Customer Reviews

Mo-Di

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

 

 

I am always on the lookout for new and interesting music for dance choreography. I first found Mouth Music on the headphones at a music store (Shorelife) and was blown away. I bought all three albums as soon as I could find them. I cannot understand, given the recent Celtic popularity, why this band is not more well-known. This album is very funky, primal, and yet oh so modern. My favorite song on is the last one: I choreographed a dance called Plasticene Dream, my third piece by Mouth Music. Milking the Cow is also very cool and funky, along with the live version of He Mandu.

MOUTH MUSIC has foraged a very unique and interesting sound over the years, fusing traditional Celt lyrics and instruments with a sometimes-quirky, sometimes-beautiful orchestration of electronic pop. My experience is that it's difficult to know whether or not a person will like MOUTH MUSIC. Their work is sometimes a little eccentric and tough to digest, although the more I listened to this album, the more I found myself playing it. If you're looking to expand your cultural musical palette, this is definitely a sound to look into. The track 'Waiting' is one of the most beautiflly painful ballads you will ever hear.

I used to go and dance to this band in Edinburgh, as they were a local group. I knew some of the band memebers... i had the album on tape, but it is much better having it on CD as the quality is greater and there are also remixes and so on.I hadn't heard this album for six years and didn't think that i could get another copy let alone from Texas.. so I'm glad that i looked.

EB

This was the second album from Mouth Music, but with some personnel changes. Half the original duo, vocalist Talitha MacKenzie, left, replaced by Scottish vocalist Michaela Rowan and Scot-of-Ghanaian-descent Jackie Joyce, while Martin Swan stayed and brought in several other instrumentalists. So there's some further development of the basic concept of building out from a Celtic base to a broader world music.

The result is at times rather like a lighter, peppier kind of Peter Gabriel music. The women take most of the vocals, which are often ethereal. There's always a funky bass groove, plenty of Afro-pop, some overt French influence, and a little hip-hop, which syncs well with the "mouth music" (the name the band takes from the Scottish practice of wordless or non-lyric-intensive highly rhythmic singing). Another reviewer mentions techno, and you can hear some of that too in a few places. It all mixes well. Experimental but not edgy, just fun.