Customer Reviews

Fantasma

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm a musician who started gigging in the sixties, and I've been enjoying my own muse and listening happily to the creations of others for years. Whenever I hear something new, I try to make my mind blank and my expectations non-existent, so that I won't be impressed by anything but the aural experience. I have a disdain for genre... by that, I mean, I don't like automatically assuming that any genre will have examples that are good or bad. My goal (to be honest, not always achieved) is that each new listening experience be as if I was hearing music for the first time.

That being said, I must admit to having a fairly open attitude to lots of music, although surely, much of it is so-so. So much that I hear is O.K., but doesn't ring any new bells.

<< ENTER CORNELIUS >> The first time I heard CORNELIUS was on HBO's Reverb show (live), and I was in a position where I couldn't see the screen. Wow. Zing. Music. Interesting. Listen to that! Timing. Grit. This is new! TILT!

I ran to the screen to catch the name. The band was exuberant. At the time I didn't realize that CORNELIUS had a one-man nerve-center like Nine Inch Nails. But the CD is so wonderfully woven that it is no surprise that live musicians become so launched in the playing. And the more I have hear the more I smile, because I'm hearing a free soul who is enjoying music with abandon and WE get to play! Merely listening transports us to the mega-sandbox come rocket to inner-space. And not only is the CORNELIUS creation an act of innocence, but one of neuro-musical understanding. It soothes and excites bodily impulses, as it cures the fitful synapse. When I stand back and summarize, I wonder... how long has it been since something this HIP was so POSITIVE. It's been a hard day's night; that's how long.

Fantasma is the only CD I've heard, but I see that CORNELIUS has been involved in some very interesting packaging and rehashes. Something tells me, though, that CORNELIUS is living in the zone where rehashes are new, and I look forward to hearing more & knowing more.

Cornelius. A nutty Japanese guy that patches together more genres than your grandma does quilts!

This album, while not being overly innovative on a track by track basis, still leaves you with the distinct feeling that its the only album of its kind.

Encompassing smooth hip hop beats, samples and scratch trickery, cut and paste wizardry, perfect pop sensability, gorgeous harmonies, the full palette of instruments, crunching distortion, jangly acoustic strumming, blips and bops, and more!

Genres covered include big beat, psychadelica, folk, metal, hip hop, surf rock, space rock, beach boys pop, latin, IDM electronica, and list dont stop! All contained in at times frantic ADD song structures and other times cruisy laid back pop.

A masterful cut and paste collage of everything pop music has covered, and everything a production and pop genuis like cornelius is capable of.

Quite simply put, Fantasma is insane.
Cornelius (AKA Keigo Oyamada) has collected and pasted his musical genius together into a CD case, and mailed it off to America. Songs flow from one to the other like silk, yet Kiego hardly contains any two tracks to the same genre. One listen to "Count Five or Six", and you will totally uppercut someone.
There is no word better word than "insane" to describe the genius encompassed in this album

My five stars don't come cheap, but this record earns them from beginning to end.

Cornelius is like a happy kid mixing together everything in his crazy huge chemistry lab of sound, but he handles his ingredients with the skill and style of an expert habache chef.

The album ranges from cartoon music to straight-out punk to dreamy pop sounds. Imagine little pink bunny rabbits hopping out from a portrait of Beethoven on a retro-space-show background -- that's the liner art!

A serious trip for your ears and, dare I say it, brain candy as well.

Cornelius is all about rocking out, and throwing down unexpected sounds to create awesome songage. The basic Idea is, you turn up the volume, and let the cd reverberate through you. Best songs? Free fall, chapter 8- seashore and horizon and God only knows, But it's ALL good.

This record is where the nastiest beach assault in the Japanese invasion is to be found. Stop buying soundtrack compilations. "Fanatasma" is worth any ten American mainstream albums. 123456, 123456!

A combination of Techno and J-Rock, Cornelius' "Fantasma" is a musical atomic blast of huge proportion. The listener is put on alert with "Mic Check" that he is in for a surprising and satisfying listening experience. For lovers of purcussion, "Music Machine" will capture you and send you home to try to mimic the pounding rythems that punctuate this song. Like all great collections, "Fantasma" gets better with each listening. Screw the rent; buy "Fantasma" today.

I was pretty surprised at the depth of this album when I first heard it. I had only heard "Mic Check" and "Count Five or Six" from the Wire Tapper, and Matador Three CD box set, respectivily. So I was somewhat prepared to what it was going to sound like. But one thing that I didn't expect was the line running through the album. Everything's connected, most of the songs run together. What makes it more amazing (and, to explain the title, like a book) is that it has many elements that most albums leave out. Most importantly, it's got foreshadowing (I won't say how, you figure it out) and a kind of a "look back on the entire album" track at the end. Quite impressive. I look forward to hearing more from that strange Japanese lad

Ahhh, Mic Check, Mic..This is the best thing out of Japan since the Ninjas and their funky black outfits. Oh, that was anthropocentric of me. This album aint no hype, not like some novelty from another culture the PC atmosphere of a very carefully worded speach and writing pattern of a domineering America hoping to show their open-mindedness to the rest of the world. This stuff is really good! HOOKs, HOOKS, like a Burroughs Naked Lunch and the flow-of-conscious that guides the improvisational genius that is how the crative mind works, that's what this album is. Ever heard a song, started singing it, and then all of a sudden it leads you into singing another song? Well that's what this album is, an apparently illogical mix-and-match of sample music on the outset which really isn't illogical at all. This is one of the true great albums this decade, to lead us into the next century in a time (1999, or since Cobain died and the Backstreet Boys started dominating the airways) when the musical climate of radiodom just plain out , and every possibly great artist is commercializing his music because there is just too much competition out there and to sit around arguing about what direction to take your music and flip burger patties for the rest of your life. Hats of to the unassuming mastermind of a trully musically elavated experience.

Fantsama es un disco único. Los fanáticos de la música alternativa no pueden decirse tales sin haberlo escuchado. Creo que lo mismo sucede con los discos de Pizzicato Five, The Fantastic Plastic Machine, Pixies, Sonic Youth. Los los elemntos fundamentales del rock alternativo. Recomiendo a los que les gusten los grupos que nombré anteriormente que escuchen tres grupos Argentinos: Los Peligrosos Gorriones Francisco Bochatón Las Canoplas