From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V16 #205 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Wednesday, October 5 2011 Volume 16 : Number 205 To unsubscribe: e-mail ecto-digest-request@smoe.org and put the word unsubscribe in the message body. Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Tori's Night of Hunters [Karen Hester ] Sarah Slean's Land & Sea [Karen Hester ] Lindi Ortega's Little Red Boots [Karen Hester ] RE: Sarah Slean's Land & Sea ["Michael Quinn" ] Amber Rubarth [Karen Hester ] Re: Sarah Slean's Land & Sea [Tim Jones-Yelvington ] Supreme Court: Music downloads royalty-free - Tech and gadgets [kerrywhit] Re: Amber Rubarth [meredith ] Tori's Night of Hunters [Karen Hester ] One album artists... [Adam Kimmel ] Re: one album wonders [Ellen Rawson ] Re: Starting the EctoGuide bests lists: one-album wonders [neile Subject: Re: Tori's Night of Hunters His guitar playing is crap and/or unsuited to most of the songs it appears on. So a classically-inspired song cycle on DG kinda counts him out. Yey! I haven't come across anyone who thinks he's one of the better guitarists she has played with, but you're welcome to argue otherwise! It's possible the Tori boards I read are an echo chamber of similar opinions, so his playing might not be as detested by other people. K On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 9:19 PM, Doug wrote: >> what a great way to drag >> her out of the land of husband's cheesy guitar solos > > Um, just curious, but what does her husband have to do with anything? > > --Doug ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 17:57:07 -0400 From: Karen Hester Subject: Sarah Slean's Land & Sea I'm enjoying Land & Sea much more than Sarah's forgettable last album (seriously forgettable - I only remember the b-side Parasol and the general color of the album cover). Also more fun than the Beauty Lives b-sides album, which was more in the style of boring Baroness-Slean rather than delightful early-Slean. 'Land' is 9 poppy songs, some full-on pop and some cabaret-ish. I particularly love 'Life', an anthem celebrating the big bang, sort of. The single 'Set it Free' is too simple and happy for me, but the rest of 'Land' is great fun. The production is more straight-forward pop than the ornate overdone Night Bugs. Second half 'Sea' is 9 ballads with lots of strings. Maybe too many strings - they're an indistinguishable lush bunch before repeated listening uncovers the individual songs. 'Sea' might be the deeper batch of songs though I'm currently enjoying the pop buzz of 'Land' more. I enjoy Sarah's tone of wistfulness and nostalgia, especially since it's vague enough to be more a mood than desire for any past particulars. Her voice is still mannered and sometimes a bit prissy and crisp. 'Napoleon' is passionately deranged. Most of the others songs are love songs. Another version of 'Everything by the Gallon' wasn't needed. K ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 19:44:13 -0400 From: Karen Hester Subject: Lindi Ortega's Little Red Boots Fun retro country, but not as fun or rockin' as her live shows. If I knew something about 40s?, 50s?, 60s? country, then I'd be able to tag each of these songs. They stick to very specific historical formats - instrumentation, structure, melody, nothing out of place. The lyrics are safely predictable too. It isn't really a problem (though I'd personally prefer one little twist for each song) as this form of country-western is comforting and self-contained and vintage fun. And she's not comparing Obama to Hitler (snap). My fav tracks are 'I'm No Elvis Presley', 'Little Red Boots' and 'Jimmy Dean'. And 'All My Friends.' I'm not so into the ballads. K ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 18:08:30 -0400 From: "Michael Quinn" Subject: RE: Sarah Slean's Land & Sea I really like the "Sea" part. I think "The Right Words" has become my favorite song of 2011. It's so beautiful and "Cosmic Ballet" is another standout track. The other part of the album has some very nice songs as well. I agree a definite improvement from The Baroness (which wasn't a bad album but a little on the bland side). Mike - -----Original Message----- From: owner-ecto@smoe.org [mailto:owner-ecto@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Karen Hester Sent: October-04-11 5:57 PM To: ecto@smoe.org Subject: Sarah Slean's Land & Sea I'm enjoying Land & Sea much more than Sarah's forgettable last album (seriously forgettable - I only remember the b-side Parasol and the general color of the album cover). Also more fun than the Beauty Lives b-sides album, which was more in the style of boring Baroness-Slean rather than delightful early-Slean. 'Land' is 9 poppy songs, some full-on pop and some cabaret-ish. I particularly love 'Life', an anthem celebrating the big bang, sort of. The single 'Set it Free' is too simple and happy for me, but the rest of 'Land' is great fun. The production is more straight-forward pop than the ornate overdone Night Bugs. Second half 'Sea' is 9 ballads with lots of strings. Maybe too many strings - they're an indistinguishable lush bunch before repeated listening uncovers the individual songs. 'Sea' might be the deeper batch of songs though I'm currently enjoying the pop buzz of 'Land' more. I enjoy Sarah's tone of wistfulness and nostalgia, especially since it's vague enough to be more a mood than desire for any past particulars. Her voice is still mannered and sometimes a bit prissy and crisp. 'Napoleon' is passionately deranged. Most of the others songs are love songs. Another version of 'Everything by the Gallon' wasn't needed. K ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 19:20:59 -0400 From: Karen Hester Subject: Amber Rubarth Amber seems to have a new album, but it's only half hour long, including 'Rough Cut' and 'Novocaine' which are hardly new songs. So maybe it's a filler e.p.? The painting and cover font look amateur, so it's all a bit hard to take seriously. There's a frisky country-rock number 'Nothing to see here'. I think she did her writing with the Dixie Chick sisters after these were recorded. Nah, can't be a proper album, it looks and sounds too throw-away. Can't be what's she has been working on through hurricanes and whatnot. Can't be. Can't be? K ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 16:16:07 -0600 From: Tim Jones-Yelvington Subject: Re: Sarah Slean's Land & Sea Sounds good, sounds good. I got confused for a minute when I saw this subject line, cuz it sounded so much to me like Sarah Blasko's What the Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have. I was like, Didn't that come out a long time ago? And then I was like, Oh right, Sarah SLEAN. I forgot about her! I used to really like her, etc. Which perhaps just goes to show how regrettably she slipped from my brain post-Baroness, except for the one or two times ME I'M A THIEF or CALIFORNIA have come up on old playlists. ~ tim On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Karen Hester wrote: > I'm enjoying Land & Sea much more than Sarah's forgettable last album > (seriously forgettable - I only remember the b-side Parasol and the > general color of the album cover). Also more fun than the Beauty Lives > b-sides album, which was more in the style of boring Baroness-Slean > rather than delightful early-Slean. > > 'Land' is 9 poppy songs, some full-on pop and some cabaret-ish. I > particularly love 'Life', an anthem celebrating the big bang, sort of. > The single 'Set it Free' is too simple and happy for me, but the rest > of 'Land' is great fun. The production is more straight-forward pop > than the ornate overdone Night Bugs. > > Second half 'Sea' is 9 ballads with lots of strings. Maybe too many > strings - they're an indistinguishable lush bunch before repeated > listening uncovers the individual songs. 'Sea' might be the deeper > batch of songs though I'm currently enjoying the pop buzz of 'Land' > more. I enjoy Sarah's tone of wistfulness and nostalgia, especially > since it's vague enough to be more a mood than desire for any past > particulars. Her voice is still mannered and sometimes a bit prissy > and crisp. 'Napoleon' is passionately deranged. Most of the others > songs are love songs. Another version of 'Everything by the Gallon' > wasn't needed. > > K ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 19:33:34 -0400 From: Karen Hester Subject: Ladytron's Gravity the Seducer Oh yeah, I got this recently, and it's boring. If you are into their specific kind of retro-electronica, maybe it's great on a good stereo, interesting noise palate and all. However I only want a catchy pop buzz from Ladytron and this isn't the album for that. 'Ambulances' is lovely in an '80s 4AD way. 'Mirages' and 'White Elephant' are OK pop songs but hardly up with their best. 'Ace of Hz' is catchier but it's cheating to re-release it. K ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 07:12:28 -0500 From: kerrywhite@webtv.net (kerry white) Subject: Supreme Court: Music downloads royalty-free - Tech and gadgets KrW I'm Peter Pan! I'm perpetually young!! OW!! What's wrong with my back? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44761240/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/supreme-court-no-royalties-internet-music-downloads/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 01:35:17 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: Amber Rubarth Hi, On 10/4/11 7:20 PM, Karen Hester wrote: > Nah, can't be a proper album, it looks and sounds too throw-away. > Can't be what's she has been working on through hurricanes and > whatnot. Can't be. Can't be? I may be wrong, but I'm pretty close to 92.3% sure this EP is what came out of the recording session she won as the grand prize in the NewSong Competition last year. It's not the album she's been working on recently. Meredith :) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 18:31:53 -0400 From: Karen Hester Subject: Tori's Night of Hunters I'm enjoying this too, but since it doesn't offer addictive pop sugar or rock passion, I find it easy to go 'that's pretty' and tune out. So glad Deutsche Grammophon suggested this to Tori and made her model the pieces on those of brilliant composers - what a great way to drag her out of the land of husband's cheesy guitar solos, uninspired rock and saccharine ballads. Unfortunately she seems to have modeled her lyrics on self help books and florid mythological works. I don't mind purple prose myth, it suits the mood of the pieces when blood and ancient elms show up, but the pop psych bits are clunkers, e.g. "let's resynch my world / with a harmonic defiance I'll face this", "grid of disempowerment." My favorite songs might be epic 'Star Whisperer' (Schubert) and 'Edge of the Moon' (Bach with a Beatlesque bit), and simpler 'Fearlessness' and 'Snowblind' (both Granados). 'Nautical Twilight' is also fun cos I enjoy Mendelssohn. I think ballads 'Your Ghost' and 'Carry' are not much better than recent sappy Tori ballads, and 'Cactus Practice' is as stoopid as it sounds. Unfortunately Tori thinks we'll like her daughter's voice as much as she does - the kid is on four songs, singing most of the lyrics on 'Job's Coffin'. Natashya has an OK voice for a pre-teen - husky, breezy phrasing, a bit like Emiliana Torrini and Adele (minus the power). Since she doesn't slip into baby-talk like Tori does, I don't mind her :) She's better here than on 'Midwinter's Whatsit'. On the other hand I want to claw the vocal chords out of teenage niece Kelsey Dobyns - I cannot listen to the title track because of her. She has a prim church lady voice with an untrained vibrato and ugly harsh vowels. She shrieks 'spirit to spirit' which gets stuck in my head so I'm doing the dishes SPIIIIIRIIIIT TO SPIIIIRIIIIT and I'm trying to go to sleep SPIIIIIRIIIT TO SPIIIRRIIIT. As you can tell, my reaction is out of proportion, but to me she's nails-on-a-chalkboard. K ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 23:38:43 -0800 From: Adam Kimmel Subject: One album artists... Two sprang to mind almost immediately (well, about a week after the topic was first mooted). First, Shelby Starner, who only managed one beautifully promising album before her untimely death. I have "Dreams You Had" on a mix for the car and, although my partner can't stand her voice (and I can understand that) I can't understand why this hasn't become a standard. It's so simple, so magnificent and so resonant. There's also Matthew Jay and his "Draw" album. While a collection of his unreleased tracks was released after his suicide (shamefully, I don't own that) I count this as his one real album, a tender, reflective, but still very uplifting album that filled me with such sunshine I was amazed when he took his own life. Some have compared him to Elliot Smith, but I don't see it. I could never get into Smith - no matter how hard I tried - but Jay had me hooked after one listen. Two artists who had a lot to offer, there. Adam K ____________________________________________________________ Share photos & screenshots in seconds... TRY FREE IM TOOLPACK at http://www.imtoolpack.com/default.aspx?rc=if1 Works in all emails, instant messengers, blogs, forums and social networks. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:20:20 -0800 (PST) From: Ellen Rawson Subject: Re: one album wonders - --- On Mon, 1/10/11, bill wrote: > Please allow me to give Loey Nelson > that second vote. I've always really > liked "Venus kissed the moon". Very nice and definitely > ectophilean. Oh, yes, whatever happened to her? I came across her when she did a live interview at, I think, KBCO in Boulder way back when. Loved that song and album. Ellen ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:14:35 -0800 (PST) From: neile Subject: Re: Starting the EctoGuide bests lists: one-album wonders I would say another project doesn't count. For example, if the new incarnation was different enough that it would have a separate entry in the Guide--that would be the distinction. Does that make sense to everyone? - --Neile On Mon, 10 Jan 2011, Jason Gordon wrote: > and are you considering an artists work in another project as a seperate > instance? > ie Kaitlyn Ni Donovan has 3 or 4 albums in The High Violets (including a > new one from a few months ago i need to pick up), Bloem de Ligny has > another album out under the band Fono & Serafina and a new project > Polichinelle , and Daughter Darling has two or three solo albums > {natalie walker} > > I'll second the nominations for: > Susan Court and Milla > > -jason ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V16 #205 ***************************