Reviews

Langhorne Slim: Be Set Free

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langhorne slim

Langhorne Slim: Be Set Free (Kemado, 2009)

I almost hate myself because I don’t love this album. I became a big Langhorne Slim fan last year and that Langhorne Slim & The War Eagles album was the album of the year for me. Therefore it hurts that I have to admit that Be Set Free is a big dissapointment to me. Langhorne Slim can still write great songs and he can still sing perfectly. There’s nothing wrong with the core of the songs, but why the hell there are tons of instruments in the background. If Marty McFly and Doc would lend me their DeLorean I would change two things. A) I would sack the producer and throw all these strings, organs, trumpets and all the other instruments whose name I don’t even know out of the window B) I would lock Mr Langhorne Slim to the studio with just a guitar and told him to just play the songs live and sing his heart out. Fourty minutes later a great record would have seen the light of the day.

I know this is totally unfair critizism, but for me the arrangements just kill the songs. I’m sure they are genuinely excited about this more ambitious direction and they didn’t do it in order to appeal to larger audiences. Hopefully Langhorne Slim will do just that though and become much more popular. Despite the fact that his music sounds a lot lamer than before he is still a great folk songwriter and most likely a wonderful live performer. What does it really matter if some finnish prick on the other side of the globe prefers those old records. He can just keep on watching that youtube video of I Love You, But Goodbye over and over again because the song sounds so much better there than on the record.

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Production / Arrangements
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Langhorne Slim at myspace

 
If it would only sound like this on a record:

 
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tQX4tl-Xps]

 

The same song (with a really horrible ending) is also on his myspace if you want to compare. For me this youtube version with just an acoustic guitar is million times better.

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Reviews

Vetiver: Tight Knit

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vetiver

Vetiver: Tight Knit (Bella Union, 2009)

Last year I fell in love with Vetiver after hearing their wonderful cover album Thing Of The Past. It’s like the finest cover album ever and it introduced a lot of brilliant music to me. I’ve bought albums like Loudon Wainwright III’s Attempted Mustache and Bobby Charles self-titled album because of that record. And well obviously the older Vetiver albums too.

This new album Tight Knit arrived in february 2009 and now the band is back making their own music. It still sounds a lot like a thing of the past and that’s only a great thing. Andy Cabic has such an amazing gentle voice and the songs sound oh so subtle and heartwarming. The first trio of songs Rolling Sea, Sister and Everyday is just pure magic. Beautifully arranged and carefully played folk music that is so rich and simple at the same time.  Vetiver takes you on a trip to the seventies west coast where some guys are playing folk and country rock songs on the back porch of an abandoned building and the audience is lying on the ground eight miles high. Unlike a lot of my favourite bands that play slow folk and country music, Vetiver’s music isn’t depressive at all. Warm is the best adjective to describe the music. This is the music that will keep my heart warm when the long winter gives its coldest shots. The second half of the album don’t reach the same level as the first one though and that’s why I have to settle for four hearts.

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Vetiver Website
Vetiver at myspace

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Finnish music, News

Vote Bääbs to the eurovision song contest

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Today you can start voting for Bääbs. YLE have chosen 30 songs for this first stage of selecting the finnish entry to the next eurovision song contest. Only 3 of them will make it to the next round where they are companied by those lame invited acts.

Bääbs is Päivi Kankaro from TV-Resistori and the song You Don’t Know Tomorrow was written by Viola’s Riku Kärkkäinen and Tommi Forsström. It would be great to see such a lovely people make it all the way to Oslo. And obviously I don’t need to vote them just because they are good people. The song is really good as well.

Bääbs Website

Oh and there’s actually more good people in the contest. Jussi Petäjä has two songs in the competition. One with his great band Captain Cougar and one with his new project Blackbird. Marcus Granfors (aka Frankie Magnum) from Vaasa is also in the game.

You’ll find the songs and the voting info by hitting the link below:

Euroviisut Website

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Top lists

Top of the Month: September

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Time for the pointless list of the month aka things I loved during september. I hope I didn’t forget anything extremely important.

Top albums:

1. The Avett Brothers: I and Love and You
2. The Micragirls: Wild Girl Walk
3. Janne Laurila: Kultaisia pisteitä
4. Mark Eric: A Midnight Summer’s Dream
5. Richmond Fontaine: We Used To Think The Freeway…
6. Shaun Harris: Shaun Harris
7. Rogriguez: Coming From Reality
8. Langhorne Slim: Be Set Free
9. John Hartford: Looks at Life / Earthwords & Music
10. Gene Parsons: Kindling

Top 5 songs:

1. The Micragirls: Summer’s Gone
2. The Avett Brothers: January Wedding
3. Richmond Fontaine: Maybe We Were Both Born Blue
4. Mark Eric: Move With The Dawn
5. Janne Laurila: Kultaisia pisteitä

Oh.. and I know this review thingy has gotten a bit out of hand lately. But I suppose it’s funny that at least for once the problem is that I write too much stuff and not the fact that I don’t write anything at all for months. I just had this ludicrous idea to review everything I’ve bought during the year and there’s a lot of that stuff. Am I even halfway through yet. I hope I am. I’m also well aware that I haven’t reviewed many finnish albums. I care too much about them, so it’s much more stressful and time consuming to review them. But I will do them eventually. I can fully recommend reviewing for everyone though. My extremely poor reviews aren’t very detailed and have an information value of zero, but writing them still meant that I actually had to listen to the records and pay attention. Yeah, the fact I haven’t even listened to all of them that well beforehand sounds stupid, because I do buy 97% of the music I review and don’t get piles of heavy or rap promos that I’m not that interested about. I know that actually listening to records and not just collecting them is a sick idea, but sometimes it’s worthwhile and reviewing is a good way to force oneself to actually listen to the albums he/she buys..

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