Customer Reviews

Music For Places

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

 

 

Morning Recordings is Pramod Tummala, the mainstay of Chicago's Melochrome. Melochrome has to date released three entropically laid-back albums on the great-in-the-small Loose Thread label; the band has taken an indefinite break while Tummala has continued following his quiet muse. It's really a fragmented extension of what Melochrome were about on their third album, THIS IS MOTION - - quietly atmospheric ditties, with a couple of instrumentals sprinkled amongst the hushed vocal tracks. Tummala has a number of helpers along the way, including Melochrome's own Thomas Stanley and Zelienople's Mike Weis on drums as well as Deanna Varagona who pitched in on THIS IS MOTION. The song titles include words like "lake" (two of them!) and "Airports" (fortunately not "those" Airports) and "fading" and "summer". There's also a track amazingly, and redundantly, titled "Let's Get Quiet". It's all rather a summerlike, languid affair . . . opening with bowed vibraphone and the lambent sound of an Indian harmonium and closing with a fading musical whisper of a coda. Nice and easy, pleasantly underproduced, if a bit tentatively presented. And mostly acoustic. But where did he get that Orchestron? And where is Darlene Poole?

Subtleties abound on this soft-spoken and depressing album. The vocals hum softly over extremely delicate instrumentation. The percussion is muted, adding to the effect. I caught the band opening for Album Leaf in Chicago and would certainly recommend their live performance as well. My only complaint with this album is that I personally would like to see a few more directions taken in the songs, but I realize that the concept is stark, and so it wouldn't necessarily fit well with the aforementioned instrumentation.