11-24-2005, 04:08 PM
Truthfully this CD was excellent from beginning to end. This would make a great gift to anyone who enjoys music, period. Below I have pasted some reviews which put into words this masterpiece of an album far better than I ever could.
But first, does something stike you as familiar when you read the track listings?
1 Exit Does Not Exist (1:27)
2 Tiny Cities Made of Ashes (3:16)
3 Neverending Math Equation (2:54)
4 Space Travel Is Boring (3:45)
5 Dramamine (2:50)
6 Jesus Christ Was an Only Child (2:02)
7 Four Fingered Fisherman (2:42)
8 Grey Ice Water (2:33)
9 Convenient Parking (1:56)
10 Trucker's Atlas (2:50)
11 Ocean Breathes Salty (4:33)
[ QUOTE ]
Mark Kozelek performs another act of musical alchemy with "Tiny Cities," which reimagines the pop tunes of Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock as deeply inward, poignant evocations of love and grief, along with a kind of soulful endurance. This isn't the first time Kozelek has found a gold thread worth saving and woven a whole coat out of it -- his solo album "What's Next to the Moon" performed a similar act of poetic transubstantiation on the songs of AC/DC. Frankly, after listening to Kozelek's haunted version of the title track, hearing Modest Mouse's rendition is nearly painful. (Sorry, MM fans.)
Kozelek deserves credit for hearing the authentic poetry in Brock's associative lyrics, but the musical atmosphere on this record is wholly his own. Using a spare palette of acoustic and electric guitars with occasional -- and exquisitely tasteful -- strings (a la Beck's "Sea Change," which comes close to the mood of this album), Kozelek creates a unified statement that stands with his very best work, including the previous Sun Kil Moon album "Ghosts of the Great Highway," his solo project "Rock and Roll Singer," and great Red House Painters albums like "Ocean Beach" and "Songs for a Blue Guitar." This album also hangs together better than "Ghosts," which was so bursting with new ideas that tracks like "Duk Koo Kim" and "Gentle Moon" almost seemed to belong on different albums. "Tiny Cities," on the other hand, is sequenced so effectively that from the first moments of "Exit Does Not Exist" -- with its glittering harmonics -- the reader is drawn on a journey to an underworld in which every song seems to deepen the mood and intensity of the last.
There's world-weariness and melancholy in Kozelek's voice, but sadness this distilled and many-layered attains a kind of ecstasy of its own. His voice also has a confidence and subtlety here that shows a steady maturation from his previous work: he has fully arrived in the place he set out for after leaving behind the somewhat precious vocal affectations of his early Red House Painters material, as lovely as those albums were. The title track also performs the neat trick of seeming like the perfect song for our shadowy, apocalyptic time: "We're going down the road to tiny cities made of ashes..." Kozelek's revisioning of it sounds like a 21st century Nick Drake facing the end of the world with wit and an insistence that creating timeless beauty is the best revenge. Like the best of Kozelek's work, this album only seems more carefully constructed and deep with repeated listening. It's hard not to play it over and over.
Kozelek is one of the most original and underappreciated musicians working these days, and this is not only one of the best albums of the year, it's one of the handful of albums from our time that will still sound fresh and wise 30 years from now.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Isaac Brock--the singer, guitarist and leader behind the enormously popular alt-pop act Modest Mouse--would be few people's first choice for a covers album. But that is part of the genius behind this surprisingly excellent album. Sun Kil Moon leader Mark Kozelek's own recorded cover choices in the past--Kiss, Simon and Garfunkel, AC/DC, and most successfully John Denver--hew far closer to the traditional indie approach to covers: a semi-ironic, studied transformation of a tune into something it wasn't before. With Sun Kil Moon's breezy take on Brock's compositions, there is no irony, just a true love for the weird pop genius that Modest Mouse has in spades. Songs are slowed down a lot and stretched out, and frequently you don't recognize the tune until the chorus kicks in, but it totally works even if you've never heard the originals. Labors of love are rarely as enjoyable for all involved. Huzzah. --Mike McGonigal
[/ QUOTE ]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000BI0WQ8/104-8014365-8843951?v=glance
But first, does something stike you as familiar when you read the track listings?
1 Exit Does Not Exist (1:27)
2 Tiny Cities Made of Ashes (3:16)
3 Neverending Math Equation (2:54)
4 Space Travel Is Boring (3:45)
5 Dramamine (2:50)
6 Jesus Christ Was an Only Child (2:02)
7 Four Fingered Fisherman (2:42)
8 Grey Ice Water (2:33)
9 Convenient Parking (1:56)
10 Trucker's Atlas (2:50)
11 Ocean Breathes Salty (4:33)
[ QUOTE ]
Mark Kozelek performs another act of musical alchemy with "Tiny Cities," which reimagines the pop tunes of Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock as deeply inward, poignant evocations of love and grief, along with a kind of soulful endurance. This isn't the first time Kozelek has found a gold thread worth saving and woven a whole coat out of it -- his solo album "What's Next to the Moon" performed a similar act of poetic transubstantiation on the songs of AC/DC. Frankly, after listening to Kozelek's haunted version of the title track, hearing Modest Mouse's rendition is nearly painful. (Sorry, MM fans.)
Kozelek deserves credit for hearing the authentic poetry in Brock's associative lyrics, but the musical atmosphere on this record is wholly his own. Using a spare palette of acoustic and electric guitars with occasional -- and exquisitely tasteful -- strings (a la Beck's "Sea Change," which comes close to the mood of this album), Kozelek creates a unified statement that stands with his very best work, including the previous Sun Kil Moon album "Ghosts of the Great Highway," his solo project "Rock and Roll Singer," and great Red House Painters albums like "Ocean Beach" and "Songs for a Blue Guitar." This album also hangs together better than "Ghosts," which was so bursting with new ideas that tracks like "Duk Koo Kim" and "Gentle Moon" almost seemed to belong on different albums. "Tiny Cities," on the other hand, is sequenced so effectively that from the first moments of "Exit Does Not Exist" -- with its glittering harmonics -- the reader is drawn on a journey to an underworld in which every song seems to deepen the mood and intensity of the last.
There's world-weariness and melancholy in Kozelek's voice, but sadness this distilled and many-layered attains a kind of ecstasy of its own. His voice also has a confidence and subtlety here that shows a steady maturation from his previous work: he has fully arrived in the place he set out for after leaving behind the somewhat precious vocal affectations of his early Red House Painters material, as lovely as those albums were. The title track also performs the neat trick of seeming like the perfect song for our shadowy, apocalyptic time: "We're going down the road to tiny cities made of ashes..." Kozelek's revisioning of it sounds like a 21st century Nick Drake facing the end of the world with wit and an insistence that creating timeless beauty is the best revenge. Like the best of Kozelek's work, this album only seems more carefully constructed and deep with repeated listening. It's hard not to play it over and over.
Kozelek is one of the most original and underappreciated musicians working these days, and this is not only one of the best albums of the year, it's one of the handful of albums from our time that will still sound fresh and wise 30 years from now.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Isaac Brock--the singer, guitarist and leader behind the enormously popular alt-pop act Modest Mouse--would be few people's first choice for a covers album. But that is part of the genius behind this surprisingly excellent album. Sun Kil Moon leader Mark Kozelek's own recorded cover choices in the past--Kiss, Simon and Garfunkel, AC/DC, and most successfully John Denver--hew far closer to the traditional indie approach to covers: a semi-ironic, studied transformation of a tune into something it wasn't before. With Sun Kil Moon's breezy take on Brock's compositions, there is no irony, just a true love for the weird pop genius that Modest Mouse has in spades. Songs are slowed down a lot and stretched out, and frequently you don't recognize the tune until the chorus kicks in, but it totally works even if you've never heard the originals. Labors of love are rarely as enjoyable for all involved. Huzzah. --Mike McGonigal
[/ QUOTE ]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000BI0WQ8/104-8014365-8843951?v=glance