Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enchanting., May 15, 2007
Looking as if they've just stepped off the set of Sofia Coppola's "Virgin Suicides", "Au Revoir Simone" are three Slimcea girls who rejoice in Sunsilk hair and Laura Ashley frocks.
The trio share keyboard duties and play them in the tentative manner of a young child reading Braille.
Their songs have a twisted charm that's half cute and half disturbing and also strangely catchy.
Occasionally, as on the wondrous sunshine pop of "The Lucky One" and "Fallen Snow", they hit on the kind of blissful marriage of pop, harmony and weirdness that worked so well for Polyphonic Spree.
Elsewhere they excel in retro electro - kind of 60s MOR with a Casio beat.
As a record, it's much more approachable than their debut album, "Verses of Comfort, Assurance and Salvation".
You'll either fall in love with "The Bird Of Music"or feel queasy - or quite possibly both.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sometimes you can judge a book (CD) by its cover, November 8, 2008
I didn't actually buy 'The Bird of Music' for the cover. I bought it for the band name, Au Revoir Simone (a line yelped by Pee Wee Herman in his first movie). The three women who comprise this keyboard friendly band did an advertising spot on my local NPR station and I immediately thought, 'I have to buy an album by a band named Au Revoir Simone'. And I did. I had never heard of them before but I went ahead and bought the two albums Amazon was selling. I'm really glad I did. -- 'The Bird of Music', in its tiny, playfully, keyboardy way, is a minor epic. Each song (even the ones that clock in at under 3 minutes) take so many langorous turns and explore so many different melodies, it's as if Jim Steinman got locked in a Casio showroom one night and decided to compose songs until he was rescued. But that's not even painting a full picture. The album should be listened to from beginning to end, no interruptions, to fall under its spell. This album casts a spell, and it uses every song in its order to do so. It isn't background noise ... not that kind of spell. It's more of an overall mood set and achieved by the album while it tells its different stories. And the stories are well-told. If it isn't everyone's glass of tea (one friend remarked that the album sounded like wood sprites singing about boys) it's a really good glass of tea. I don't normally recommend buying a CD on the merits of a band name (oftentimes, that's the only interesting thing about the CD), but on this terrific occasion, the band's unique name lived up to the band's unique offerings.
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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I dream of togetherness, May 14, 2007
Au Revoir Simone make synthpop. Not the usual synthpop, but bewitching little pop tunes full of sun and woods.
And the Brooklyn pop band is in good form in their full-length debut "The Bird of Music," mingling peppy electropop and pretty little synthy ballads. It could use a few darker edges, but their shimmery music is a charming experience -- think Eisley on a lazy summer evening.
It opens with the sound of wind chimes, and a gentle piano melody. "A dream of togetherness/Turned into a brighter mess/A faint sign my spoken best," is murmured over the gentle ballad. "So I was the lucky one/Reading letters, not writing them/Taking pictures of anyone/I know..."
That tone totally changes with the next song -- a peppy synth pop tune that doesn't really live up to the title: "Play me a sad song because /That's what I want to hear/I want you to make me cry/I want to remember the places that we left/Lost to the mists of time."
With those two as an intro, the remaining songs pretty much straddle between them -- organ ballads, meandering fuzzy electropop, tightly-wound dance pop, languid little pop tunes, and a few that defy labels -- the ominously soaring "Violent Yet Flammable World," and the eerie finale "The Way To There."
Three young women playing lots of sparkly, shimmery synth... well, it doesn't sound like the stuff of great pop music. And even after their beautiful debut EP, I was a bit worried about whether their music would last the stretch over an entire full-length album.
Well, fortunately those worries were needless -- even though there's really only keyboard, they know how to mix it up. Their synth is bouncy, sparkly, languid, soft, shimmering, fuzzy, eerie, staticky, soaring, rippling and majestic -- they can do basically anything with it. It's laced with drum machines, and the occasional moment of violin.
The upbeat music is matched by the vocals -- all three contribute, and all their voices are sweet, pleasant and girlish. And their lyrics are pretty simple, but heartfelt -- lovers who've departed and loves that are dwindling ("to thaw the icy sentiment/of love that's gone when winter's spent").
But they include the occasional budding love song. I gotta say, I love "Stars" for this reason alone: "You wanna measure stars in the backyard with a calculator and a ruler, baby/I found a letter that describes how the moonlight will lead me to the distant place that you will be."
Au Revoir Simone made a lovely soundtrack for a dreamlike summer vacation -- shimmery little pop tunes, full of love past and future. It might not blow your mind, but it will lull it into a lovely waking dream.
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