Tim Buckley
Starsailor

★★★½

Example number 14387291 of a completely off album cover. Whenever someone gives you a smile like this you know it's going to be something on the other side of the spectrum. And especially back then you'd only find out what it sounded like when you went home and played it. Anyways, this album is quite surprising in a number of different ways. 

It helps fuse the constant problem many artists face during the middle portion of their careers; how to keep experimenting and expanding your artistic limits while also staying loyal to fans and creating popular hits. Not all artists subscribe to this dilemma but I feel like Buckley surely does. Songs like "Song to the Siren" and "Moulin Rouge" stay true to the hits Buckley needed to register, and because of this they fall flat compared to the rest of the album. 

But when listening to the straight psych rock hit "Monterey" and nervous wreck of a song "Jungle Fire", you are able to get a great taste of Buckley's talent for songwriting and musicianship. I think besides that two song slump I mentioned earlier, the later tracks get more intense and exploratory. Moving from echoing space rock to jazz instrumentation in a mere two songs is something I can imagine only Buckley doing. Those two being "Star Sailor" and "Healing Festival".

Of course his music is varied but this album falls short when it comes down to its cohesiveness. Even withholding the slump, it fails to really feel like one whole project to me. Just a collection of some great songs, some mediocre songs, and some pretty forgettable ones. All mixed throughout. His voice is unique and special but it doesn't seem to work in every experiment he tries. Great album but not one I would call his best. 

Favorite Song: Jungle Fire

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Jo David Meyer Lysne & Mats Eilertsen Kroksjø     ★★★½   Jo David Meyer Lysne and Mats Eilertsen are two Norwegian musicians who have come together once more, on the Hubro music label (also originating from Norway). This encounter seems to place focus on the textural environment and less so on the improvisation techniques of Lysne (on acoustic guitar) and Eilertsen (on bass). The title Kroksjø is the Norwegian word for an oxbow lake, in which a "U" shaped lake is formed after being cut off from a river. Lysne has stated that these geological formations helped inspire this endeavor and that he views them as a symbol of the artistic effort, being impermanent and forever changing. Hypnotic motifs are lost and found on this record, and with the help of a turntable, the comfort of physical home audio is brought forward. Sounds from the natural world and folk musings seep through to the heart of this record, providing points of focus that solidify t...
Read more
Image
Jason Lescalleet The Pilgrim ★ ★ ★★ Everything I've been listening to has been really great recently. This is a very heavy and somber record by Jason Lescalleet. Part of the newer cohort of abstract electronic music, he's known for working with people like Graham Lambkin and Kevin Drumm. This class of individuals have been creating intense and vivid textures in their music with the help of outside sources, mostly field recordings. That concept is also utilized here but not in the usual manner.  Summed up, this album is about the relationship Jason had with his father, and a sort of memorial in remembrance of his passing. It's not easy to create an artistic project like this for anyone, in any medium or platform. Especially not in the niche and sometimes conceptual subgenre that Lescalleet resides in. But he does it beautifully and in great effect. The album starts off with a spoken introduction bye Lescalleet describing how his father felt about his mus...
Read more
Image
Joe McPhee, Piotr Michalowski & Andrew Drury  Live at Edgefest ★★★½   Edgefest serves as one of the larger American Midwest's avant-garde jazz festivals. Since 1997, the Kerrytown Concert House has provided an up-close and personal listening experience through this now four-day long festival. Its popularity, support, and collaborations have continued to grow in recent years. In 2017, Joe McPhee, Andrew Drury, and Piotr Michalowski performed three improvisations that have finally met my ears nearly two years later. Joe McPhee is no stranger to me, and while I have not heard Drury's music, I know that the two have played with each other before. Michalowski resides in Ann Arbor and besides being a self-taught horn player, he teaches at the University of Michigan and writes for the Ann Arbor Observer. So this setting and player arrangement was all new to me, and I was determined to go in with little expectations and to really listen to the interactions...
Read more