Customer Reviews

Everlasting Blink

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There is nothing better than a couple of English blokes making some [great] music that stands out. This album is the best thing I've heard all year. It doesn't get any better than sampling an old Captain and Tenille track and make it sound the way they do on the track Magic Love. This is brilliance! The songs are so diverse and each is lovingly crafted. This album has ... ambient tracks like Beautiful Otherness, then they throw in something crazy like So Long Without You. A fabulous country twang number over a ... bossa rythm, this is amazing stuff.
It's too bad www.Amazon.com doesn't let you sample some of the tracks here but trust me mates this is the fines England has to offer. Move over Moby, ...! These Bent boys are [great], and their remixes are usually just as pheomenal. That is how I originally heard abou these blokes.
So, take my advice and snatch this one up. No matter what kind of music you like, when you're friends hear this they'll be green. It appeals to so many and they cross so many genres that its irresistable.

I really like Bent although I don't know much history about them. The first song I ever heard of theirs was a cut called "Good Bloke" back in 2000 on a compilation called "The Chillout Room vol. 2". Then in 2001, MOS released tons of chillout comps and featured remixes and originals from Bent's "Programmed to Love" which I also really enjoyed. Finally in 2003, they came out with this one.

I don't really want to say which is better - they both have a unique sort of style. Bent focuses on electrical chords and in some ways, old school rythms. This one to me is a very suitable pick-up from where the first cd left off and moves the band a notch forward with their sound. You pop in "Strictly Bongo", and let it play and you're taken to the early 80's, late 70's until the end loop... a pure English vibe... and it's so nostalgic to me. Probably my favorite small loop in a song. And what's a Bent CD without some strange head-scratching "huh?" moments... like when the vocals for "So Long Without You" kicks up a notch? Oddly, it's acceptable because the group is Bent! And for anyone that's a Keen Eddie fan, there's a scene where Detective Pepin (the dude that was in the movie "The Saint" as a student) sits alone in a bar contemplating if not being "tied down" is so great after all. The music playing is from this cd - "Beautiful Otherness" is the song.

I highly recommend this. I've enjoyed it a great deal and it gets regular play in my collection. It won't make you forget Programmed to Love, it just sort of continues on with a more modern sound and different influences. It's got a tripped out feel that'll take you to another place and interesting electronic touches and great sounds in the ways that are typical "Bent". They manage to stay fresh without going too far away from what makes them who they are. And if you enjoy this, I would recommend music from lemonjelly.ky, Kinobe, The Dining Rooms, Leftfield and FC Kahuna.

I wasn't too wild about Bent with their debut album "Programmed to Love" a couple of years ago. I just couldn't get into the album. I quickly changed my mind about the British duo when I heard "Everlasting Blink" on "Perfecto Chills vol.1" a few months ago. I loved what I heard so I put "Everlasting Blink" on my wish list right away. I found a copy of "The Everlasting Blink" at another record store I shop at every now and then. I bought it along with Madonna's ep of remixes and Paul Van Dyk's latest cd "Reflections". Out of the three cds I acquired, Bent's album definitely is my favorite. The one track I could not tolerate was the ending for "Thick Ear" which had a telephone ring incessantly. That really got on my last nerves. The rest of the cd is excellent. I found myself enjoying this album more than "Programmed to Love". The album is filled with nothing but dreamy, melodic, laid-back grooves that will immediately relax the listener. If "Everlasting Blink" is any indication to what is to come from Bent, then I look forward to hearing more music from the English duo.

This is a good album that is almost as good as their first FIVE STAR rating album: It is more upbeat than their first album "Programmed to Love" which is excellent, although it does have a more 'canned' sound. That is to say the beat boxes and other tape-looped sounds are out front and obvious. Granted, one knows this is the output of a duet and recognizes that not all instruments on the album will be, well, instruments, but these sound effects don't work quite as well as they did on the first. 2) The music while perhaps as multi-layered as on the first album is not as full on and has a sound more like something from an eurovision contest or at times from something out of an episode of Dr. Who albeit not often. It is more upbeat, light and airy too, Okay, okay, it's fey, but good fey. For instance, I think I heard a theramin on one track and there is definitely a pedal steel/slack guitar sound on another or two. Bent have also seem to have pulled samples from their previous album and incorporated them into new songs, usually as opening lines. This is cute and playful, and even inventive, but can be cloying because it causes one to wonder if one is listening to a parody. Which brings me to issue 3) The 9 minute silence that occurs 3 minutes into the song 'Thick Ear' (which itself is reference to a one minute silence on the early album) is an faux pas excusable only because it warns one to stop the play before the last few minutes of truly obnoxious 'play' (raucous phone ring from different speakers, chatter and intermitent sound bits, etc.). Having got that off my chest, there is some really good stuff on this album and a buyer of this CD will not regret it. Listen to the samples and if they sound right, the album will probably get you off. In my opinion, this particular album doesn't deserve the five stars their first major label effort 'Programmed To Love' does. This'll stay on the play list for a couple of weeks (months?) and then one of you lot will be buying it here on amazon but then again as I listen to it more and more, perhaps it is a keeper thus the 4 stars.

Wow. That is about all there is to it....

Bent are a duo from the UK who make some seriously strange, yet lovely, tunes that once they crawl into your ear, are every bit as likely to stay there as anything else you've ever heard.

Bits of all genres of music are stirred into this pot. Snatches of strings, odd samples, synths, a few house-y beats, heck, even a little country (and as much as I am not a fan of country, it turns out quite nice) are thrown into this audio cornacopia. And it all comes out gravy.

This album is a masterpiece of...and I hate to use the word...Chill-Out. It should be filed in any down-tempo fan's album collection right next to Lemon Jelly's 'Lost Horizons' and anything by Kruder & Dorfmeister. It may even surpass those artists, it's that good.

The only thing that cheeses me a bit is the fact that this album was out in the UK for a little better than six months prior to it's release here. And then when it finally does drop, they've chosen not to tack on any bonus cuts (and the noise jam of the unlisted track here does indeed leave something to be desired), It would have been really awesome to see it lopped off and Ashley Beedle's incredible remix of 'Magic Love' instead.

But having said that, this album is still very, very good and won't be coming out of my stereo for quite some time.

Ace!

Excellent new album from Notthingham, England-based duo turns up the heat with their diverse downtempo style. Bent's first album, Programmed to Love, displayed their ability to take an old tune and like DJ Shadow - turn it into something even more substantial. On The Everlasting Blink, their ethereal sample-heavy sound unravels into an even more diverse, better refined signature. Highlight: Jon Marsh of the Beloved lending his smooth, soulful vocal to "Beautiful Otherness"; lowlight: The annoying phone ringing for what seems like eternity on the otherwise brilliant 22-minute closing opus, "Thick Ear." Nonetheless, this is an album destined for Heavy Rotation. File Under: Air, Zero 7, Groove Armada.

While "Programmed" had a retro feel, "Blink" is decidedly more modern, eclectic, post-techno, or whatever the terminology is. Electronica is wonderfully suited for blending with R&B/soul (think Zero 7 or Royksopp), and Bent has one nailed with "Strictly Bongo". This is followed by "Beautiful Otherness" which is a classic, and has one of the most catchy baselines ever. The next 7 tracks vary in style enormously. Hard to believe a man with a mullet could produce such artsy music.

Bent is one of the most original bands on the planet, to be placed on Olympus alongside the Pixies, Boards of Canada, and Lemon Jelly.

The power of love, squared? Don't believe the hype. Not for one silly second. It's a brave new world out there. Thankfully, Bent obligingly has blazed some of these left-of-center avenues and boulevards. Opening up this terrain of heart and soul, the Everlasting Blink is an amalgamation of all things bright and shiny. It makes for a truly wonderful, pop culture, music masterpiece. Like karaoke hour at a tiki bar, a lot of this material is awkward, goofy, a tad squirrelly, and just plain fun. Using snippets and samples of songs lost and past, strung together a whole, we are greeted by some of the freshest and most vibrant sounds you'll hear this year. Defying category, radio play will be restricted to college stations, and although upbeat in tempo and attitude, club play will probably be reserved for the wee hours just before dawn. Out of default and obscurity, this album will fall into the downtempo, chillout sections of mostly independent record stores. On units sold, I doubt the numbers will climb. That said, the rest of the world is the big looser here. To their credit and shenanigans aside, Simon and Nail have crafted some nifty songs that can bellow from any mountain peak and hold their own - An Ordinary Day, Strictly Bongo, Beautiful Otherness, So Long Without You, Magical Love and you start to get the idea. Since I'm old school I hear the vocal sensibilities of EBTG, the long reach of Human League's running rhythms, New Order's majesty, Wilco's country-alt charm, and Blue Nile's eloquence. If you're way past what others think and are right with yourself, you deserve this. Sacrifice the whole for the good of the one - get jiggie, get twisted, get bent.

This is a fantastic album! The Bent boys have really decided to start perfecting their form. It's a great mix of styles and moods: ethereal hooks in "Beautiful Otherness", country wang & twang of "Moonbeams", the edgy 80's loops in "Nothing is the Same" and the ultra pop anthem "Magic Love". It's all magically tied together in a CD that gets better and better with each listen. It doesn't have as many tracks as their original breakout classic "Programmed to Love", but each track on here is priceless. There is something for your every mood. If you like Lemon Jelly, The Avalanches and other electronica dubs, you will absolutely LOVE this album!

Can't begin to elaborate on what's already been said by others.
But, would appreciate some help identifying the tune that "Thick Ear" is based on....its a theme from some 50s or 60s movie (ie "Carousel" or "A Summer Place"). It's been driving me nuts. Help!