SCD Mixtape 4 (April 14)

[Saulaac]

Following the mini-SNAFU (had to look SNAFU up), here are my reviews:

1. "The Golden Morning" by Pekka Pohjola (Submitted by me)
This was officially titled "The First Morning", but I like TH's take as "The Golden Morning"! After all, whenever Usain Bolt won gold then it meant first anywayz hehe.

Some good funky Bach vibes were coming out of the woodwork for me which is why I submitted this track. I couldn't help imagining an 18th century chamber quartet in suits and curly wigs throwing out a mixture of traditional chordations inter-twined with interrupted progressive cadences causing some members of the Vienna audience to raise their eyebrows at this circus going on before them.



2. "The Golden Goose" by Todd Rundgren (Submitted by Buckeye Randy)
Well the first opening bars had me thinking of Salt-N-Pepa's "What a man, what a man, what a man, What a mighty good man", mixed with a central European oompa oompa German beer fest brass band and accordion-type runs.
The song grew on me pretty quickly and I enjoyed getting into an unexpected groove. Lots of listens over the week and I perhaps finally got an inkling of what he was trying to express in a musical sense. It sounded downright silly at first however it bore many underlying layers of beautiful-ness after several listens.

4 out of 5 stars


3. "Crazy Town" by Butterfly (Submitted by DJ Chameleon)
Sounded familiar, especially the chorus. Was probably on UK radio a lot at one point. I always had the impression that fans of garage rock and grunge would like this sort of tune. It kinda has a lot of different feelings. And it has a bloomin' good timbre. Not too fast or slow. Just about the right groove speed. And again, I liked that chorus. Is this what some may call soft rap?

4 out of 5 stars


4. "The Truth Comes Out" by Corb Lund (Submitted by Lisnaholic)

This started out as a calm ballad (imo), but then developed quite quickly into a more intricate piece with the beautiful addition of the strings which kicked in after two minutes. And the vocals were playing against those strings which gave a brilliant voice/string counterpoint thing. Great tune.

4.25 out of 5 stars


5. "Chicken Talk" by Yma Sumac (Submitted by Guybrush)
I usually prefer my Bossa, Rhumba and Samba to my Mambo or Tango, but this track was actually pretty nice with lots of jazz swing. There were also a couple of bars here and there which stretched out into funky dissonance. The quality of the vocals was amazing. And I'm guessing auto-tune was not yet invented so I have no choice but to give extra marks for human precision!

4.25 out of 5 stars


6. "A Thousand Wild Horses" by Blue Sky Riders

Since joining SCD and in particular the mixtape group, I have listened to more of these American-type tracks than I would have otherwise. I hugely appreciate it. Dire Straits would have been my closest interpreter up until recent times.

The first few bars were a little bit of Billy Joel's Piano Man. But then there were plenty of interesting chordal movements which pricked the ol' ears up. It seems that the vocals are strong on this one. Extra points for those lyrics.

4.75 out of 5 stars


Overall, this is another varied mixtape and I appreciated it! I listened to the whole list a few times, and it got better each listen. It's very hard for me to comment on a track after just one or two listens, and I don't know how some reviewers are able to do it, either on here or on prog or jazz archives. Chapeau to them!

[Trollheart]

I would take your point about multiple listens if I wasn't quickly running out of permission for clone creation (come on, I mean! No more than 400 in a week? What do they think I am?) which makes it hard to devote more than one listen to each track. But then, review-wise (and even, generally, listen-wise) I've always been a one-listen guy. I put on a new album and review it there and then. I normally know pretty quickly if I'm going to like it or not from the first listen, and while yeah, some of the tracks might have benefitted from more listens, I really think I got all I needed out of it. Hey, I'm a busy man. Or, I should say, a busy man with over 400 clones a week working for him. But don't tell the NCA (National Cloning Authority): it'll just be our little secret.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to take a delivery...

[Lisnaholic]

The First Morning by Pekka Pohjola
I liked the jerky, unpredictable piano at the start of this track, but the theme played by the horns was a bit tame, a bit disappointing to me. I liked them better when they had a brief, wild interlude at 4:00 mins in, followed by a focus on the piano again. Unfortunately, that was all over in 50 seconds, and we were back to the rather pedestrian main theme to close out the song. I feel like this song could've been better with a more adventurous approach.
4 stars
 
Golden Goose by Todd Rundgren
I was out of the room when I was running the mixtape for the first time and when I heard the opening bars of this, I thought YouTube had skipped to some cheesy commercial. I've come across the name of Todd R, and seen his albums in the shops, but this is the first song of his I've listened to. Sorry, but I just found it irritating, like those jokey songs they make for kids.
1 star
 
Butterfly by Crazy Town
Another apology and another low score, I'm afraid. There are about 10-15 seconds at the start that are ok: the word "butterfly" is mentioned, but then it's all downhill imo. Is it my fault that I associate rap music with young, highly-sexed, streetwise urban men ? That's what the artists seem to present themselves as, and this song has a fair measure of that strutting male potency. On the other hand, there's a nice light guitar running through it and some almost wistful lyrics about a beautiful woman, but they end up sounding out of place, overwhelmed by the repetitive rap chorus. Even the video shows how something is out of kilter: the band just don't look at home in the video's soft-focus hippy-dippy paradise. 
1.5 stars
 
The Truth Comes Out by Corb Lund
I'm glad Mixtapers have liked this song, and you've shown me details about it that I hadn't noticed before. I focused mainly on the mournful voice, a passable substitute for Neil Young in his early days, and on the lyrics. CL uses enough specific vocab (kindling...embers...grizzleys...claws sunk in their nose..)  that you can get a notion of the song's ideas without following every line of the lyrics. And if you do pay more attention to the words, you'll notice that there's no chorus, and a bunch of killer lines:-

Spoiler

The truth comes out as the fire burns low
it comes to light as only embers glow
the whiskey talks, the west wind moans in the night.

The deadfall's gathered and the branches are cut
kindling crackles and the smoke curls up
the small sticks catch then the bigger stuff will burn.

Chinook dies down as the dark descends
pine has burned, the ash has cleansed
the message smolders, is lost, but finally sent.

Connie says she's never seen the cougars so bold
they're comin in the yard and they're stealin young colts
they drag em in the brush with the claws sunk in their nose.

The weather's been funny thirty years or so
the winters got warm, not as much snow
hear the big cats comin cuz there's nowhere left to go.

You gotta look out for bear when you're fishing on lee's creek
they'll come round the bend and they'll make your knees weak
there's grizzlies where there was no grizzly bears before.

Half heard voices from the ghosts, from the graves
the grandfathers tell us at the mouths of the caves:
only old chiefs, older than jesus, can save us now - if we're lucky.
White man light a big fire, stay cold
the red man's warmer, but the old man's old
the antelope seeks the buffalo in the night
The antelope mourns the buffalo in the night

[close]

Chicken Talk by Yma Sumac
This is a classic Guybrush choice: totally unexpected, left-field, out-dated and obscure ! I liked it better on the second hearing and found something in Yma's oh-ho-ho that  made me think of Morricone's The Good The Bad and The Ugly. Of all the songs in this mixtape, this is the one I'm most likely to replay.
3.50 stars
 
A Thousand Wild Horses by Blue Sky Riders
I love the acoustic guitar and soft accordion, and the way the singer's voice drops on "...hell bent on running me down".  A well-put-together love song, and easily my favourite song on Mixtape #4.
4.5 stars