Valende

Jennifer Gentle – Valende – Sub Pop Records
Reviewed by Peter 3-29-2005

An interesting album that provides a variety of sounds and moods. Tracks 1,2 and 10 are more pop/rock tracks and consequently more accessible (maybe not 10). In between, songs are more psychedelic, often reminiscent of Pink Floyd in their earlier days. The instrumentation is usually very pretty. Male vox tend to be a little strange, but there’s some nice female singing.

FCC Clean
1. * 2:47 – Mid-tempo, strummed acoustic-guitar, a little electric and kazoo! Very laid-back and simple. Maybe an early pop-Floyd feel.
2. * 2:24 – Up-tempo, energetic, electric organ, hand claps and what sounds like air being slowly let out of a balloon. More of a mid-60’s pop-rock feel.
3. 4:11 – Down-tempo, subdued, vox-driven song. Limited electric guitar and bells. Wordless vocal harmonies are pretty.
4. 6:30 –Down-tempo, simple, pretty. Interesting stereo mixing (starts all right channel, for example) Airy female vox, sparse, pretty, acoustic guitar, nice glockenspiel. Also faint scraping and breathing noises later on. Kind of creepy, actually.
5. * 3:11 – Down-tempo, simple and pretty at times, but busy (a little cluttered) at others. Starts with nature sounds (water and birds) and pretty guitar. Airy female vox.
6. 7:33 – Crescendo of noise and cluttered sounds (some voices/gasping, whistles, percussion). Really very crazy. At first it sounds like early Ummagumma-era Floyd, but quickly gets less musical than Floyd ever is. Long fade out.
7. * 3:19 – Down-tempo, simple and pretty again. Back to simple, very pretty acoustic guitar. Instrumental at first, high, airy female vox towards end. Long fade-out with rustling and rusty-hinge noise at end, both of which are a little disturbing.
8. 5:18 – Begins with noises from end of 7. Also very down-tempo and subdued. Raspy, male-vox [probably intentionally] sound like they’re struggling through song. Other singing in background.
9. 4:51 – Relatively mid-tempo. Stars with glockenspiel and female vox singing “ding-dong” then clicking – sounded like a Psapp song at first, again towards the end. Raspy male vox. Ticking continues throughout along with rattle-snake-like percussion.
10. 4:21 - Up-tempo, energetic, more rock. Silly male vox (which get progressively more Chipmunksy), but they interact well with the zany instrumentation and up-beat guitar. Weird interlude of a girl laughing crazily. [Other than that] It’s a silly/strange but fun song that lives up to its name. Fades out with 45s left, then haunting instrumental finish.