Musique Mecanique - Carla Bley

Advantages: Emily Haines' astonishing, mesmorising voice; the backing
Disadvantages: The plainness of a few songs, towards the end especially, be bad

...fantastic. Sure, everyone loves "Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl" - it's a brilliant song (why don't you know what I'm talking about? Go download it!) But aside from that and the odd song from her time as front woman of Metric, she hasn't got that much on her side in terms of quality. It's also quite a departure from her previous music, throwing out the electric guitars and replacing them with piano and hushed orchestration. As a result, "Knives Don't Have Your Back" is a haunting, ethereal album. It's dedicated to her father, the Canadian poet Paul Haines, as evidenced by the plain album cover which references his work as a songwriter with Carla Bley, on the album "Escalator Over The Hill". This isn't a depressed, angry sounding album in any way though, and it surprisingly doesn't focus on the death of her father, or death in general... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Well, it's certainly original...
Disadvantages: Gradually becomes annoying

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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Destroys the stigma that drum and bass carries as a genre for 'pikeys'
Disadvantages: Perhaps dissapointing for people who wanted something slightly heavier

...Calibe is one of the greatest electronic music producers of our time. His use and arrangement of samples within his tracks are, in my opinion, second to none. His style of drum and bass production is extensively varied, however he seems to retain a certain something in each track that makes them instantly recognisable as his own. The outcome of 'Musique Concrete' is that of an electronic symphony that destroys any pre-conceptions of drum and bass as being unlistenable noise. Quite the contrary, Calibre creates music for the true heads and is not as popular with your average burberry cap wearing pill taker, who would prefer something a little more jump up and in your face. I would encourage anyone to listen to this albumn and re-discover a sub-genre of drum and bass as it is today for the older and wiser listener. As with his colleagues... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful