Buy anything from the World Music store and you can get the official CD from the Songlines Music Awards 2013 for just £1.99. Offer ends at 23:59 on Sunday, June 30. Learn more.
Buy anything from the World Music store and you can get the official CD from the Songlines Music Awards 2013 for just £1.99. Offer ends at 23:59 on Sunday, June 30. Learn more. |
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Track Listings
| 1. The Seasons Reverse |
| 2. Blues Subtitled No Sense Of Wonder |
| 3. Black Horse |
| 4. Each Dream Is An Example |
| 5. Mouth Canyon |
| 6. A Puff Of Dew |
| 7. Bauchredner |
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk
Gastre Del Sol consists primarily of Chicagoans Jim O'Rourke and former Squirrel Bait member David Grubbs. For the better part of the 90s, they've brought avant-garde concepts of experimental sound to a younger, ex-indie rock audience. Camofleur generally mined for experimental sounds, but this time they came from pop and folk. With echoes of Van Dyke Parks and John Fahey, Gastre shifted their focus from sound to arrangement, presenting tunes for the first time. Still, the music defied category, melding piano, acoustic guitar, strings, horns, tape noise, and deadpan da da lyrics into delicately abstract and melodic sound paintings. This is Art music at its most listenable, eluding your grasp rather than testing your patience. --Steve Tignor
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
Gastr Del Sol's long-term commitment to experiments with guitars gets a little bit of a beating on this album. The opening track "The Seasons Reverse" begins with a frenetic scene of action and dispair, and lackadaisical vocals and steel drum solos add to the atmosphere of strangeness and unfamiliarity. That's where the album stays too - in an unfamiliar environment where you always feel a little lost, and never quite know what to expect. This is not an album to 'flick through', as nearly every track changes theme, arrangement and structure during its course, and each of the tunes retains an atmosphere of friendly isolation. This album is far more accessible than "Crookt, Crakt or Fly" for example, but still retains Jim O'Rourke's flair for structural experimentation and atmospheric sensitivity. Poignant in places, and questioning in others, this album holds its appeal and asserts its originality without compromise.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The album as a whole has a strange consistency despite its eclectic nature - the selection of instrumentation and structure. THE SEASONS REVERSE is a reasonably straightforward song with a strange 'spongy' texture, reminiscent of novelty records, underlying the acoustic twangs. The shifting perspective of the words reflect this back and fro feel. BLUES SUBTITLED NO SENSE OF WONDER would feel most at home on a compilation of 50/60's minimalism with guest vocals by a whinging Neil Young. The creative use of CD skips stuttering along in the background come in and out creating space for the other instruments whilst the piano, although consistent in its repetition, weaves amongst the harmonic effects created by the overlaid sounds. As you can probably see this, in my opinion is the standout track on an already exceptional album. On the next track we start on a jaunty number with soulful bass and possibly Russian folk influenced violin etc. BLACK HORSE then transforms itself into an extended guitar piece more suited to improvisation of an American folkishness. EACH DREAM IS AN EXAMPLE is like a slowed down balladic synthesis of everything that has come before with a Carpenters twist. The lyrics to MOUTH CANYON read that 'transparent is OK' and this transparency extends to the sparse guitar revealing a Hawaii feel on the horizon. The song moves towards the city with its bass line reverberating every step. A PUFF OF DEW is full of experimental glitches and poetic mutation. Intimacy and closeness in an unknown domestic setting. BAUCHREDNER closes the album with a strange combination of variable speed picking and note slides that lend an angular presence to a beautifully paired down acoustic guitar. A second guitar comes in to destroy any flow the music possessed before a trucking style cornet led piece takes us to the end. All in all a well considered piece of indie guitar swing.
Format:Vinyl
The album as a whole has a strange consistency despite its eclectic nature - the selection of instrumentation and structure. THE SEASONS REVERSE is a reasonably straightforward song with a strange 'spongy' texture, reminiscent of novelty records, underlying the acoustic twangs. The shifting perspective of the words reflect this back and fro feel. BLUES SUBTITLED NO SENSE OF WONDER would feel most at home on a compilation of 50/60's minimalism with guest vocals by a whinging Neil Young. The creative use of CD skips stuttering along in the background come in and out creating space for the other instruments whilst the piano, although consistent in its repetition, weaves amongst the harmonic effects created by the overlaid sounds. As you can probably see this, in my opinion is the standout track on an already exceptional album. On the next track we start on a jaunty number with soulful bass and possibly Russian folk influenced violin etc. BLACK HORSE then transforms itself into an extended guitar piece more suited to improvisation of an American folkishness. EACH DREAM IS AN EXAMPLE is like a slowed down balladic synthesis of everything that has come before with a Carpenters twist. The lyrics to MOUTH CANYON read that 'transparent is OK' and this transparency extends to the sparse guitar revealing a Hawaii feel on the horizon. The song moves towards the city with its bass line reverberating every step. A PUFF OF DEW is full of experimental glitches and poetic mutation. Intimacy and closeness in an unknown domestic setting. BAUCHREDNER closes the album with a strange combination of variable speed picking and note slides that lend an angular presence to a beautifully paired down acoustic guitar. A second guitar comes in to destroy any flow the music possessed before a trucking style cornet led piece takes us to the end. All in all a well considered piece of indie guitar swing.
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