Customer Reviews

Brassland 2012 Free Sampler

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

 

 

Track 1 Buke and Gass (Gase) playing Your Face Left Before You. Very active thumping drum and female vocal over jerky sounds and singer. Genre is minimalist per Myspace I would add some experimental vibe to that. Different not bad.

Clogs play Cocodrillo (feat. Shara Worden). Choral vocal sound with minimalist instrumental backing. Mostly Tenor voices up front with shrill backing vocal. 2 minutes long.

The National play 90-Mile Water Wall. Mellow singer songwriter opening, guitar and pleasant vocal leading to gentle addition of violin and other instruments. Very nice.

Doveman plays Aftermath (feat. Norah Jones). Opens with barely audible vocal over solid subdued band, Norah joins in this song remains very quiet and controlled, picks up a little to end. Sounds very personal, sounds very good.

The Way You Look Tonight by Baby Dayliner. Indie bare bones sound on very cool song. Controlled distinctive lead vocal and great chorus on simple sounding very satisfying song. Very nice.

Track 6 is Episodes by Pela. Great Indie rock song, slightly tortured vocal over busy band, great sound and feel. Band now defunct, good song.

Clogs play Kapsburger. 2 minute nearly instrumental of what may be speedy keyboard over quiet backing. Very soothing, nice.

May It Please Heaven by Erik Friedlander. Solo cello making new noises (for me) strong 'movie music' feel could easily be accompaniment to tense film scene. Friedlander has impressive resume of collaborations with known artists. Nice.

Raid! by Baby Dayliner. Not as much fun lead vocal on 2nd track by BD. Dominant vocal over playing along band. Feels longer than 4 and half minutes, not for me, you will love it.

Cold Girl Fever by The National. 2nd song by TN also has more upfront vocal over background band playing okay. Title is the chorus, unoriginal simple song with few weird backing sounds that will keep you listening, not for me, you will love this one to.

Track 11 is Sunrise by Doveman. Thomas Bartlett is Doveman and apparently sings very quietly. 2nd track w/similar mellow vocal over subdued musical accompaniment. Definitely produces a mood around his sound, pretty cool, very peaceful, too long for me.

Pencil Stick by Clogs. 6 minutes of pretty cool instrumental jerky sound strings (I think). Like it.

About Today by The National. Neat steady drum beat over nice vocal and strings. Simple, acoustic sound, great mellow track.

Final track Tigers by Doveman. Same quiet vocal, similar sound, losing me, you will like it.

Much of this free mp3 sampler download from Brassland through Amazon sounds experimental to me, mellow sounds, new noises in the background & unfamiliar tempos. Some artists contribute multiple tracks. Nothing sounds bad, some is very cool others are pretty good. None is rock, many songs are very listenable. Download and try, there are few new free samplers available at Amazon right now, you have time.

A word to the wise, despite the name of the record label there is no horn/brass play, no jazz on this sampler.

Brassland has a real knack for showcasing artists whose work bridges pop and modern composition. This sampler is a real pleasure, sequenced in a way that feels like an album. Can't wait to see their family of musicians grow.

As a fan of Brassland artists The National and Nico Muhly I was interested to see which songs and artists were included in this sampler. I previously purchased the National's most recent album High Violet and I especially enjoy the gritty Bloodbuzz Ohio from that album. In this sampler I enjoyed the contrasting whispy vocals of Doveman and the gruff vocals of the Nationals (3 songs each). I especially enjoyed Doveman's Aftermath which features Norah Jones. There are three songs by the Clogs; their style could be described as classical minimalist with two of the songs being intrumental only and featuring Shara Wordens vocals on the other Clogs song. If you enjoy the Clogs you may also enjoy Nico Muhly's albums such as Mothertongue.

The three songs from the National which are included here are from their three earliest albums which are available on Bandcamp. The Brassland Bandcamp page is a wonderful way to explore the full Brassland catalog (free streaming) and then purchase the songs and full albums that grab you. In addition, I can listen to virtually the whole Brassland catalog for free on Spotify. The quality on Spotify is noticeably lower however, since I have their free service. So overall, go to Bandcamp first in this case. In the dawning era of free streaming access to most music the free sampler download is less compelling than it used to be. The limited free streaming on Amazon no longer makes the grade either.

The songs included here are mostly from older albums which is slightly disappointing but other than that and the free streaming alternatives it is hard to argue with a free sampler that could help you to discover a new favorite artist. Recommended and clearly worth the download.

UKColin's review is much more thorough than mine (they always are -- and much appreciated!), but I really only like Buke and Gass's "Your face left before you."