Customer Reviews

Live

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

 

 

This is a fantastic new live project that features radically re-arranged versions of popular SOS songs. This album has Excellent live sound quality and impressive musicianship from the jazz back-up group. This could very well be Swing Out Sister's most accessible album ever since the versions here are more soulful than their studio counterparts and the arrangements are contemporary, not dated, like some of SOS's earliest recordings. As such, I would recommend this to anyone looking for a starting point into the music of Swing Out Sister.
As for SOS fans,don't sleep on this one because it's a live album. You've never heard these songs presented the way they are here- simply brilliant!

Swing Out Sister never disappoints me with their musical artistry. I recently had the opportunity to see them live here in Ohio last summer and they were absolutely phenomenal.

This CD basically captures what that set was like. The songs are given the familiar SOS reinvention, paying respect to the originals while creating something totally fresh and inventive. This time, the music is washed in jazzy arrangements that are similar to the Jazz Cafe project, but with more R&B influences.

Corrinne's lovely vocals match her personality and physical beauty, as always. The band and background singers are second to none; another SOS hallmark.

That said, one of the prior reviewers is right about the annoying skips in this recording. Those skips come from improper editing between tracks. For live recordings, there should be NO breaks between tracks (unless there's a fadeout). Someone at Shanachie apparently forgot this, and the result is a disturbing half-second cut-out between songs.

Other than that annoyance, the sound quality of the music itself is decent to very good throughout.

Another disappointment noted by the reviewer is the overall appearance of the CD. It does look like a bootleg. Swing Out Sister is an eclectic group, so one could almost make a case that they wanted the CD to look like that. However, I'm guessing that even the group didn't want the effect to be this drastic, if that's the case.

I would recommend this CD in a heartbeat to any prior SOS fan as well as anyone that appreciates "nutritious ear candy." Please don't blame the group for their label's missteps. Instead, enjoy another masterpiece from this group that has been lovingly creating wonderful and fresh music for nearly 20 years.

Having listened & enjoyed the metamorphosis of music & style that has become Swing Out Sister over the past 17 years or so, I can safely say that this live release is by far one of their best. It's clear that like all good things in life, time has taken SOS and made them better, in sound and style. I had the great fortune of seeing them live on this tour with a friend who didn't know SOS' music and he completely loved the show as did I. With all of the mundane and vapid music that is currently out in the market today, it's refreshing and relieving to see that SOS is still around to give us that adult contemporary glamourous music that can be an uber-hip soundtrack to anyone's life. The first track on this release, "Surrender/World Out Of Control" is a great intro for Corrine's incredible voice. It sets the stage for the vibe that is clearly Swing Out Sister. One of the tracks that is quite fabulous is when SOS goes into their huge Japanese smash "Now You're Not Here" and then proceeds into a dip of "No Scrubs" from TLC. When I heard it live in Baltimore, I thought... "These guys just couldn't be any cooler." To think that a group heavily influenced by Burt Bacharach is jamming to TLC. Although SOS has a devout fan base and is on the border of being cultish, Their music is a sound that is far from being obscure. It embraces the touch of classical jazz, while infusing traditional R&B, and soul. One of my favorite tracks on this album is "Filth & Dreams" I think it's just the intro and Andy's vibraphone that just gets me. Over all, Corinne & Andy have done their art justice by not selling out and sticking to their artistic guns by making music that has substance and style, which makes them stand out and shine in the music world.

This album was put out in 2005 and had zero marketing. It's like they did their absolute best to screw SOS. It's hard to believe that a small (i.e. I have no idea who they are) label like Shanachie Records has the rights to this prodigious musical duo. Its like the restaurant with the best food in the world doesn't advertise, and is in this small coastal town in the middle of nowhere, has decent service and only a handful of people know this.

The musical quality of the content of the CD makes up for the abysmal quality of the physical CD. The physical CD is thin, weak and the artwork looks like it was outsourced to some firm in Asia. If this is what they print up for the public, I can't imagine what the marketing was like when this was released. The editing on this CD is also extremely poor. Some tracks with no fade in or out, some with fade, etc.

In spite of the effort to make the physical appearance of the album bad, it shines like the Star of Bethlehem. The musicality, arrangements, dynamics and vocalizations more than make up for the efforts to kill this soon to be classic work - as if Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Grover Washington Jr. were producing it and had painted a musical image on this CD. Corrine's beautiful expressive presence and voice is only magnified by Andy's stunning musical effort. In spite of the editing, this album is like a Rembrandt painted on piece of plywood - it is THAT GOOD.

The first track for non-SOS fans to listen to should be La La La (Means I Love You). This is a sunny, warm, spring day in Central Park, reminiscing about your love, captured in a 5 minute timeframe. Brilliant arrangement, with Marvin Gaye influencing the Delfonics original score, with current instrumentation. It compelled me look for the original song and hear the other works by the Delfonics.

Sugarfree is a melancholy, lyric, heavily 70's influenced song. Corrine's dynamics and attention to lyrics makes this song the best individual track on the CD. This is acid jazz the way it was meant to be, staying true to the soulful past. Listen to it once, watch it become your favorite track without you knowing it.

If you're a Swing Out Sister fan, you will be thrilled by the new arrangements of the older songs, all of which reinvent them with a playfulness that makes them your favorite again. "Now you're not here" is a great example.

Steely Dan, Jamiroquai and SOS fans should try this epic live work, regardless of anything you have, and realize that if you didn't think Swing Out Sister were seriously talented musicians and arrangers before listening to this, you will be happily convinced.

I have no problem with this album. I am a big fan. The live does bring out a different atmosphere which reminds me of the one I attended in San Francisco of 1997. What I dont really appreciate is the publisher's lousy job on the booklet and CD label. As far as people are paying real money for real thing, this is quite a rip off. Cant even afford an art designer or what?

excellant live cd. Loved sos from the begining and saw them live once many years ago. This cd is up to the excellant standard i remember. Also as many bands including sos miss scotland out of tour dates this is the nearest thing you can get.

Excellent live album from S.O.S. Great new versions from some of their great hits, like surrender (mixed with "world out of control") and in general is like to see a picture from a new different point of view. I think that this cd is not a very recently recording because not include any song from their two last workds; "Somewhere deep in the night" and "Where love grows" and many of the song were originally includes in "Filth and dreams" (their most sophysticated work). Great performance with that kind of touch close to jazz.

This is an awesome CD, the first time I've heard Swing Out Sister live. Corrine's vocals are truly amazing. It is an
upbeat album that will raise your spirits. If you missed
Swing Out Sister's tour, this CD will suffice! Enjoy it!

After hearing this CD, I have even more respect for SOS--they were already my favorite band. This CD is brilliant. If you have a collection of the band's material, you've heard most all of these before... yet, you haven't heard any of them. Rather than doing all the favorites as carbon copies of the originals, they have altered them; altered the chordal/harmonic structures, the rhythms, the instrumentation, the tempos. The result is just breathtaking, in my opinion. This bands creativity is second to none. Some of the songs are done faster than the originals, some a slower. Some are funkier, some are more mellow. What they have done here is so cool. Then there is the jazzed out version of TLC's "Scrub." So cool. Corrine's voice is perfection. If you are a fan, or you just want to hear some REAL musicianship... you've got to get this CD!

Swing Out Sister on this live cd have re-worked some of their well known and lp cuts into brand new songs!! These new arrangements are fantastic! This is a great example of what a REAL band with REAL singers can do! I always loved the version of 'Stoned Soul Picnic' on the Shapes & Patterns cd but this new live arrangement is something else!(with a piece of Jr.Walkers 'Walk in the night' in the mix). This performance was recorded live in Tokyo and it has a jam session feel to it(much like their other wonderful live cd 'Live at the Jazz Cafe). Corinne never sounded better! SOS fans will not be disappointed with this gem!