Bogdan Ota - Day Of Wrath

Bogdan Ota  - Day Of Wrath
2012, Eletrecord

Bogdan Ota might one be known as the best musical export Romania has ever known.  The composer is already due to be involved in such discussions for those who known Romanian music history, but Ota’s international exposure hasn’t been huge before now.  With the release of Day of Wrath, Ota declares his intent to be more than just a musical footnote.  Ota’s cinematic scope as a writer is matched only his willingness to surpass the current understanding of what should be.

Day of Wrath opens with "Black Friday", which is written in the style of the opening scene music to a movie thriller. Distinct tension in the main theme is offset by some wonderfully lyric passages along the way. The mix of piano with full (electronic) orchestra creates impressive musical scenery. "Mourning" is intriguing, written with a vibrant melody line that seems to imply more about healing than loss. The quiet beauty in this peace is stunning.

"Day of Wrath" marches forth with military precision. The sense of melancholy mixed with determination pours out through each and every note. "The Story of My Life" has multiple musical personalities, but winds up with a martial feel, offering an ode to Beethoven on the way. "Glimpse of Happiness" is a deliciously dark waltz that explodes into wild symphonic abandon before coming back to its roots. "Solitude" is a thing of beauty, built with the sort of soaring resolutions that drive the action in a motion picture. Ota gains a moment of musical alchemy here that is undeniable.

"Herald's Dream" is like a waterfall of tension and resolution, waxing and waning from one to the other in unpredictable fashion. The result is an edge of the seat ride that is both lyric and driven. "Fantasie for Piano and Orchestra" begins with a metronomic orchestra, waxing into lyric piano. The rest of the journey becomes more complicated as it becomes more martial. Ota makes a teaching moment out of "Reverie", playing the piano as if it were an extension of himself. Likewise "A Dream Within A Dream", a vibrant waltz for piano orchestra that is energetically lyric. It's takes his bows with a change of pace in the form of "Sahara". This begins with a regional sounding theme but transforms into a cinematic string-based arrangement.

Bogdan Ota is a composer in rarified air. He moves with a musical deftness and understanding of compositional structure that is not often found. Soaring and emotive themes lay down beside quiet passages as if all were of the same water and molded together. Day Of Wrath makes one thing very clear: Any discussion about a natural successor to John Williams is incomplete absent the name of Bogdan Ota.

Rating:  4.5 Stars (Out of 5)

Learn more at www.bogdanota.com. 

 

The Belle Brigade - The Belle Brigade

The Belle Brigade - The Belle Brigade
2011, Reprise Records

Brother and sister Ethan and Barbara Gruska are the heart of The Belle Brigade.  Releasing their self-titled debut today via Reprise Records, the pair have earned comparisons to Simon and Garfunkel and Fleetwood Mac.  The Belle Brigade displays a band with a distinct sense of melody, but moreover a pair of voices that blend in nearly supernatural fashion.  It’s no surprise, music runs in Ethan and Barbara Gruska’s genes.  Their father is composer Jay Gruska, and their father is non other than the incomparable film composer John Williams.

The Belle Brigade opens with "Sweet Louise", a catchy, low-key folk rocker with country accents.  The song is a simple declaration of love you won't be able to shake, full of great harmonies and driven by the exceedingly pleasant vocals of Ethan.   "Where Not To Look For Freedom" is a catchy rocker reminiscent of early Elton John in style and energy.  It's a vibrant, active tune that grabs your attention.  "Losers" shows off a notable skill at orchestration, but the incessantly repetitive chorus wears thin.  "Shirt" features Ethan and Barbara in a distinctive duet.  Barbara stands out for pure sound, but when the two voices combine they wrap around each other like lovers.  This blend is sonically appealing and helps build the song from into an urgent and edgy rocker.

"Lucky Guy" follows the series of lucky rolls that grow out of an inauspicious beginning of life.  The active folk/rock arrangement is appealing, and The Belle Brigade offers it up with great energy without going over the top.  You won't be able to sit/stand still through this song.  "Lonely Lonely" features the sort of great pop chorus that turns into chart gold.  The Belle Brigade changes things up with the moody and introspective "Punch Line", exploring feelings of being forgotten as a child.  Ethan delivers a highly emotive vocal here that drives the weight of the song home.  Barbara takes the mic on "Rusted Wheel" in a memorable performance aided by a brilliant melody line.  Listeners will want to hear more of her.  The Gruskas combine again on "My Goodness", blending their voices once again in a low key but ultimately accessible number that's likely to be a fan favorite.  The Belle Brigade bows with "Fasten You To Me".  Barbara brings listeners to the door with an exquisite performance in the surprisingly mellow closer.

The Belle Brigade is surprisingly subtle and nuanced on their eponymous debut.  Rock n roll, pop and folk music influences inform the songwriting on The Belle Brigade, driven by a distinctive ear for melody and interplay and the fine voices of Ethan and Barbara.  The Belle Brigade don't create the initial impression of a band who will catch fire right away, but rather an act that will warm up slowly and burn for a long, long time.  The intricacies of the songwriting process are very much alive on The Belle Brigade, but this is a band that is still figuring out just what they are capable of.  This is a great start.

Rating: 4 Stars (Out of 5)

Learn more about The Belle Brigade at www.thebellbrigade.com or www.myspace.com/thebellebrigade.  The Belle Brigade is available from Amazon.com as a CD, on Vinyl or as a Download.  The album is also available via iTunes.

The Alexandria Kleztet - Peace, Love And Coffee

The Alexandria Kleztet - Peace, Love And Coffee
2009, Azalea City Recordings

Playing clarinet doesn't disqualify you and a front man. Just ask Seth Kibel, the lead in front of the Baltimore/Washington area phenomenon known as The Alexandria Kleztet. With thirteen Washington Area Music Association Awards (Wammies) under their belt, The Alexandria Kleztet has started to build credibility as an international act. Annual performances at The Kennedy Center and the Peabody Institute and the Seminas Musicales festival in Chile have opened up the wider world to The Alexandria Kleztet's intriguing mix of Klezmer, Eastern European folk, jazz, classical and rock n roll. On The Alexandria Kleztet's fourth album, Peace, Love And Coffee, the quartet offer up six original compositions and eight dynamic interpretations of classic and popular tunes.

Opening with a vibrant take on "Bei Mir Bist Du Schein", The Alexandria Kleztet takes listeners undaunted into the world of big band klezmer. Kibel is a wild man on clarinet, pulling riffs out of the air in rapid fire fashion yet blending in with the rest of the group in a performance that is breathtaking. "Shtick Shift" is middles ages modern; a funk groove beneath deep-seated middle eastern roots. "Mu Ha'ish" is a slow, melancholy number; a beautiful melody tinged with a deep sadness that is more passive than active, and somehow powerfully tragic.

Hold on to your hats for "Cantina Band", the John Williams composition from the original Star Wars movie A New Hope. The Alexandria Kleztet is so alive in this number you'll wonder if they secretly wrote it. "Bad Coffee (Builds Character)" is a big change of pace with a move into dark klezmer/rock. Scott Harlan handles the bass like a master, with fretwork that would make Bakithi Kumalo envious. The Alexandria Kleztet take off on an adventurous and daring jam in the form of "No One's Listening", taking risks as an ensemble to simply create without a clear delineation of style. In it are the sorts of sparks that can send a jam session on for hours. The rest of the album is high quality, but none of the five remaining songs can quite capture the energy or vitality of the first 2/3 of the album. "Harmelodica Theory" is divergent and exploratory and likely more of interest to other musicians than casual music fans, and "Frailach #37" works in a snippet of Bob Marley's "One World", but The Alexandria Kleztet seem to coast their way home, closing with the ballroom-styled "Youkali".

The Alexandria Kleztet is a collection of four dynamic musicians, but they play intricately and vibrantly together, as if one organism that's interconnected in heart and mind. Seth Kibel leads the way, but Helen Hausmann is his perfect foil on violin. The two instrumentalists tease melodies, each other and the other band members, finding explosive pockets of energy buried deep within each song. Bassist Scott Harlan earns his paycheck several times over with a running musical conversation that fuels the party, and percussionist Tim Jarvis is the rock who keeps it all on track. Peace, Love And Coffee is a dynamic exploration of musical cultures through the melting pot experience, where all the respective inputs become on new and exotic sound that's all of its component parts and yet something new. Even when The Alexandria Quartet misses their mark the results are worth listening to.

Rating: 4 Stars (Out of 5)

Learn more about The Alexandria Kleztet at http://www.kleztet.com/ or www.myspace.com/thealexandriakleztet. Peace, Love And Coffee is available from Amazon.com both on CD and as a Download.

Review: Michael Samson - A Still Motion

Michael Samson - A Still Motion
2008, Michael Samson/BMI

You might call Michael Samson something of an existential philosopher. Seeking a blend of metaphysics and aesthetics in his piano play and compositions, Samson tackles the juxtapositions of our inner and outer lives on his sophomore album, A Still Motion. Based on a concept that all things are inter-connected and can affect one another, albeit indirectly, Samson explores the theoretical and practical implications of these ideas in music. Formerly a graphic designer, Samson has turned his life over to music, inspired by such artists as Suzanne Ciani, George Winston, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and David Lanz (not to mention Chopin, DeBussey, Beethoven and Satie).

Leading off with the title track, Samson sets a tone that runs through Pop and New Age circles with relatively simplistic compositions built on contrasting rhythms between the left and right hand. Dream Not Of Today has a memorable melody line, although it never really seems to develop a full melody, but rather a thematic progression that repeats without significant variation or coloring. Samson does bring some harmonic elements into the right hand but this is more akin to window dressing than variation. Echoes For The Stanger has its own singular beauty, built on musically aesthetic turns and a halting right hand that builds tension in the composition. The darkness in much of the song resolves with about a minute to go, quickly to resume, much like the sun peaking out for just a moment on an overcast day.

Truth In Beauty speaks to the central conceit of the album, and perhaps one of the most argued points in the poetry of John Keats (Ode To A Grecian Urn): "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." Some might argue that this means that the form, the simple fact of any one thing (such as a Grecian urn) is its truth, and therefore its beauty. Applying that here, Samson may well argue that it's not so much the finished product, or song, that is either truth or beauty; it's the by-product of both. Truth and beauty are actually found in Samson's discovery of the song, which has probably existed time immemorial until Samson came along and found it. You might experience the same in discovering his interpretation of the song, but this is where the entire argument may just fall into a puttering heap and slinks off to the pub. What is evident is that no great revelation is found in Truth In Beauty; the composition is nice doesn't turn heads. When Light Dances, on the other hand, as a dramatic sense to it that might make it perfect for the cinema. Some volatility worked itself into Samson's creative process here and the result is absolutely delightful.

The Edge Of Forever and Where Ocean Meets Sky are both pleasant dalliances in the modern pop new age sound that moves units in mall stores. Of Times Long Past is a bit more ambitious, creating a mood of dark tension and seeming to tell a story (or at least trying to). Scene of 1800's England kept flooding to mind during this song, which plods along at its own pace and never fully resolves the tension that exists between left and right hand (this is part of the draw of the song). After The Rain is a somewhat mundane and long-winded penultimate track, leading into Words Left Unspoken, a halting and languorous close to an album that definitely has its highs and lows.

My gut reaction to A Still Motion is that it was a musically intellectual experience. Samson is a very good technical piano player, able to color and shade his music with all the changes in volume, speed and intensity you can imagine, but I didn't feel the artist behind it. Samson seems to have dug so far for answers in his compositions that he's left out the most essential part of the experience; his heart. Passages that should be emotional and effecting play flat; moments that should soar simply waver on the precipice of the wind but never take flight. This is one of those albums I wanted to like but never quite got there. Samson can do a lot with a piano; he can make a lot of pretty sounds and dark sounds and light sounds and string them together in interesting ways. But the glue is missing from this one.

Rating: 2 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Michael Samson at http://www.michaelsamson.com/, where you can buy A Still Motion in practically any format you might desire.

Review: Kori Linae Carothers - Trillium

Kori Linae Carothers - Trillium
2009, iRonkNod Records

When William Ackerman signs on to produce for an artist it creates an expectation of quality and musicianship that can be hard to match. Apparently that wasn't a problem for Kori Linae Carothers. Her third album, Trillium is a breath of fresh air, taking modern instrumental music out of the office and off the phone queue and establishing a high watermark for other artists to follow. A fan of music from the first time she heard The Beatles, Kori was entered into piano lessons by her parents as a young age. Carothers showed love of a compelling mix of musical styles, everything from Beethoven and Mozart to Shadowfax, Will Ackerman and John Williams; even Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull and Herb Alpert. The result is an incredibly balanced and nuanced ear; a touch for melody and song construction that goes well beyond her classical training. Playing piano, synth and Native American flute, Carothers weaves magic on her musical loom.

Trillium opens with Crystal Fields, a haunting theme on cinematic scope. There are pianists who are mechanics and then there are artists who can put more emotion into a single stave than the mechanics could put into an entire symphony. Carothers is an artist, bending melody to her will with the subtle touch of finger to key, and when violin or flute come to dance around the piano the sound is magical. From the classical strains of Crystal Fields are born the modern sounds of Blue Ice. Carothers here sounds more like a purveyor of 1980's soundtrack electronica (think Tangerine Dream), creating a pleasing if simplistic sonic landscape for the listener. A Rose's Tale is a gorgeous piece that makes me think of the sort of music Tori Amos might have written if she'd stayed at conservatory. Carothers' subtlety is balanced with bursts of energetic expression at the piano that is shadowed by the dream-like tincture of harpsichord in my personal favorite composition on Trillium.

Midnight follows an interesting path, mixing a pop sounding theme with nearly classical construction. The result sounds like something from a movie score; able to wind in and out of the scenery as an essential component of the picture without drawing too much exposure to itself. The same quality can be found in Nez Perce, with Carothers stepping forward with the Native American Flute. The theme here is haunting and dreamlike, sounding like Carlos Nakai playing with Edgar Froese, as the acoustic and electric blend in mystical ways. Carothers goes a decidedly more modern route on Tangled Up and Dancing In The Clouds. Tangled Up ends up sounding more stereotypical of the new age piano crowd, which Dancing In The Clouds takes an interesting Latin detour, complete with Herb Alpert style trumpet. Carothers offers up a settee piece in The Long View. This is a track that could be a background track but is too busy and full of life to stay there. Rather than blending into the scenery and informing the flow of conversation, The Long View will threaten to become part of the conversation. It's not an overly complicated piece, but exudes its own energy and liveliness that simply can't be put aside easily. Carpe Diem travels in similar circles as Delirium; a Celtic feel pervades over a trippy beat and a Sarah McLachlan-esque vocal part. Carothers says goodnight with 3 Degrees, returning the Classical/Pop hybrid that seems to be her forte (and again sparking thoughts of a young Tori Amos at the keys). It is a fitting end, as often Carothers seems to shine brightest when it's just her and the piano, although the acoustic guitar is a nice touch here.

Trillium is full of magic, ranging from Classical composition to Pop/Easy Listening and even skating onto the ice of Trip-Hop. Kori Linae Carothers writes and plays what she feels, and it's strongly evident from opening notes of Trillium to its last majestic fade. Will Ackerman once again gets stellar marks on production, although he should be lauded also for his ability to select artists who are really a cut or two above the average. Trillium is full of magic and wonder and haunting reverie; sample the fragile yet beautiful magic within.

Rating: 4.5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Kori Linae Carothers at http://www.koritunes.com/ or www.myspace.com/korilinaec. You can purchase a copy of Trillium through CDBaby.com. Trillium is available as a download through iTunes.