Luminescent Orchestrii – Neptune’s Daughter
Reviewed by Sadie O., 2/5/09
Folk/Jazz/Idunnowhat string quartet with mostly Eastern European tendencies. Two dudes and two chicks who all do vocals, and a guy who does percussion on half of the tracks. Some traditional, some traditionally influenced, a bit of lunacy. A fair amount of dischordance and sawing, but all for deliberate effect, as they can obviously play and sing like nobody’s business. Also a lot of dark feel – the back cover photo shot at night (and the title song apparently about deliberately drowning oneself) suits the music.
There’s a “damn” on track 13, but that’s it for FCCs (in English, at least).
All very good; I like 7 and 8 bestestest.
1. 3:51 **violin and drones intro, adds guitar and builds speed and energy into a rather manic eastern European folk dance. Interesting interplay of strings – often dischordant.
2. 2:19 ***Bulgarian-style close female harmonies, big drum and limping (but danceable) beat.
3. 4:31 ***relaxed and ultra-groovy swing with almost a hip hop feel (very oddly), silly, but with interesting combination of elements.
4. 5:09 **solo violin, slow traditional dance with several strings. Instrumental, with almost a story line – dance cuts out to disturbing cello, then back to a manic clown dance.
5. 2:43 *solo male vocals, very subdued – is this Yiddish? Sounds a bit like it. Mysterious vibe with rather disturbing strings.
6. 4:37 **sawed violin duet with odd harmony, some sort of huge insect thrumming around, female vocals in English. Slow and dark.
7. 4:53 ****fierce hand drums, big bass, aggressive violins, minor key Turkish dance with lots of machismo. Sax solo and big build. Neet!
8. 4:24 ****solo acoustic bass beats, creepy violins, b-movie spoken word, then crazy downtempo monster mash.
9. 4:05 ***upbeat polka with plenty of attitude, female vocals in Rom (?) with some gorgeous harmonies.
10. 5:01 **midtempo strings, syncopated, but with a sort of rock ‘n’ roll feel. Instrumental. Switches up into high gear for last minute or so.
11. 5:11 *subdued intro, then swingy and sweet Cuban folk song, female duet. Pretty and sweet. Mellow guitar and singing at end.
12. 3:49 **violin sawing intro, then uptempo and very energetic macho dance. Fades to walking upright bass and sawing, then back to dance.
13. 5:02 **guitar and spoken tale of the high seas, then a sort of combination vaudeville/goofy shanty/peg leg dance.