Customer Reviews

Goodbye Swingtime

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Goodbye Swingtime is a wonderful prodigious child of the future
and the past. It is unique in style and feeling.
It's both old-time and new-time.
It has come a long way and is about to take you to places
and times far ahead in the future.

Imagine a groundbreaking concept album in electronica but
accomplished through big band (jazz orchestra) music.
Recorded live!!! And then chopped to tiny pieces, edited,
reengineered and recollected to build up a never-ever-seen creature.

Mechanical and yet flesh and blood. Creature of light born in darkness.
This is it - Matthew Herbert's Goodbye Swingtime.

Absolutely recommended both to lovers of jazz music and electronic
maniacs.

I love it. So atmospheric and thoughtful. Mature, spacey, travelling, swingy.
Wise, sad, well said, nostalgic, helpful.

Wonderful Lyrics and extraordinary vocal parts add great value
to beautiful experimental music.

Goodbye is philosophical, poetical, architectural, political, mathematical.
It's a great effort and a great achievement.

Music making you smarter, wiser, better.

Favourite tracks: Turning Pages, Everything's changed, The Three W's,
...The Many and The Few, Simple Mind, Stationary ... I'm afraid I'll miss
something. Naaah. Absolutely Superb!

I very much recommend to all really interested in Matthew Herbert
and this incredible album to visit his site and read his own words
about the project. I am sure Matthew has a lot to tell you.

www.magicandaccident.com

Love and Respect!

The Matthew Herbert Big Band can be categorized either two ways: under jazz or under electronica. Although, at times on this brilliant piece of work from the aforementioned mixer-extraordinaire, the latter is very minimal, but appropriate enough to satisfy even your average electronica fan. When I saw "Goodbye Swingtime" in the record store (much to my surprise), I was kind of leary of how Big Band swing and Herbert's infamous style of mixing together irregular beats and noises would sound--However, I should have trusted this guy to be able to handle the situation! Herbert has already demonstrated from "Bodily Functions" and "Secondhand Sounds" that he is more than capable of taking the complex and layered sounds of Big Band and mastering it into something amazing as evidenced here on "Goodbye Swingtime!" Songs such as the swanky, "Fiction," the sexy, "The Three W's," the funky, "The Many and the Few," and the steamy, "Simple Minds" (only to single out a few songs here)can attest to the remarkable blend of two genres totally unrelated to each other. This is some very good stuff, and if you are truly a Herbert-supporter, you'll go out and get this CD--it's incredible!!

I saw the Matthew Herbert Big Band for the first time this past August when they opened for Bjork at the Hollywood Bowl in L.A. They were absolutely incredible... as good as Bjork herself. On this album, the MHBB blends traditional jazz and american Big Band compositions with swirling and twisting layers of beats and electronics that, coupled together, create an entirely unique and enticing sound. In addition to this, truly gifted and original vocalists appear to deliver a compelling and truly thrilling CD. Do not miss this!

I consider this one a masterpiece.A perfect blend of vocals,electronica ala herbert and the big band sound.Wether relaxing around the house or on a long car journey,this will keep you stimulated.Each track hitting you with a different suprise,my favorites are tracks 3,7 and 8.This is a must have for your collection.

I have to admit to not having paid much attention to Herbert in the past before I stumbled accross this incredible recording. The compositions have all the crunchiness and semi-dissonance that I love about Henry Threadgill, Muhal Richard Abrams, George Russell, Gil Evans and others. Very tight, very organic. Throw into the mix Herbert's lyrics as interpreted by some really good modern singers and it moves beyond mere Neo Big Band and into something altogether different. On top of this, Herbert adds electronica. Before long, you stop thinking "there's the jazz and there's the electronica". He's not the first to use electronics in a big band setting, but I think he's done something comnpletely new and completely wonderful. Highly recommended.

If you like the lush, strange, ecstatic, retro-vocal melancholy, sublime, sampled and genre-bending compostions of United Future Organization, Enzso, Funki Porcini, Caleb's Cosmosis, Future Sound of London or Bowery Electric, then you will love this.

'nuff said.

It's hard to listen objectively to this album considering Herbert's past brilliance. A lot of the gushy reviewers would probably consider a Herbert duet with Shania Twain 'pure genius'. First, this album has only token 'electronic' gestures - if you listen to it as background music you would think slightly avante garde big band. Second, it's only mildly interesting. My dad (65,a big Wagner, Miles Davis fan) said the following, 'This is pretty good but it's not very challenging'. The point is, like Richard James in Druqs (piano vignettes), Herbert is capable of producing some 'pretty good' big band music but it's not his genre. There are other more highly skilled, adept proponents of this art.
That being said, if you've brought your new girlfriend home and she's doesn't quite 'get' your normal clicks, beats and grooves, this'll do fine.