Customer Reviews

Ask Me Tomorrow

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is Mojave 3's first album, or more accurately the first album from Neil Halstead and company since they recorded Pygmalion under the name Slowdive. As such, the songs on this album provide an interesting transition between their Slowdive work and their later Mojave 3 work. The songs are kind of folksy, and there is an emphasis on accoustic instruments, but there is still some of the old ethereal droning sounds left over from their Slowdive wall-of-sound days.

The songs themselves are all beautiful, relaxing, bittersweet masterpieces with sugary vocals and poetic lyrics. Some clear (or apparent) influences on this album include Leonard Cohen and the Cowboy Junkies. In fact, many of the songs sound like a duet between Cohen and Margo Timmins. However, the songs are still clearly Halstead's. This album is easily as strong as Excuses for Travellers although it has a more overall melancholy tone to it.

I've been listening to the album going home from work, looking out the window at the gauze of night, the little lights of suburbia twinkling; this album is the perfect soundtrack for that experience. Alone on a train at night, going home. I don't like folk music, yet I'm drawn to this music very much. It's as if you took the rockiness out of Slowdive, and distilled the sweetness. (Note to all Slowdive fans: you must must must check this out!)

I'm not sure why certain groups tick with me- why I have a need to listen to the same Mojave 3 songs every night or in the morning. There have been a lot of musical geniuses, but not all of them can affect me like this. There's just something about Neil Halstead's songwriting that I can relate to. The guitar chords and progressions are relatively simple, but I can listen to Jimi Hendrix if I'm in the mood for that. Sometimes the sound becomes out of tune- I don't know if this is on purpose, for example, their second album is called Out of Tune. I'm sure it is in Blued Skied an' Cleared, from Slowdive's Pygmalion album. But it's the significance of his lyrics that hits me every time. He talks of people losing their way, always with the hope of them finding it again. I can't really think of any other artist that expresses these feelings quite in this way. In You're Beautiful, he sings about someone whose curtains are drawn, "you'll miss the light, your dawning spell will be broken, vanished days are hard to find, half life dreams will not be worth much." In Sarah, he sings "lonesome fools build lonesome walls to hide behind, cry behind, but I'm not one." In Tomorrow's Taken, he writes some of the most touching, personal lyrics about lost love that I've ever heard: "there's a full moon in the sky, it makes me glad that there's something pure in something that I had, something good is all I need to feel alive, a bottle of wine is all I have to hold." But my favorite song on this album is After All. Something as subtle as the slightest difference in delivery or inflection can make or break an ecstatic moment in a song, and to me that blissful moment comes when he sings the first chorus: "after all we're only looking for a light, just someone to hold us close." This is pure magic to me- the way the piano comes in, and the warmth of the cello as he sings this. I know the intention of the repeat chorus was to have a stronger delivery, as Rachel joins in this time, but it's just not the same. But, that's a personal preference. The other songs I love on this album are Pictures and Love Songs on the Radio. The guitar line on Love Songs is beautiful, especially when travelling slowly through curvy roads and trees (this album is not for loud freeways). This is my favorite Mojave 3 album, and like another reviewer said, it is a thing of magic. In an earlier Slowdive review, I said I wished that they hadn't morphed into this style of music, but I have to say that I probably like the Mojave 3 CDs more now.

slowdive were, perhaps, the supreme dreamy shoegazer band, taking the swirling textures and heavenly vocals of the genre and making the most beautiful drift-away music ever. Thus it should have been no surprise that their sound would transfer so well to an intimate acoustic setting. This is dreamy folk-pop in the vein of Mazzy Star. Neil, Rachel and Ian from slowdive, with help from Christopher Andrews, Audrey Riley & Simon Rowe, have made an album of love songs that are deceptively simple, immediately catchy, and heart-stoppingly beautiful. If "Love Songs on the Radio" doesn't move you, than I'm afraid you need to check your pulse. Two lead singers (Neil & Rachel) give this album a bit more diversity than others in the genre, keeping the album from descending into the sameness sounding trap that Mazzy Star and others have been unable to avoid.

i'm not sure that i was fully prepared for the absolute new standard of beauty that was formed in my heart when i first heard this lovely little album back in 1996. when the first sweet sounds floated out of my speakers, time seems to have stood still until the moments passed after the final track had played. the guitars strum ever so gently and sweetly, and Rachel's voice is absolutely heaven sent. and it was really great to hear her voice in all it's natural glory (as compared to her processed vocal tracks on Slowdive albums). i was already a huge Slowdive fan, but Mojave 3's Ask me Tomorrow has such a warm, organic mellow sound that seems a bit easier to embrace, as compared to Slowdive's distant (yet brilliant) shoegazer sound. hey, honestly, i still like Slowdive better, overall. why? because their albums were consistently better. and this particular Mojave 3 album is the only one that i have fully loved. the others following are good, but not great as this one, in my opinion. so if you like music that sounds like a nice warm bath with a gentle haunting scent of honeydew and lilac on the wind, then slip this inside your stereo and drift away.

The songs of Mojave 3 can best be described as calming. The lovely melodies are reminiscent of clouds floating slowly across an ocean sky, changing their shapes almost imperceptibly as one watches them. "love songs" especially, brings this peace--the song which tells of someone's ideal woman, one who reflects the joy and love of those around her, as in the line "lovers all around her, she wears them like a jewel." The music flows from the artists as the love from this woman--they are one with it, they sing with a knowledge of beauty and serenity. The reason Mojave 3 is rated as an 8 and not a 10 is that as nice and pretty as the music is, it is not something many could listen to day in and out. It is delicate, and listeners sometimes need a bit of fire and truly happy, powerful music to balance Mojave 3 out.

Mojave 3's "ask me tomarrow" is one of the finest albums ever to come from the 4AD lable and thats saying alot. 4AD has had a super star list of bands including the pixies and cocteu twins. Mojave 3's "ask me tomarrow" never once goes off course from its target. With a slow romantic mix of great song writing this album can't go wrong.

I found this gem during a blind shopping trip to my local cd exchange in the $1.00 bin. generally one in ten discs have any value and I fell in love with this one easily. It stands in the top 10 of my play list alongside some Pink Floyd Supertramp, and Appleseed Cast. A gentle fuzzy day of rains and showers amid the rainbows. I can't claim a true fondness for what is termed shoegazer but in the tracks of this album are found delightful audio fancies of candied torpor. There are some similarities to A Beautiful Day from the San Francisco scene of the 60's present in the under-harmonies of the female vocals. Round notes and glazed phonics. The following albums have progressed somewhat toward a more mainstream sound though never far from the roots of sonic emotion. A lovely album and a delightful listen.

I recently bought this album after reading very promising reviews on Amazon.com. From the first song it became clear that this is a classic. The album is ten years old but it could have been released yesterday or, for that matter, thirty years ago. This music is equally good to listen to on a romantic evening or a quiet morning. Absolutely timeless. Buy it.

Four months. That is how long is has been since I first listened to this beautiful creation by the former shoegazer band Slowdive that was reborn as Mojave 3 in the mid-nineties. This production from 1996 was not just their debut, but also a musical landmark for themselves and for music in general. It is one of those albums you can never get enough of, you cannot stop playing and you will always be able to go back to, because it is timeless yet powerful. This is something that can be hard to believe from an album that consists basically of voices, rhythm (slide and regular) guitars, piano and percussion. But it is so.

The two things that come to mind when I hear it are the quiet songs from Velvet Underground (for the voices), and Beck's 'Sea Change' (for the exquisite melancholy it conveys). I cannot say it enough: this is an album that needs to be a part of anyone remotely serious about music or life. If you don't believe me yet, just check out the sample for the opening track, and you will see what I mean.