Customer Reviews

Helium

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

 

 

I just recently got this cd, it is a wonderful mix of styles, i don't really know what to call it. it seems like a perfect soundtrack for something that could be happening in our everyday lives, a complex storywork of music. It is at times bohemian, wild and gypsyish, a real mesh of things. It reminds me of somewhere foreign, maybe a drippy dark day paris, or italy, running through the alleyways trying to escape something, dancing in the gutters......Tom Waits guest appearance is excellent.

Though the rhythms and melodies on this CD are enough to catch ones attention on the first listen, the extraordinary level of detail and wide range of sounds gives it a depth that rewards repeated listenings. These thoughtful, talented and sophisticated musicians have crafted an innovative and satisfying set. Though this has fewer improvised flights of fancy than Memory is An Elephant, it too has a bright energy and shows ample imagination. The tunes are well-ordered and the final Helium Reprise featuring Tom Waits is a wonderful surprise.

I would recommend this CD to any one who likes good music with a difference. No one else that I know of puts out such wonderful unique and soothing music. I can't get enough of this CD! Every cut is great! The blend of sounds....truly wonderful! I hope these three gifted musicians are around for a long time to come! I really can't put into words what this music does to me. I love it. (Tom Waits ain't bad either!)

I love Tin Hat and this album is one of my favorites. I especially enjoyed the track featuring Tom Waits.

Accordion, violin & banjo (or sometimes dobro, harmonica and viola) make a bluegrass/Klezmer kind of sound, although the compositions tend toward a more cinematic sweep. Like Messiaen's "Quatuor pour la fin du temps" the instrumentation here feels accidental, circumstantial even. THT wanders between salon music and fractured dance band, never really deciding who, or what they are.

Or maybe what they are is this fuzzy in-between, where nothing is what it seems?

Helium is the second lightest element.

This ambitious band delivers it's own special brand of totally unique tango-americana by way of classical, parisian, and western influence. The unclassified trio does make extremely artsy, experimental music, although for this exception to the rule the savagely upbeat and extremely talented nature of the music will make everyone but the most self conscious listeners forget that the band sounds so weird since most likely they will be so engrossed in it's singular propulsion. Featuring outstanding musicianship from the three players (violin, guitar, piano-accordion), the level of interplay and synergy here is quite stunning- particularly through the ears of one who has true appreciation for musical composition. The sparse, though wildly eccentric, tunes do everything they can at each and every turn to floor with virtuoso-like precedence that would have become mired in it's own boxed off approach had it not been for the surging melodies to reel the listener back in from an overextended gray zone of "playing". As it is, this band is not to be ignored.

Is jazz too limiting a word? Tin Hat Trio makes a case in point. While certainly jazz oriented, they owe more of a debt to Charles Ives than to Charles Parker. Are they rooted in jazz? No less than they are rooted in the Serialist and Art music tradition. Yet, they certainly are capable of swinging. I think it is fair to say that they neatly encompass several strands of 20th century music including jazz. A Life in East Poultney starts it off showing a little more of a tendency to branch out into different styles than they had shown on Memory Is An Elephant. An Irish folk feeling prevails rather than the harmonic minor shuffle that endures through most of the first album. The second track is more reminiscent of the first album having that sort of Europe between the wars vibe. Throughout the album one can hear strands of Chet Atkins, Bill Frisell, Tom Waits (included on the final cut by the way), Stuff Smith, Alban Berg and a virtual potpourri of different musical styles. Country, Klezmer, Swing, Italian restaraunt music, there's alot to choose from here. My only complaint: A couple of the tracks really swing (#11,#13). I would have really loved to hear these themes developed further and improvised on. An excellent album-eccelectic yet still very much restrained. Their influences are all over the map, yet their sound is very distinctive.

and this kiss..shikity shikity shikity....#15 with Tom Waits, Reprise.... Cool.... what a CD. Have the headphones on now... mmmmmmmm... This is one weird album. Dreamy, earie, spooky, eclectic, melodic... yes melodic. #1 A Life in East Poultney, just over a minute long takes you to some other place...maybe East Poultney.Love the accordian (Tango-ish even) . Well done! Love it. Makes me wanna run out with the Hi-8 and film some b&w.. lay some of these tracks over. Paints some vivid pictures.

tin hat rips 5h!t up. creepy 5h!t.