Moonswept

The Roches

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 13, 2007)
• Original Release Date: March 13, 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: 429 Records
• ASIN: B000N3ST8E
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #40,607 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
When the three Roche sisters--Suzzy, Maggie, and Terre--sing together, they're not just among the most spellbinding in the world: they can make the world go away altogether, and then bring it back to the listener, brighter and refreshed. That's the project of Moonswept, their first trio album in over a decade, a collection of fables and fantasies, kooky jokes and loungey confections, intricate rondelets and jaunty satires, intimations of innocence and expressions of experience. Writing most of the songs and playing most of the instruments, the three give the feel of a family reunion--but a deliciously fun one. "Us Little Kids" begins the album with slyly rocking mischief and "Jesus Shaves" closes it with a picture of Christ thrown into an absurd modern-day working world. In between, they strip away the masks of medication and pride to a swinging Latin groove ("Piggy Mask") and find that love isn't a simple choice to the sound of multiple acoustic guitars fusing as completely as their voices. Their first love will always be comedy, but they also evoke and then transcend tragedy. "Did you ever take a walk to the edge of town, before the airplanes took the buildings down?" they ask on "Only You Know How." And on "September 11th at the Shambhala Center" they find some believable hope in the connection between artist and audience: "Don't lose your nerve/You are the ones who are singing and I am the listener," sings Terre, as her sisters build to a gorgeous pop crescendo. The Roches have been making records since 1979--they may have just made their very best. --Roy Kasten

Product Description
After a decade long hiatus, The Roches return with a brand new album. Their 429 Records debut, `Moonswept', recaptures and builds upon the quirky storytelling charm and intricate harmonies that have endeared them to contemporary folk music fans since the mid `70s. Sprouting from the fertile Greenwich Village art scene of the '60s and `70s, The Roches have enjoyed a rich career working with notables like Paul Simon, Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame, Philip Glass, and The Indigo girls among many others. Ten critically-acclaimed albums later, Moonswept is bringing their devoted fans out of the woodwork, and is perfectly poised to create new ones!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maggie and Terre and Suzzy - together again!, March 20, 2007

By	Larry D (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

The Roches' first album as a trio in over a decade (baby sis Terre having gone mysteriously AWOL following 1995's Can We Go Home Now) is a triumph. Though all three sisters continued to make beautiful music in solo albums, projects with other musicians, and in particular Suzzy and Maggie's "Zero Church" and "Why the Long Face" albums, for those of us who have loved the Roches since their 1978 eponymous debut album, they all smelled like side projects. "Nice", we'd think, "but when's Terre coming back?"

Well, Terre is back; and maybe it's just that I really, really missed those shimmering three-part harmonies for all those years, but this may well be the girls' best album since the late '70s. Time has frosted Maggie's hair, but apparently left no mark on the sisters' voices. Their crystalline vocals soar above their trademark ringing guitar work (gone the electric keyboards of the '80s albums), and it's like the past three decades never happened. And there is scarcely a song here (mostly penned by Suzzy and Terre) that isn't a gem.

But while Moonswept is a very good album, it's not a perfect album. For me, the cover of the Ames Brothers' "The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane" (one of the first songs the sisters ever sang together, and a long-time staple of their live shows) is a throw-away. If they were going to pull one out of the vaults, I'd have preferred "The Clothesline Saga". And while Suzzy's daughter, Lucy has a lovely voice, and her song ("Long Before") is a pretty one, this isn't her album and I could have done without this number. Maggie only contributed to the writing of two of the songs here, leaving the album a bit heavy on novelty songs, from the utterly delightful "Huh" (three minutes of nervous stammering set to music), to "Naughty Lady", to NYC songwriter Paranoid Larry's "No Shoes" and "Jesus Shaves" (both of which start out fun, only to wear out their welcome just a bit by the end). Moonswept would have benefited from a "One Season" or "This Feminine Position".

But I quibble. Moonswept is an eagerly awaited return to form for long-time Roches fans. In a better world, one could hope that this album might finally earn Maggie and Terre and Suzzy some of the mass recognition they have so richly deserved for so very, very long.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No...You Can't Go Home Now! , June 8, 2007

By	Gavin B. (St. Louis MO) - See all my reviews

From the opening verse of "Us Little Kids" there is no doubt the sisters Roche have returned in fine form. Despite a long sabbatical in which each of the individual sister pursued musical projects that didn't quite add up the sum of their work together, we now have the real thing. All three Roche sisters who stoop to conquer with their resplendent choir girl harmonies and all of their endearing quirkiness.

The Roches were always the delightfully out sync with the prevailing musical zeitgeist. In the late Seventies when New York was a crossroads of punk rock, funk, garage band retro, and musical experiments that fused multimedia performance art with electronic music, the Roches won our hearts with their crystalline harmonies and the tongue in cheek sassy feminism of songs like "The Married Man" and "Pretty and High."

In hindsight it's hard to imagine neo-folkies like the Roches sharing the same bill at CBGB's with the Ramones, Lydia Lunch's 8 Eyed Spy, the Fleshtones or Arto Lindsey and John Lurie's edgy "fake jazz" project the Lounge Lizards. You would have had to been there in 1980 for any of it to make any sense, but the Roches managed to charm the bottle throwing slam dancing fans who went to CBGBs to see the Contortions and ended up falling under the spell of the sisters Roche. The Roche's name had enough avant-garde cachet to attract a musical icon like Robert Fripp to produce their debut album.

After a 12 year silence, long after most fans thought they ever would reunite, the Roches have returned, not with a throwaway album as an excuse for a reunion tour, but arguably the best album they've ever made.

"Moonswept" consolidates all of their musical strengths and sheds some inconsistency of their middle and late year albums.

The overly self-conscious precociousness of the Roches' early work has faded, to their advantage.

One can only seem overly clever and mature before one's years while one is still young. The Roches are doing us a service by losing their precocious edge, as even Suzzy the eternal kid sister of the Roches finally turned 50 last September.

The Roches have crossed the meridian of mid-life with all of their youthful exuberance intact, and pulled off their nearly impossible act of aging in a graceful manner.

Who would have thought the Roches could summons the magic of their seductive charms so far beyond the bloom of untarnished youthful beauty?

The elegant wordplay of their lyrics and the exquisite mind blowing vocal pyrotechnics that have become the Roches musical trademark have survived intact as if they placed their exquisite talents in a time capsule in 1995 after they completed their appropriately titled farewell albumm "Can We Go Home Now?"

The answer to their question is, "No you can't go home now, because the fun has just begun.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ignore the Amazon review, June 18, 2007

By	Curmudgeon "grantc" (West Australia) - See all my reviews

The Roches' songs have always preached the Christian gospel of love and forgiveness in a very secular guise, and Moonswept is their most beguiling and poetic recording to date. They've mostly ditched the sometimes-impenetrable quirkiness and focussed on heartfelt songs of being alive and human: Jesus Shaves is not, as the Amazon review would have it, about Jesus, but an allegory of the Christ within all of us; the unsung, unrealised heroes who simply get on with their mysterious lives as best they can (do I need to add I'm no Christian but am in awe of this sentiment?). Some of this music is so exquisite it makes me cry, particularly the eerie Family Of Bones and the regretful yet ultimately proud Instead I Chose. Overall, it's a late-period masterpiece of delicacy and purity, something only experienced artists can create. Sometimes great truths can only be heard when whispered, and the Roche sisters are masters.