INSTRUMENTAL RELEASES -
INDIVIDUAL ALBUM REVIEW
Granted, I umbrellaed three albums into this first Individual Album Review post, but it made sense as these all-instrumental collections came on my radar at the same time - though each are very unique to its own sound.
This was, by far, my favorite of the three. Listening to these compositions, written during Sakamoto’s recovery from major cancer surgery, it is hard not to reflect on the emotions of life’s fragility that he must have entwined in the core of the making of the album.
The various tracks feature an absolutely lovely acoustic & electronic hybrid. Like many Sakamoto releases previously, I was immediately pulled into this listening experience. The organic nature of this collection is sensational, and the entire album felt much more complex than the simplicity the music first conveys. As you allow yourself to be drawn more deeply into the alluring pool of sound, uneasy stillness exists alongside resolution and comfort. CONCLUSION: This is an album that I will return to again and again - confident that it will return high yields in maturing appreciation the more intimate I become with it. An easy Thumbs Up and a Grade of a strong A.
Composed & recorded as DeMarco traveled US & Canada, this collection is a musical travelog of sorts. In a convincing manner, these bedroom/computer tracks occupy a pleasant enough territory. They struck me as likable, if not necessarily super engaging. The songs would be a fine accompaniment to a documentary or as background music for a project around the house that you don’t want to be too distracted by.
CONCLUSION: This mostly winning instrumental collection earns a Thumbs Up and a Grade of a high C.
This one is a bit more challenging. Minimal layered on minimal. Malone is known as a minimalist classical composer/performer, but this project takes her past work to a new level. It is a full-press dive into sustained variations on a singular theme that clocks in at just over 2 hours (5 hours if you fold-in the additional tracks released through the Apple Music version). One of my initial thoughts was that the drone quality reminded me of experimental metal band Sunn O))) - only to realize that Sunn O))) guitarist Stephen O'Malley collaborated on the album with her (along with cellist Lucy Railton). It is definitely one of those occurrences in trying to appreciate complex music that you are forced to view it as an almost rare breed of performance art. I won’t lie, there were many times during my listening that I had to ask myself about its true nature - was this music just too deep for me to access or was I just not in on the joke? Though I admit I was strangely transfixed - and did, in fact, listen to the entire piece (in sections) several times - I'm still not quite sure what I think about it or, truthfully, how to even process it. I just can’t decide if it takes patience or fortitude to truly absorb.
CONCLUSION: With enough staying power, there may be bliss somewhere along the line. I’m just not sure that I’ll ever be able to find it. This one gets a Thumbs Down and a Grade of a D+.
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