Yarn - Yarn
>Ukranian Avant Folk
This album isn't actually inaccessible for avant-garde. The chord progressions and backing strings remain in place, and barely wander. The Ukranian singer's got a lot of reverb on her,
The recording is very iffy, but the unmistakable sounds of accordion introduces the album, with cello and some other instruments I can't quite recall. Perhaps a bukhalo or some other drum for percussion, a Bandura or Torban for that plucked sound, a bowed cello, and I can definitely hear a Tsymbaly. Unfortunately, no Trembita, which is one of the longest instruments in the world.
Because of these unique instruments, the album felt a lot like foreign Post Rock structured as Chamber Pop. Wait Till drones with minor chords, while Gorwedd Cerdded managed to a surreal pop rock song. Ty has the vocalist at her strongest, but the left and right mixing irked me. The closer was forgettable.
Not bad, not great. Can be hypnotic if you let your mind wander to it a bit, so I give it that. AND it's a bit rare, so I'm very glad to have this.
6/10
Brave Little Abacus - Masked Dancers: Concern In So Many Things You Forget Where You Are
>Midwest Emo, Math Rock
Emo is another genre I have very little experience in so I''m not going to write another pretentious review of this
But this was pretty good. A wee bit more stimulating than the other album.
I also like the singer's voice. I didn't like too much Punk/Emo because the singer always sounded like he needed a good deck in the face, but by exaggerating his voice so much it digs the singing out of that rut into "what is shame" land.
The production touch ups are pretty cool, the drums are top tier, and the guitars aren't intolerable.
"he never even existed in the first place" was stupid, I gotta say. And the other tracks with Akari samples skirt dangerously close to the same level of stupid. Why are they here i gotta ask
7/10