception of depth around and made any film less than a trilogy potential seem shallow.

Post 24 dramas pushed north the boundaries of what audiences were expected to remember and take on board in order to follow a series, leaving the directors time and breathing space to develop gorgeous characterisations, beautifully intricate plots, sumptuous histories and backgrounds, and in the case of 24 a whole new government organisation and structure.

TV series, such as Lost, Desperate Housewives, Prison Break proved to be compelling, intelligent television that made the viewer feel like a discerning customer and not a Joe Six-Pack.

• Then along came the L-Word.

Billed as a slick, intelligent, high budget, well produced, “late night” (nudge nudge wink wink) drama about a bunch (flock, gaggle, murder – I don’t know the correct word) of beautiful, sassy lesbians living in Hollywood, no less… Every red blooded male’s fantasy programming…(!)

Fair enough, I was expecting Hollywood glitz, lots of good looking gals, relatable yet ultimately unrealistic characters (ala DH) and so on, perhaps even the odd shallowly disguised sexual double entendre or even a few tastefully, sheet clad morning after scenes.

I was looking forward to an intelligent series which might even linger for a few moments on social/sexual or political commentary thrown in under the pretext of entertainment.

Instead, this show rather unfulfillingly skims over, skirts around or just plain dodges every serious topic it bludgeons its way into at the beginning of each week’s episode and after eight of them, I’m left wondering… When will the real story start?

Stories and concepts are to be applauded for being written with a mainstream audience, albeit with one with a good degree of discretion and open mindedness, in mind. However, this is where the lauding ends, since the stories themselves are written with neither insight, nor focus and are littered with rather over the top, unnecessary sex scenes that actually do little more than obstruct the flow of each episode at critical fifteen minute intervals and in my opinion actually detract from the whole quality.

Case in Point; where another, earlier timeslot show would be forced to have some touching dialogue or nuanced atmosphere to demonstrate the (mostly temporary) feelings the two (or more) onscreen characters might have for one another, The L Word  forgoes the foreplay and gets down and sweaty: rather graphically and entirely unashamedly. Close, maybe but Porn this is not. Still, neither is it subtle, intelligent storytelling.

Sure, there is a veneer of a plot development, but it is really playing second fiddle to the weekly episodes and minor happenings that beset the women.

The protagonists appear thinly drawn and are either completely inscrutable or entirely predictable. Most seem far more promiscuous, eminently more shallow and altogether sadder than any of the LGB (or S) friends I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.

Except for the “model couple” the characters range from childish and impudent, elitist and cliquey (like it’s morally OK for minorities to discriminate humourlessly against larger majorities) through to a number of downright selfishly hedonistic members.

Random or failed story arcs and traits of each character are not so much gently and subtly written out of the story as just left lying burned out and gutted on the side of the road!

To be honest, I don’t really know what points the directors are trying to make or even what impressions of the main characters they are trying to give, but they’re not particularly clear, whatever they are.

Still, despite all it’s flaws, I find myself looking forward to sneaking an hour in here or there, because, just like the sitcoms of old, it has a certain charm in its shallow, static, stereotypically drenched and somewhat bigoted storytelling that frees the viewer from any responsibility of having to remember plot threads or maintain a character directory of relationships to help solve a crisis, or indeed any responsibility at all: morally or otherwise. And of course, it has a Hollywood budget, excellent editing and production values and invariably first rate acting (except for the annoying appearance of a certain lecherous British professor who I remember from a dismal B-movie called Warlock).

Somehow though, I can’t shake the feeling that despite successfully pushing forward the visibility of lesbians in popular culture, they are doing so in an ever so slightly confrontational “sit on this and spin” fashion rather than with a cerebral exchange of opinions that would better aid integration. But then, that’s why tabloids outsell broadsheets, isn’t it?

It’s clear case of aiming for the bright and fancy patchwork rather than the rich at tasty melting pot!

Prodigy? Emilie Autumn

I just don’t get it… Of practically every female artist I listen to of late, someone, somewhere invariably says they “sound like Tori Amos.”

Take Emilie Autumn, my latest audio crush. She’s a multi instrumental, cross genre chameleon of a star with prodigious amounts of talent. Classical violin trained from the age of four, nonconformist, Nigel Kennedy aficionado  in both style and attitude (which subsequently lead her to being kicked out of several prestigious, yet conservative teaching establishments).

“Victoriandustrial” is a label she’s placed on herself, “corsets and combat boots” a juxtaposition of styles that is mirrored in her heavy hitting gothic rock fused classical.  
Yet despite all of this attention and fame granted by her rather sexy alter ego, she has remained true to her solid classical heritage, demonstrating commendably deep and stable roots with her release of a gorgeous classical album at a time when, well, let’s face it, classical is not exactly pop.   

Emily Autumn – Opheliac

So this Tori Amos woman… is she the what then? The root of all modern female artists? The *mother* of all modern female artists? Or is it more a case of a “tastes like chicken” moment when people forget what Tori’s music actually sounds like but are left with just a vague impression, an aftertaste if you will? I’m sorry, but I just don’t see (hear) the resemblance in anything more than one of the many influences (because there are oh so many) to grace her songs.

I mean, come on, there are moments, yes, just like there are moments when the flavour of the food you’re eating becomes a little indistinct, and even… dare I say it, chicken-like.

Yet saying she sounds like Tori Amos is much too simplistic and does her a disservice, as if she’s a follower rather than a setter. Why, then, don’t we add the obvious observations of similarities with Kate Bush’s killer flyaway choruses, Sarah Nixiey’s sumptuous prose, Sia‘s sultry smoked out close-miked vocals, Annie Lennox’s awesome vocal presence, The Cocteau Twins’ complex countermelodies, Siouxsie Sioux’s sexy gothica, Bat for Lashes’ beauty and style, Fayray‘s fabulous classical accoutrements, Imogen Heap’s incredible acoustic vocal flourishes. Heck, let’s even add Bette Midler’s beautiful bar-tale storytelling and noiresque mystique and even an occasional splattering of TLC for heaven’s sake! There are heaps of influences in there because this woman is a one-girl artistic encyclopædia who has experienced and even mastered ranges of music and art beyond what most modern “popstars” could even name. She has more talent than an average studio band rolled up into one sexy gothic lolita package.

Come on, admit it, it was a chicken moment… she doesn’t really sound *that* much like Tori does she?

Good Things Come in Threes: Three Women and their Pianos – Angela Ai (History)

This is the third part of the second article in my series “Good Things Come in Threes”. In the previous two articles, I looked at

• Angela Aki a Japanese-Italian solo artist and pianist, brought up in Japan educated in the US and made famous by her Final Fantasy XII theme tune.
  • ANGELA AKI : HOME  REVIEW
• Fayray, a Japanese singer and pianist brought up and raised in the US before finding major success in her home country, Japan with the album Hourglass.
  • FAYRAY : HOURGLASS REVIEW

 

Angela Ai – History (US, 2001)

In this part, I will be looking at Angela Ai and her landmark album, History.

How I found her

I was looking for the song “Rain” by Angela Aki on iTunes when the new iTunes 8 feature “Genius Sidebar” suggested I might like Angela Ai.

Yeah, that’s a laugh, I thought, new the Genius function might be, but not so Genius when it comes spelling it would appear!

On a whim, I clicked on the identically titled “Rain” by the fictitious and misspelt (or so I thought) “Angela Ai.”

It was not the version of Rain that I had expected. iTunes had no information on their Artist page, but intrigued I jumped across to Last FM to see who she was. Fortunately, Last FM had complete versions of her songs for playback. (The whole track is available here if you’re a Last FM member, or a reasonable chunk can be found on her site here.)

Instead of Aki’s shouttastic rendition of a typically staid love song, I found myself listening to an engaging, short romantic-tragedy in the form of a regular, common-all-garden pop song.

With Ai’s sublime voice, it told an insanely solid tale in its few short minutes about a woman watching in dismay as her best friend, to whom she was the bridesmaid and who she’d had a secret crush on for years, got married! Startlingly bold for a debut single!

I was blown away. This was NOT Angela Aki. Not by a long shot. I had found Angela Ai.

Angela Ai is an American Chinese who was, to quote from her website:

…born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. Her passion for the performing arts began at the age of 5 when she began studying ballet. She studied classical piano at the age of 7 following with brief studies on the violin and flute. While in high school, she began auditioning for and was chosen to be the lead in many of the school musicals and plays.

After graduating from University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Finance, she moved to New York City and started a career in investment banking of all things. Her heart lay elsewhere, however and she went on to study Jazz at the Manhattan School of Music before making a career for herself on Broadway in the US.

She is a technically superb pianist, highly trained in both classical and jazz (as are Fayray and Angela Aki to whom I am comparing her) which has set her up perfectly for a wide range of sounds and genres. However what sets her apart from the other two is her background of voice training and experience on the stage as an actress. That experience alone puts her voice and manner in an entirely different category altogether, and it shows on her album, “History”.

She commands total mastery over all aspects of her performance from the piano to her immaculate voice. And there is only one word to describe her voice: spectacular.

Where Fayray’s voice would deftly and delicately give way on the high notes, Ai’s is right there, in control and without the barest hint of stress or strain. Where Aki would tend to shout in order to wring out her full emotional gamut, Ai’s strength and passion manifests itself much like an ice skater’s performance: Effortlessly graceful yet immensely strong.

Her music

She is Asian, a singer songwriter with a classical and jazz background, she plays piano, she has a fine voice. There the similarities with the other two end.

I consider Angela Ai a rather notable departure from my usual tastes in music, even taking to consideration the changes my library has gone through over the last year.

Where she differs most of the music I usually listen to and the other two women to whom I’m comparing her,  is that she brings the vivid passions and emotions of theatre, drama, the stage and of Broadway musicalsin particular and moulds and tempers them into songs of remarkable simplicity, elegance and beauty.

Every song is a play, every line is a scene: Much closer to Chicago the musical than Chicago the 80’s pop band.

Thus, this simplicity and cross discipline genre busting comes at a price to the listener, however, as her songs tend to be remorseless assaults on your imagination. Each one is steeped in thespian emotions and soaked in graphical imagery painted with fat, wide brush strokes, like the backdrops to the stage plays from which they might have been used for in another life.

For Ai, there is no hiding behind an orchestra, no percussion or rhythm sections to get the listener going, indeed no backing whatsoever. There is, for the entire album, Just Ai and her piano.

“History” is an entire album of piano and voice alone.

Also, the subjects of most of the songs could not be considered conventional: child abuse, the imminent death of a father and a believer’s shock at being denied entry to heaven don’t really sound like the sort of things that can be sung about, but on stage anything can happen.

As such, it’s far from the most accessible album released, much less so than her debut, self titled mini album from which the song “Rain” was pulled.

Is it worse for that?

For from it. its shocking simplicity is a refreshing breath of air in a world where every facet of every album is produced down to the ground.

If you enjoy the sheer beauty of what a voice can achieve, if you enjoy musicals and love the sound of a well played, lucidly recorded grand piano, if you’re fed up to the eye-teeth with insipid love songs, Angela Ai’s History is a real treasure.

Angela Ai, History

At nine songs long, it’s not an epic, but each song has something to offer. There are no fillers, no masturbatory demonstrations of piano skill. She doesn’t need them. The album is as sparse and simple as her songs themselves; nothing wasted, nothing superfluous, yet dramatic and emotional as a Broadway production.

(click on the songs’ titles for excerpts direct from Angela Ai’s Web site at http://www.angelaai.com)

It opens with →history, sung in the first person to the listener. On a conventional theme of lost love, it might be considered a taster if you will and something to ease the audience into her world. It offers a nostalgic look at lost love and the pain of living close to the source of your pain while forcing yourself to move on with your life.

Despite her assuredness that the relationship is over, is history, the loss she suffered, the anger she felt and the love that lingers despite her best efforts remains as her voice bursts with every stab of pain, every nostalgic twinge, every memory.

The stage influence on this track as on every one on this album is plain to hear. You can almost see the feel and moody set, a flickering streetlamp, grey extras milling past and among them, in colour, her lost love.

This theme is returned to in the third song on the album, →i Really Miss That, a more mellow, introspective song but sung from the viewpoint of a woman who yearns for the relationship she once had, a relationship that somewhere along the way lost everything that once made it so special. More than the finality of the first song, this one offers a ray of hope for the future. 

→world War Three (Yes, the first letter of every song on the album is a small letter)

This is such an unbelievably cool concept for a four minute song that I feel obliged to share it with you.

A “believer” who has behaved impeccably her whole life, yet for all the wrong reasons, dies and is confronted by God. She is shocked on being questioned by Him as to her worthiness in spite of her life of apparently good deeds. He tries to make her understand the error in her ways, that her deeds were all done out of a sense of duty and selfishness rather than out of love. By way of example he explains, but she is unable to comprehend. God, in a final attempt to enlighten His child accompanies her through Hell where she is forced to witness World Wars One and Two. Yet, still unable to comprehend, she is left there to face World War Three alone. Yowzers!

This song with its beautifully memorable chorus sung from the viewpoint of the deserted subject, is a magnificent piece worthy of entry into the Annals of “Seriously Great Concepts.”

→daddy, the fourth song on the album is an emotional song that touches on the trauma left by family breakups.

A daughter visits her father on what may well be his deathbed; a father who it appears left or even abandoned his family and his daughter a long time ago.

As she sits there with her dying father, she remembers the pain that he caused her and the loss she felt at his leaving. She remembers how she blamed herself for his leaving.

She visits him in hospital with the intention of forgiving him for his lies and the past, to let bygones be bygones. The daughter reveals her soul to him, asking him to come back to her, only to be rebuffed bya  refusal to accept her, her love and most importantly, her forgiveness.

→raw the most powerful and heartfelt song on the album stays with the theme of family trauma.

A woman comes to terms with the emotional scars left by a self esteem destroying childhood under the thumb of a domineering, perhaps even violent family and moves on with her life.

Ai conveys the confusion and fear of the child through the lamenting chords of her piano and a voice that falls into depths of pain before  rising symbolically and soaring above the music to freedom.

Listening to this song, it’s hard to believe that such a powerful number wasn’t written autobiographically. The emotions on display here are palpable and, just like it says on the tin, raw.

For me, this one song alone would justify purchasing the album.

→just a dream

This song, coming just beyond the midpoint of the album stands as a turning point from the darkness of having things taken away, fear, entrapment, hate and remorse proffered by the first five songs to the the latter half of the album on which each song promises so much; dreams, happiness, thankfulness, forgiveness and freedom.

Angela takes a 180 degree turn from the darkness and despair of raw and sings an uplifting, almost Disneyesque  song which could have quite easily come from a children’s musical.

Something, (My innate cynicism and dislike of Disney, perhaps) unfortunately prevents me from experiencing this song in the unfettered and childlike manner which it deserves.

Instead, I feel that it doesn’t have the depth of feeling or context that the other songs on the album have. Even so, I can feel that it represents childlike imagination and the purity of childhood joy and thus earns its place at the head of the four Yang songs that counterpoint the five Ying songs that came before it.

→Whole: A woman hungers for solace and finds the man who she feels can fill the hole she has inside. The woman, obsessed with every aspect of his being  feels salvation a mere heartbeat away, if only she can hold on to herself and not lose herself in the process.

→you Gave Me, is an unbridled song of thanks to a mother or parents and feels as though it was written with her own parents in mind.

→free, one of the strongest tracks after WW3 and Raw, ends the album on a high note (no pun intended). Where the first track history is a gentle introduction, free is a reminder that Angela Ai is a performance artist at heart with powerful, modern influences and is the best demonstration of how far she has taken her craft.

True to the title of the track itself, the songs form spirals, seemingly out of control as she invites her audience to come with her as she explores freedom itself, building up to a freeform pillar of sound like I haven’t heard since Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.

“I scream, and you can scream with me ’cause I am free.”

However, Ai demonstrates that there is a fine line between freedom and chaos and her masterful control shows on which side of the boundary she lies as she brings the song masterfully back under control before soaring off, quite literally into the stratosphere in one of the highest notes I’ve ever heard in popular music, proving once and for all the divide that lies between mere, trained ability and given gift.

In closing then, History is a challenging yet thoroughly rewarding listen which offers a touch of class and a LOT of emotion delivered by a master of her craft!

 

Angela Ai (History)

1. history
2. world war three
3. i really miss that
4. daddy
5. raw
6. just a dream
7. whole
8. you gave me
9. free