Read my entire review on The Silent Ballet. Oh yes, there's more.Le Voyage begins like a Hallmark greeting card and ends with a slow burning raga of enchantment. The pedestrian innocence of the mostly acoustic opening number "Drop In" is inviting. It acts like a sugar coating that coaxes the weary into eating the matrix-revealing blue pill, because this album gets a little weird and trippy. The choice tracks feature in the second half, but in order to get there, The Alps puts together a collage of twelve-string guitar, piano, groovy bass, effects freak outs, self-referntial samples, and field recordings that, when listened to in the prescribed order, come off as a little sloppy. The sample-crazy, synth effect interludes are extremely busy and too long. They were apparently influenced by GRM's musique concrète archive and the Radiophonic Workshop, but without a film from the 1970's to anchor them, they feel unnecessary in the context of all the other gorgeously played pastoral pieces and spartan, guru grooves.
No comments:
Post a Comment