le blog pastallconcerns

1. There

                One begins with a hypnotic melody and a light chorus.  The lyrics put to mind the image of destitute and troubled world in which a person wishes to escape before his life falls apart.  The song has strong feelings of hope and anticipation to it, as well as dread and sadness towards the end.  The vocals here sound as if they were spoken through a radio, and while they add depth and realism to the song, they really annoyed me towards the end because the instruments drowned them out to the point where I couldn’t understand him and it was all reduced to static noise…The melody is enhanced as the song reaches it’s end, with the addition of gentle piano tunes and some light drumming.  It is really amazing how a story is started with the lyrics of this song, and then continued throughout the album through the music alone.

                One of my favorites from this album, ‘Must’ starts off with a pretty piano melody that repeats throughout the song, but doesn’t grow old.  The effect of the first tune is paralleled once a few rough guitar notes are introduced, until we are given a balance between the two extremes with the addition of an acoustic guitar.  Vocals are sorrowful and made even more unique by the fact that they are played backwards!  You won’t find any ‘satanic messages’ here though, this is a fairly gentle song, although it is intense in its own way.  It fades out with a lot of synthesizers and is a nice choice to have gone before the next song; the balance is well executed.  ‘Must’ is a very good song, and really shows what Landscape is capable of.

                This track is a short music box tune that acts as a prelude to the next song, ‘Something’.  While only 42 seconds long, it is a powerful melody…This music is great to listen to in the first hours of day, when the sun rises and everything is blue, it is a nice way to start off the morning.

                A dizzy sound envelopes this song…It begins with a guitar that first sounds out of place due to its almost country-like tone, as with many of the sounds in this song, but eventually they all blend together to create a very nice musical piece.  The vocals here drone and hum in a chorus, giving at a very strange atmosphere of confusion and order at the same time.   The problem is that the song doesn’t change that much once it gets going, I would have liked to have seen a deviation from the opening melody at one point…

5. That
           

                Melancholy is a suitable description word for this song.  The piano gives ‘That’ an extremely lonely sound, and is even made a little unsettling by the faint chorus in the background.  In the song’s crescendo the chorus is more prevalent, and the very sad tone at the beginning almost lifts, only to return at the very last second, as if a weight is being dropped on your spirit.  This was a very well composed song.

                ‘We’ begins with a church organ type of sound, and it gives the song an odd mixture of happiness and instability at the same time.  The bass guitar joins in early on and makes this song sound a lot happier with its carefree melody. Vocals on this track don’t seem to be in the form of words, and they kind of whine towards the end, which I didn’t like so much…When the song reaches its last moments, we start to see the unveiling of the heavier side of this band, if only for a moment.  The end was cool; calming but energetic.

7. Can

                Another lonely song…There are some interesting sounds to be heard here, such as the motorcycle noise that pervades the beginning, the keyboard melodies that are tinged with loss, or the depressing guitar.  This music is very good for just sitting and relaxing, it really takes pressure off the mind and puts you in a different place.  ‘Can’ fades out with a sound like a rusty swing set moving in the wind, and leaves you wondering about your own life.  Excellently done.

8. Do

                The guitar work in this band is really impressive, as you can tell with this song; the riffs are well thought out and express a lot of things by themselves.  When I hear this song, I get a sense of struggle in the notes; it is really a lot of fun for me to try to draw feelings from the music, it’s a great way to experience an album, especially one you really enjoy, because it allows you to feel the sounds and get inside the minds of the composers, as if you were with them when they wrote the music…Once again, my only complaint is that this song needed a bit more variety, it basically followed the same pattern the whole time, only adding more things.  Nevertheless, it was a good song.

                 ‘Against’ shows off Landscape’s heavier side really well, even though it starts off with some light cymbal tapping and a very nice piano melody.  About 2 minutes in this song kicks in; the drumming is rhythmic and the guitars give off a frustrated and tense sound, although it isn’t an angry sounding track.  I really like what they do around 3:15, although I don’t really know how to describe it…just listen and find out!  At 4:00 we are once again thrown into the loud melody that lasts until the end.  ‘Against’ is a great song, and one of my favorites from this album.

10. Them

                The most electronic song on the album, this one is heavy on the synthesizers from the start, relying on them to set the tone of the song before breaking into a guitar riff with lots of keyboards, giving it a weary sound.  The drums energize the song, building it up into a rock-based tune from the mid point onwards, before shutting down rapidly at the end.  This is a good example of the different styles that Landscape applies to their music, and how they give each one a sizable amount of time to be expressed.

11. Untitled 1

                The first untitled track is dark and forlorn, with a dismal piano playing throughout the 10 minute song, accompanied by the sound of rain.  More synthesizers join in as the track progresses, giving it a feeling of brightness to go along with the melancholic piano.  The second piano melody that is introduced sounds almost hopeful yet it gave the song a strong feeling of regret.  At the end there were nearly two minutes of silence that I felt should have been cut out, but they did give me time to think about the song and analyze what I felt while listening to it.  This is a beautiful instrumental, and one of the highlights to this album.

                The conclusion to One picks up softly but gets progressively louder as the guitar and bass riffs join together to create a really nice sound that seems almost folk-inspired.  The tune is very inviting and refreshing, and provides a feeling of peace after the more intense sounds and emotions felt during the previous three songs.  This track pulls the album together well and is a good way to end it.

The music is excellently written, and there are some great presentations of the band’s talent on this album.

A lot of this music is very relaxing, but some of it is energetic as well, making it great to listen to in the car or just lying around your home…

Despite the variety of the songs on this album and their differences from each other, a lot of them stayed on the same melody the whole time and didn’t change all that much.

Open wide your eyes…and your ears, Derek Delano’s album is a real experience that implies more than just casual listening. Open Wide Your Eyes You Will See A Bird appeals to all your senses at one time. Dwelling on the record cover might seem a little superficial at first sight compared to the importance of music but it would be difficult to step into his world without considering this paper gem as part of his art. The cover is uncommonly beautiful. Even though you haven’t been introduced to the sounds yet, you can already feel its universe, as a feminine tree-like figure prompts you into running your fingers over the smooth and delicate surface.

The first track confirms this feeling with the introduction. Like a bird on the wire, a soft voice raises over childlike tingling and jingling. One can’t help thinking of Eliott Smith, especially on Bubbles of Soap, in which the voice claims for a shelter as if it were seeking protection and solace in its influences. Indeed, the first songs of the album either recall  Troy Von Balthazar for the singing or Thomas Dybdal for the melodies. Armed with such companions, the wingless bird takes his flight gradually, getting more and more impact on the listener and gaining identity with songs like Frozen Lake, absolutely stunning in its simplicity, and Kill me Twice with its surprising lilt and energy. By the time you’ve come to Like a Curse, the husky voice has won you over and you can fully appreciate the bare sadness of the guitar playing . The songs seem to grasp the beauty lying in precarious things to make it last in your head like a broken kaleidoscope full of vanishing images.

The record reaches its climax with the final song. My Home Now beams with sadness. The title is all the more relevant as the voice, at first unobstrusive ,has managed to create a universe of its own with steadfast melodies. The small bird has found a melodious nest. Even though there is a certain lack of intricate arrangements and some songs might sound repetitive, the sensuality and fragility of the voice - far from being dispirited - is often enhanced by the pure melodies. Eventually, it’s the listener’s turn to find a quiet shelter in Derek Delano’s melancholy.

Elka stands as a perfect example of a self-made and self-promoted band, an example other musicians should follow if they want to get the opportunity to be heard of and talked about. Founded in Paris by singer-songwriter Elka in 2003, the band felt urged to play live and compose music out of a compulsion to do so, as their biography puts it. And that's the most striking feature in their songs:  the whole band has to let go of their pent up anger on live, so as to give birth to a melodic and potent explosion of noise in front of an unknown audience. It’s a risky and daring move, of course; but, after listening to their live tracks, you know that Elka is really successful and inspired.

Elka's voice is a perfect illustration of that inner strength which has to be let go of on stage. Sometimes as sweet as it can be haunted and hypnotizing, his voice may sometimes remind the listener of  Tool's singer, and is a perfect match for the cunning musical structures set up by the band on every track, from mid-tempo songs Lords and Musty Joke to the aggressive and noisy track One Fine Day. The voice compliments each track, finding its own way to illustrate music and to build up a tense and sometimes suffocating atmosphere.  Elka's voice is what links the various, contrasted universes of each song.

There lies another particularity of those songs: they all have their own sound and identity. The handclaps in Musty Joke, which make that song sound like a mix of blues-rock and gospel rhythm, reminding the listener of some songs by The Mission, do not at all foretell what the following track sounds like. Of course, this review focuses on songs taken from different demos, but the songs should be considered as a way to track back how Elka's universe and potential have evolved, a way for the band to show what they can do and how they can both acknowledge their influences and find their own sound.  Lords testifies to the band's evolution as trip-hop rhythms and  violin waves take us to an unexpectedly slow and sad world that Elka’s voice, once again, transcends, going up and down as violins follow the same pattern: it throbs with despair and disillusion as Elka  sings  'Everything's gonna be alright, everything's gonna be fine', though he obviously means quite the opposite. The same vocal melodies can be found in the noisy and sad track Models, a  bittersweet song in which music explores noisy and melodic patterns, structures  and simple arrangements - a guitar build-up in the chorus, then an outburst of noise at the end of the song- , efficiency and minimalism, illumination and darkness, with the spoken words part at the end of the song. That song is a  perfect illustration of the band's diversity and evolution from their first EP The Musty Joke to their second one, Work 2.

We can't but wish we had had a whole record to review, but I’m sure that, after having recorded Work 2, the band is going to bring a whole new dimension to its music. Indeed, that precisely seems to be what the band is doing right now; they've finished building their own studio and are going to start working on some new material. We can't but admire their work because it’s so sincere and true. Then, it is quite a feat to write some original music while being so busy playing regular live sets, building their own studio, and promoting their music…

Perhaps that's one thing that can be sensed in the way they write and play their tunes: each musician has his own 'voice', which easely and almost very professionally merge with the other members' within each song. That's certainly one of the main reasons why each song has its own personality and mood: it's a way for the band to synthesize a particular moment, a particular feeling and thought, and music does give them the opportunity to express those times. So, I might have been wrong when I stated that I was looking forwards to listening to a full album very soon; Elka's music is a matter of spontaneity for it reveals a personal reflection on life in a particular place, at a particular time, and that is why this band sounds so original and true. They set an example for lots of young bands: if you want to cut it, you have to work, give your best, and  take every opportunity. I know it sounds pretentious and idealistic, but it is worth saying it over and over again, as Elka perfectly puts that theory in practice…