Handwriting

Rachel's | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 23, 1995)
• Original Release Date: May 23, 1995
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Quarter Stick
• ASIN: B0000037NV
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #218,891 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Sound to "Classical", January 25, 2001

By 

Richard Morgan (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Handwriting (Audio CD)

I don't know if Rachel's is considered classical music or not. The instruments are the traditional classical variety; however, there are elements of jazz, new age, rock, and who-knows-what throughout the album.

Southbound to Marion and Handwriting open and close the disc with a beautiful lyrical quality while M Daguerre has a strong jazz feel. Overall the album does not have a long play time with Full On Night, more of a wandering through noise than an actual "song", being quite lengthy.

In comparison to other Rachel's works, I can only compare it to Music for Egon Schiele and The Sea and The Bells. This one is less "classical" than Music for Egon Schiele, which I think is their best work I've heard. To me, Handwriting is on par with Sea and Bells, as it contains some odd samples and a few minutes of noise as opposed to music.

If you are looking for something different, try Rachel's. If you enjoy classical music, start with Music for Egon Schiele instead of Handwriting.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SORRY I'M LATE, April 7, 2005

By 

Kerry Leimer (Makawao, Hawaii United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Handwriting (Audio CD)

"Handwriting" is an excellent record, especially considering that this is the first CD by Rachel's. Most of the music features ensemble playing, but no two tracks are completely similar. Instrumental line-ups change, sometimes radically. Some pieces, restricted to strings, have an intimate, chamber feel. Some begin with solo instruments. Another, with intrusions of drums, guitar and a lovely, fuzzy bass, develops a curious structure that oscillates between two musical worlds and does so without seeming either affected or odd for the sake of being odd. At the farthest extreme, "Full on Night" is a convincing and well-constructed soundscape /noise piece that is not simply an improvised collage: there's a coherent structural quality that comes across.

And perhaps that is the over-arching, organizing principle of this music. It's foolish to just say "somehow all this holds together." But, somehow all this holds together. In addition to the structural integrity, the writing and performing style favors understatement and restraint. These factors combine to provide a deep sense of coherence across a fairly broad range of compositional types. And don't let the word "restraint" imply that the music ever drags or dead-ends. Nor should it imply that the music is strictly minimalist, because it finds some rather nice flashes of expression, unerringly in the right place and always at the right time.

As for intimations of Penguin Cafe, well maybe. But probably not. Rachel's is clearly not in pursuit of the melodic, something at which Simon Jeffes excelled. There's a particularly well-developed sense of how things start and how things stop. And the music here is more inwardly directed, more concerned with the interaction of elements requiring somewhat longer development periods than PCO typically pursued. So, a better point of reference might be entry-level Gavin Bryars, because more often than not Rachel's comes down on the side of art music or good old "new music" than the more typically tuneful exhortations of ensembles that come bearing strings.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Creeping Moonlight, January 9, 2002

By 

Sink - See all my reviews

This review is from: Handwriting (Audio CD)

This album sounds like something you might find on the record player in a haunted mansion. It certainly does have beauty and brilliance within, but it is at times clunky and harsh. I like that. Handwriting is definitely Rachel's eeriest album, The Sea and the Bells is their most polished album, and Selenography is their most far-out. Egon Schiele is the album for hardcore fans, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone to just wants to waltz with the poltergeists in their heads. Stick to Handwriting for that.