Customer Reviews

2 Foot Yard

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Carla Kihlstedt is quite a remarkable violinist/vocalist in her myriad projects. She is one of the founding members of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (killer avant-rock band), the Tin Hat Trio (a chamber jazz trio of guitar, violin, and accordion), and is one of the singers in Charming Hostess (their album _Eat_ is a great blend of progressive female vocals, Eastern European motifs, twisted folk music, and avant-rock quirks). She has been a contributor to many others artists' recordings, including John Zorn, Tom Waits, and Mr. Bungle. She has made quite a name for herself in the San Francisco bay area as a classical performer and improviser. So what does her solo album offer?

Like the expanse of her career, Kihlstedt's solo album is quite diverse. For the most part it consists of Kihlstedt's avant-garde art songs as well as a few atonal instrumental musings. The writing is extremely strong, and given her background (especially with Charming Hostess) it is really no surprise that her vocal lines are ravishing. There's the catchy opener, "Empty Cupboard", which sounds like something Kate Bush might have done with more classical background. "Rooting for the Shy Librarian" is a feisty track with catchy "ooh"s and "ahhh"s over a repetitive violin figure. "Last Resort" opens with picturesque but sorrowful solo violin, then enters slow, elegiac vocal lines: "Before you cut my rotting tree find me a last resort." Then there's "Trampolina", which sounds like a bizarre nursery rhyme. "Patchen" is a mere two minutes, building on a minimalist texture of quiet but fast violin lines weaving beneath an elusive and graceful vocal.

The instrumental pieces are fewer in number, but they are also quite rad. First there is "World of Made", an insane pointillist array of string pizzicatos playing the hell out of catchy melody. "Far and Wee" is a beautiful duet for violin and viola where one plays a seductive melody and the other blitzes through scratchy runs. "When Will Tomorrow End?" is the last piece of the cd, with Kihlstedt playing "trumpet violin." I don't know what on earth that is (sounds like the two eponymous instruments being played at once, sorta), but its contemplative lyricism makes a nice ending for this great album.

Recommended!

While violinist Carla Khilstedt has been an active participant in many bands and recordings (Tin Hat Trio, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Charming Hostess among many others) this is her first recording as a leader, and it's a doozy. Ranging from the sublime ("50 Miles") to the harrowing ("Flinch") to the delicate ("Another Day"), this album brings to bear all Kihlstedt's formidable range, highlighting the strengths of a musician of rare ability.

Voice and strings are served by small, often intimate arrangements, bringing you into the music. Songs have individual character, differing greatly in tone, content and style, yet all the music is of one basic nature, obviously from one mind and voice. To visit so many musics in one outing is remarkable, but doing so and still retaining such a strong sense of individual identity is exceptional, probably the best single word to describe this album.

For my money this is THE record of the year. Confident without being cocky, beautiful without being self-absorbed, skillful but not gratuitously so. Accessable to the casual listener but a wealth of depth for the discerning musician, I cannot think of a single thing I'd change. This is a stellar piece of work from one of the most interesting musicians working today.

Get it. Put it in your brain.

I write music myself. It is my passion. She is one of my new favorite composers. If I could, this is the music I would be writing.

The first time I heard her play was on Mr. Bungle's California release. Then, I saw the Tin Hat Trio and was completely blown away. Next it was Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, which quickly became my favorite band. Yesterday I listened to 2 Foot Yard and my first reaction was giddiness. I loved every minute of it and was left wanting more.

Now I will attempt the impossible - describing truly original music. If you have heard Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Tin Hat Trio, you can use that as a point of reference. Kihlstedt has an uncanny knack for creating hauntingly broken harmony and then finding just the right melody to gel it together. Her music is just the right mix of all sorts of popular music and modern classical. She is a fan (and so am I) of close, harmonies that are dissonant, but that have an almost consonant effect. It is truly beautiful music that constantly demands your attention. How about progressive, intelligent pop (and I use that term in the loosest way possible) meets Weil meets Webern.

It is just amazing how a musician can get their music into you and make you feel it. Carla Kihlstedt does that and more. I hate it when people call her the next Tom Waits; she is just Carla. If you liked one song you heard on the radio and you want the whole album to be like that, you can go with linkin park, Cause diversity is the motto of this album.

This CD has so much variety one can't put a genre on it. Snappy songs like "Empty Cupboard" will make you think you are listening to Squirrel nut zippers for a while (which is not bad), but then it turns mellow. After that "World of made" an entirely crazy pizzicato song. "Peel" shows how a dissonance can be beautiful and funny at the same time. "Flinch" lets Carla's anger out as she screams with distortion on her beautiful voice. After hearing this you can say "screw slayer". "Trampolina" starts as a kiddy song, a really scary one and then evolves into a demonstration of cymbals, and then evolves again, and again and again. Until it ends on a really frightening note and goes to the kiddy song again, but now with a background noise that resembles an Angelo Badalementi Soundtrack. "Patchen" sounds like a war song, really thrilling and full of suspense and emotion. "On Walking" is a true masterpiece, it is so beautifully haunting, random, eerie, etc. It lets us see how skillful she is (not on a malmsteen kind of way), and how much sounds you can get off a violin. Her voice is phantasmagoric but beautiful; it is a song that will require a bucket to listen to, so you can drool all you want. This song literally shocked a friend, to the point that he used it for a short video for a university project. The final song "When will tomorrow end" is melancholic, the instruments are beautifully played here, they make it sound like it is an old vinyl, it is a perfect closing for a perfect album.

This CD tickles your spine, plays with your mind and touches your heart in a good way. I don't think it is an easy CD to listen to, but once you get hooked you just won't stop playing it.

I skipped some songs cause I can only do 1000 words on this, the only thing I can say to end the review is: if you see this CD elsewhere, at any price, get it at any cost.

Rating 5+++++/5 (This CD is too much for ratings.)

2 Foot Yard is Carla's "solo" CD featuring Shahzad Ismaily and Marika Hughes. It's filled with her songs highlighting their instrumental brilliance, compositional skills, and Carla's vocals in a "pop" format. They "deconstruct" songs of all styles and rebuild them to their own liking. Simply Amazing.
Fans of Tin Hat Trio and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum will love it. My Mom likes it !! A MUST have.

Carla Kihlstedt has proven that she can easlily play any style! This album contains 20 very eclectic tracks. Some of them may remind you of her "SleepyTimeGorlla Museum" projects, ("Flinch", "Flash Blood"). Other tracks are very jazzy ("Rooting for the Shy Librarian"). The track #19 - "On Waking" is truly mesmerizing violin insanity that WILL leave you speechless. A very distictive Bay Area musician Carla has shown she has many talents and her musical capabilities are limitless. A+++

This will easily be one of my albums of the year. Going solo on this occassion, Carla is also a member of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Tin Hat Trio and Charming Hostess. To put it simply, she is a musician of extroadinary vision and skill. And it comes through on every track. 'Peel' has an upbeat, flirtatious groove. 'Last Resort' has a forlorn beauty to it. then there's the raw emotion of 'Flinch' and the childlike plyfulness of 'Trampolina'. At times eerie, at others haunting, the instrumentation is always brilliant. Then there's the lyrics - very cleverly written (eg, 'Gravity' - A fisherman's daughter, dress made of hooks). This is without a doubt one of the best little shiny discs i have. Not to be missed!

At the time of this review (2008), there are a lot of singer/songwriters using looping to build up layered performances. But in 2003 when "2 Foot Yard" was released, it was far less common. Although Kihlstedt is fairly obscure compared to someone like KT Tunstall, I have to think she was influential in her musical style.

Even though one could draw comparisons with artists such as Imogen Heap, Kihlstedt is quite a bit more experimental. Those familiar with the sort of music coming out of John Zorn's Tzadik label will know what to expect. There are almost no straight-ahead numbers here. There's always some interesting twist whether formally, tonally, or texturally.

My favorite aspect of the album is that it keeps you guessing, but at the same time, it's so listenable. It's experimental without being difficult. The format of the album - many small nuggets of music - is also appealing to me, although I see from reading some of the reviews that not everyone shares this opinion. I can understand the criticism that "2 Foot Yard" is somewhat schizophrenic, or at least unfocused. To my ears, it's the aural equivalent of a kaleidoscope viewing Kihlstedt's array of experiences.

I don't have any major complaints about this album, but I don't quite think it's a five-star album. It's small in scale, which is closely tied to Kihlstedt's working method, but it doesn't have the heft of a major work. It IS a four-star album, easily. I would probably recommend this to fans of the NYC downtown scene, as well as 'some' Zorn fans (i.e. those who like more than just his most experimental projects). Fans of artists working in a similar style will probably enjoy this as well. It's a cool mix between experimentalism and accessibility, and one that makes for a rewarding listen.

After hearing her in Charming Hostess, Tin Hat Trio, and seeing her play with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, it's about time that Ms. Kihlstedt tried going out on a limb and seeing what she could do on her own. The results? An eclectic mix of folk, jazz, klezmer, and avantgarde thanks to John Zorn's Tzadik label. She plays her strings as if she were discovering them for the first time, and uses her own voice as an instrument the way that Mike Patton has. Carla has an ability to sound both heavenly and creepily haunting at the same time (row your boat is scary) that I love. I try to collect everything that she has done, and I think that this is a tie (along with Charming Hostess) for being her best project.

After years of being part of groups like Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Tin Hat Trio, and several others Carla is now the focus. With the voice of a calling ghost, and the abilities of a goddess, Carla, the mistress of the bow, has formed an album that sways from jazz to folk to tango and all the way to the limits of insanity. I actually met her at a SGM show, and she is possibly the greatest/coolest music chick in the world. Anyone who would go on stage in a tutu filled with newspaper scapes has to have a sense of humor about life.