Catching up

While waiting to get to work I was thinking of three potential posts I want to write about; the first one was religion (I went to mass yesterday, after a while! No, I did not burst in flames), the second one is about beer and the third one was a music review.

I will skip religion; I vented in my Spanish post already, so the edge is gone. I need to review and recall the indignation I felt yesterday at the priest to make it worthwhile.

Beer…. (imagine Homer Simpson saying it…) OK, I will do it after I make my comment on Kaki King’s records…

I finally have a complete opinion of three of Kaki King’s records. I am missing one of them (“Legs To Makes Us Longer”) but it will do.

And we start with: “Everybody Loves You”

OK, I think this is the most representative CD of her style;
“Kewpie Station”, “Steamed Juiced Little Bun”, “Carmine St.”, “Close your eyes and you’ll burst into flames”, “Joi” and of course “Everybody loves you” are to showcase her talent.
However I liked better #4 “Night after Sidewalk” and #10 “Fortuna”; I am more in sync with them.
“The Exhibition” and “Happy as a Dead Pig in The Sunshine” are OK; a little too happy for me.

So, I liked 2 songs out of 10. Another 2 get an acceptable rating. 6 can be good for guitar-music lovers. It gets a pass.

“Until We felt Red”

You can hear the maturity (or the pressure from the manager to be more accessible to the public) here.
The disc opens with “Yellowcake”; a nice melody with a tamed guitar and a nice surprise; her voice. She has a nice voice; not a GREAT voice, but it meshes with the music very well.
“Until We Felt Red” which has no lyrics and a change of pace in the guitar, it’s OK.
The most complex of the songs in the disc “You Don’t Have to Be Afraid”. I love the first 4 minutes of it, then changes pace and theme and I am close to hate it, I don’t get it completely; it loses me at the middle.
“Goby” is OK; good enough follow up a little jazzy.
“Jessica” is more my kind of song; she sings again; I liked it.
“First Brain” is a good exercise on how to play the guitar “punteando” (I do not know how to explain it in English, but it means using your fingertips to pull a string at a time very quickly).
“I Never Said I Love You” is darker than anything I’ve heard from her. I think dark jazz, whatever that means.
“Ahuvati” is in the mood of “First Brain”, same style; but does not get me anywhere.
I liked “These are the Armies of the Tyrannized”. It has some of the darkness of “I Never Said I Love You” but with more hope and liked it better.
“Second Brain”. It is much better than the first; the metallic sounds are the difference.
“Soft Shoulder” another “liked” song. A little bit of discordance at the beginning, OK.

So; I liked it better than the first one. 13 songs, 6 or 7 that I liked, this is getting better.

“Dreaming Of Revenge”
Strong start with “Bone Chaos in the Castle”. Nice continuation with “Life Being What It Is”, “Sad American” is not so good, I liked “Pull Me Out Alive” (interesting music video too); “Montreal” is really good. “Open Mouth” is interesting; the melody seems to repeat in “So Much For So Little” but in a darker way. “Saving Days in a Frozen Head” and “Air and Kilometers” are feel good songs.

Overall, the best of the three.

So, here it is. I would recommend “Dreaming of Revenge” and selected songs of “Everybody Loves You” and “Until We Felt Red”. And if you get August Rush OST, look for “Bari Improv” and “Ritual Dance” too.

See you around.