Reviews
 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
Another Country
Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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Cocteau Twins
Is ‘ethereal bombast’ an oxymoron? I always thought so, but the Cocteau Twins are apparently trying to prove that to be a misconception. While drum machines pound and processed guitars scream their way through arpeggios from hell, lead singer Elizabeth Fraser enunciates wordless vocal phrases one on top of another. Everything is swathed in echo, and the effect is something like what might happen if Enya had a chip on her shoulder. Another reference might be Simple Minds (a relevant comparison, since that band has allegedly provided the name for the Cocteaus); remember how virtually every Simple Minds record was buried in layers of echo, so much that you could barely discern what was going on? This is a lot like that. If this is ‘ambient’ music, then it is the ambience of a netherworld, with no geographical reference. Hell, at least Brian Eno figured that his brand of ambient sounds could work nicely in airports. I can’t imagine a public space that would blithely accept the wordless rants of Fraser, but still in all, the songs work as a sort of mind-numbing mood enhancement, but only if you are willing to succumb.
Grade: 
 
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