Customer Reviews

Point

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wasn't going to review this album, but about halfway through the second song this time I said what the hell. This is a great record from beginning to end. I like it better than "Fantasma" at this point. "Fantasma" was/is a great album, but "Point" just seems to hit a little bit better.

"Smoke" starts off with a reminiscent sound familiar to Tortoise and Yes. The bass in this song is the funkiest part of this album. The song is very well rounded with Cornelius repeating the word smoke over and over. "Drop" takes you on an IDM/Folk journey and also begins the "sound effects" portion of the album. Water running and birds chirping give this a bit of an experimental quality that Cornelius is so good at. The next song, "Another View Point," picks up where "Drop" leaves off. It's a little faster pace, but still keeps the integrity of the album.

The real surprise here is the song called "Brazil." It's the theme song from the incredibly bizzare movie by the same name. I'm sure some of you have seen this one before. Nevertheless, Cornelius adds his touch as always making one of the most intimate songs on the album. I absolutely love the vocal effects on this song. Superb.

I can't wait for you to hear "I Hate Hate." I laughed when I heard it.

All in all I believe this is a better rounded album than "Fantasma." Maybe it's just because this album is new to me. I don't know. You be the judge. Either way, if you get this album, I'm sure you'll be happy with it. If not, give it to a friend. I don't think it will make it that far, but rest assured you'll have a great recording for your collection. I'll bet this will be on some "best of 2002" lists at the end of the year.

Fantasma, the 1998 breakthrough record and American debut from Japanese oddball Keigo
Oyamada (whose nom du disque is taken from Planet of the Apes) was a thrillingly original, but
frenetic and impossibly eclectic collage of an album that encompassed stylistic (as well as
lyrical) allusions to dozens upon dozens of musicians (the Beach Boys, the Clash, J.S. Bach)
and genres (hardcore, bossa nova, videogame soundtracks), often splicing them together in
second-long fragments to create what might be called (to quote one of the track titles) a
micro-disneycal world tour. It was undeniably fun at times, but there was simply too much
going on for it to work as a real album. In light of this, the title of Cornelius' newest release is
unimaginably appropriate. Where Fantasma was splintering in a thousand different directions,
this new record is cohesive, compelling, and meaningful: it very much has a point.

To begin with, Cornelius works with a surprisingly simple and consistent sonic palette. Almost all of the tracks here are
built on combinations of precisely plucked acoustic guitar chords, sparse but carressing breathy vocal snippets, crisp
percussion that sounds like it actually comes from a real drum set. Sure, he changes things up a bit: "Another View
Point" gets a bit rocky with spiralling electrics and a solid bass groove; the playful "Drop" masterfully encorporates the
sounds of water dripping and splashing (a terrific accompanying video shows a young boy washing his hand);
elsewhere we find birdcalls, subtle banjo plucks, tastefully arranged electronic clicks and beeps, and snatches of
theremin. But all of this is carefully reined in and channelled toward an overarching sense of unity and calm which
prevails throughout - even on the frantic, fractured, faux-metal "I Hate Hate," glimpses of melodic majesty emerge from
of the chaos. The album also flows in a literal sense - most of the tracks merge into one another, linked by rhythmic
and textural motifs as well as a unified sound. Although Oyamada's stunning voice dominates the album, usually
multitracked in dense, lush harmonies on sustained "aaahs," it's easy to lose sight of the fact that these are individual
songs (no doubt in part because even the English lyrics are largely undecipherable - the chorus of "Smoke," which
simply repeats the title four times, comes off as "soo-moooohg.") One highlight is an irresistable update of bossa nova
classic (and Terry Gilliam theme song) "Brazil," with a mellifluous computer warble taking on the soaring melody.
Despite its lush beauty, the record is also intensely rhythmic, and consistently danceable (if you dance like I dance),
alluding to Brazilian samba, upbeat house-like grooves, and complex funk while never quite giving way to one genre
absolutely. Promo material for this album suggests that it's equally appropriate for listening in the car or through
headphones - I would add the dancefloor and a late-night lounge sofa to that list, but the point stands that this is a
versatile record, capable of providing immense listening pleasure in any number of situations. The best point of
reference I can make is to Björk, and I think that's a fairly accurate comparison, but I think that what Cornelius has
done here is something truly unique. Point is gorgeous, engaging, and magical. (9/10)
[edit]

If you are a fan of Cornelius' album "Fantasma" or any of the albums that came before it, you might be a bit dissapointed. This is not the eccentric, crazed electronic expert that had us jumping from one musical styling to another. This time around Cornelius has become very focused on making an album that has continuity about it. It is still sounds like Cornelius. It still feels like Cornelius. It just isn't as ecclectic as Cornelius.

On all of his past albums, Cornelius tended to jump from one thing to the next, and although all of the songs were held together nicely, tempos, rythms, and melodies would suddenly switch mid-beat to provide a truly exotic experience. This album seems to play like one extended, mellowed out song. Instead of being constantly thrust from one mood to the next, a constant presence is maintained until you get to "I hate, hate" (which almost sounds like a death metal song from another planet).

This album is truly Cornelius moving in a different direction. This is truly a concept album that explores naturalistic beauty. Most of the samples used in this album are not samples of weird radio broadcasts, monkeys, or a sped up Sloth sample ("HEY YOU GUYS!!!"). The samples here are that of water droplets quaintly splashing into a tranquil stream, or a cluster of birds quietly singing their their dreams back and forth to each other.

Even though this disc may not exhibit what Cornelius usually sounds like, it certainly does paint an aural soundscape of what emotions he is having at this "Point" in his life, which might explain the title a bit more.

Daft Punk's "Discovery" was probably the most innovative electronic album of 2001.. now for 2002, it's Cornelius' turn with "Point"

Unlike his French counterparts (Daft Punk, Air, St Germain et al), Cornelius uses electronics on real life sounds, short snippets of drums and voice to create a dizzying mix. So while many of his songs may have a structure familiar to Daft Punk fans, the overall sound is amazingly fresh.

After a brief introductary track containing numerous odd sounds, the album launches with 'Point of View Point', a collage of bossa-style chordal-voices, snappy drums, and acoustic guitar. Each part on its own is dull, but mixed together becomes as entrancing as any flurried Philip Glass piece.

The highlight of the album is the single 'Drop'.. It starts with the sound of water dripping everywhere, a bass drum, a guitar chirping away, and Cornelius cooing in the background. It then launches into a 'Gypsy Kings meets Daft Punk' style latin-dance-patter. Hard to define, wonderful to hear.

'Another View Point' is a Jamiroquai-esque funk instrumental, but with Cornelius' now-familiar cooing voice throughout.

The second highlight of the disc is 'Bird Watching At Inner Forest,' which starts off with a scene of birds cooing and chirping.. somehow Cornelius takes this scene and integrates the bird chirping into an intense electronic bossa-nova groove, with Cornelius providing yet more cooing and Japanese vocals. But, this is a bossa-nova track at heart, but with a techno style production.. yes folks, this is original stuff.

Other interesting tracks are the electronically-voiced 'Brazil' and the heavy-metal thrash 'I Hate Hate'.

So we have electronica/latin/bossa/metal and ambient styles on this disc.. Cornelius is truly crossing the genres, and this disc will delight any open-minded music-lover.

Japanese avant-pop-trippist Cornelius (real name: Keigo Oyamada) had a hard act to follow after 1997's "Fantasma," an electronic masterpiece. But "Point" doesn't disappoint -- it's more experimental, spacier and almost hypnotic, a twist of rock, experimental electronica and dreampop.

"Point of View Point" may be the highlight of the album -- sharp guitar strums overlaid by some intermittent blasts of drums, an eerie bright hum and "left/right/left/RIGHT!" It's lush, sunny and memorable, and the sort of pop that sticks in your head -- in a good way, like a trippier version of the Beach Boys or Beatles.

There's a wildly different sound in "Smoke's" a bouncy funky groove and "Drop's" a strummy pop. Shifting the tone is "Tone Twilight," a dreamy slow pop song with an ambient touch. Then Cornelius does an about-face in "I Hate Hate" with a spray of abrasive electronics leading to some aggressive, bombastic electro-rock.

Rock. Trip-hop. Ambient. Blues. Lounge jazz. Funk. All are woven into this album, along with some wicked vocal samples and a sprinkling of experimental sound effects. All of this to apparently illustrate Cornelius's thoughts on nature and machines, clashing and yet musically intertwined.

The guitars and drums are absolutely brilliant -- one moment they're bluesy, then bombastic, then gentle acoustics. Laid over the basic bones is an array of electronic music -- the wavy wails of "Another View Point," discordant spray in "I Hate Hate," or sparkling blips of "Brazil." But Cornelius knows when to put the electronics in the backseat and just let the instruments take over.

He also takes it one step further by laying in samples like falling water or singing birds. The birds especially show up in the two-song cycle of "Tone Twilight Zone" and "Bird Watching At Inner Forest," which sound like a rainforest soundtrack. And the vocals are inobtrusive. It's not hard to hear them, but the vocals are so submerged in the mix that they sound almost like another instrument.

Cornelius shows again that he's a master of avant-pop in "Point," a worthy follow-up to the outstanding "Fantasma." Beautiful, eerie, and fiery, this is a definite keeper for indie-electro fans.

Cornelius' latest effort is in a way far different from Fantasma, but also a continuation of it. Whereas Fantasma was a loosely connected string of songs that whirled around all over the scale(from insane nintendo-like techno to carefree pop), Point is a tightly woven string of songs that whirl all over the scale. It is definitely a lot more cohesive than Fantasma, but it also more mature. That doesn't mean that Cornelius' sophomoric US release isn't lighthearted, but Oyamada has definitely grown up a bit. In fact, I think his musical abilities have gotten a lot better. Instead of a pleasant journey that most of Fantasma is, Oyamada challenges the listener to fully participate with this album. It pushes us, it pulls us, it pleases us, it can even irritate. His song structures flow more smoothly together instead of some of the rapid transitions that Fantasma has. His writing has progressed to the next level. Where sampling seemed to rule Fantasma, this album is more about melody. The songs have more power to them. They are sonically charged to stick in your head. Also, another quality that adds more weight to it is the concept itself. Each song is a journey, taking your further along each time. Like traveling to different points, or even points of view. This album definitely grows on you. It will get inside of you and move stuff around, in a good way, of course.

Cornelius is a strange artist.....his recording schedule is hardly prolific. (recording only a Handful of albums since 1995), yet he has a devoted fan base, that laps up his eclectic range of Alternative Pop/Rock & Freewheeling Indie-Electronica. He blends gleefully upbeat beach-boy harmonies with elements of Garage-Rock, Dream Pop, acoustic, exotica & Shibuya-Kei (think 'J-Pop'), to Dizzying effect and has a knack for twisting or presenting songs in a abstract or innovative way, that has earned him his cult status.

The acoustic strum of "Point Of View Point", is a delightfully playful Pop song. Organic and summery, this is the sort of psychedelic Sunshine pop that the 'Beach Boys' used to do so well, with insistent drum beats and acoustic guitar strumming the order of the day, the lush beach boys-styled harmonies sporadically interspersing over the top, are a complete throwback compared to the sort of music that was being released around its 2002 release, and actually stands out as one of the (many) highlights on this extraordinary album.

"Smoke" mines an especially weird area between kitsch-pop & guitar funk (seriously!!), in which the almost twee sounding instrumentation sounding like something from a 'Belle & Sebastian' instrumental, is coupled with a 'Bootsy Collins' styled funk Guitar riff looped over the top. And that's not before the Sweet harmonies suddenly spring into life, and take the track into a different place completely. Its important to note that tracks like this, aptly demonstrate Cornelius' fantastic ability to takes disparate ideas, and gel them into cohesive songs.

"Tone Twilight Zone" is an instrumental track that could, have so easily sound tracked any one of the large amount of reflective Singer/Songwriter albums that are out there, strummed acoustic guitar, with swooning, dreamy soft-touches, develops from an airy bounce into some delicious, dynamic, sweepingly subtle chord changes. Subtle, minimal and cleverly devised, this is Cornelius doing an Ambient instrumental track, with a mastery that explores his many influences.

Cornelius gets a chance to express his more 'Aggressive' side with a track that pitches it's tent in the fierce Garage-rock genre. With the Intense & Energetic Garage Punk Guitar workout of "I Hate", which....with it's Chugging Guitar Exuberant drums, its laced throughout with weird Electronic Bleeps & Sounds peppered over the course of this minute running time, by which point the sound of someone going "Ssssh!" rounds out the track and leads immediately into the sublimely downtempo and wistful "Brazil", that uses a blues-guitar and Electronica vocal sampling to a smooth and Sensual sounding Electonica track, but with guitar instrumentation, and is so lovingly crafted, so finely detailed, that comparisons with Cornelius' similar artists almost seems laughable, as he's so far ahead of the game, its not even funny.

His well known love for "Exotica" is amply played out with the closer "Nowhere" which is swanky lounge driven exotica of the highest order. Carefree and pleasantly rambling, whispery intertwining and notable for its superb implementation of soothing trombone. Cornelius rounds out the album with an air of knowing cool, rather than a loud noisy conclusion.

"Point's" eclecticism is one of it greatest assets and shows that there are people out there taken Pop-orientated music into new and interesting directions (albeit viewed through a Japanese-pop filter). If Artists that are take elements of Pop music and experiment with it and bend it into new interesting shapes, or musicians that take rock music and soften the edges (Artists like: Stereolab, Money Mark, Cibo Matto, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Broadcast & Mouse on Mars spring to mind), then you'll get along famously with this melting pot of musical genres. It truly is a remarkable album that admirably tries to extend its boundaries (and largely succeeds), this is sublime Alternative Pop/Rock, of the highest magnitude.

I thought "Fantasma" was good, but this album is amazing...Might be the most sonically amazing album I own. Buy this album. And see Cornelius live if you can. I bought this yesterday, and listened to it four times in a row because I couldn't believe how good it was...The songs flow together amazingly, and you won't stop playing it...

Japanese avant-pop-trippist Cornelius (real name: Keigo Oyamada) had a hard act to follow after 1997's "Fantasma," an electronic masterpiece. But "Point" doesn't disappoint -- it's more experimental, spacier and almost hypnotic, a twist of rock, experimental electronica and dreampop.

"Point of View Point" may be the highlight of the album -- sharp guitar strums overlaid by some intermittent blasts of drums, an eerie bright hum and "left/right/left/RIGHT!" It's lush, sunny and memorable, and the sort of pop that sticks in your head -- in a good way, like a trippier version of the Beach Boys or Beatles.

There's a wildly different sound in "Smoke's" a bouncy funky groove and "Drop's" a strummy pop. Shifting the tone is "Tone Twilight," a dreamy slow pop song with an ambient touch. Then Cornelius does an about-face in "I Hate Hate" with a spray of abrasive electronics leading to some aggressive, bombastic electro-rock.

Rock. Trip-hop. Ambient. Blues. Lounge jazz. Funk. All are woven into this album, along with some wicked vocal samples and a sprinkling of experimental sound effects. All of this to apparently illustrate Cornelius's thoughts on nature and machines, clashing and yet musically intertwined.

The guitars and drums are absolutely brilliant -- one moment they're bluesy, then bombastic, then gentle acoustics. Laid over the basic bones is an array of electronic music -- the wavy wails of "Another View Point," discordant spray in "I Hate Hate," or sparkling blips of "Brazil." But Cornelius knows when to put the electronics in the backseat and just let the instruments take over.

He also takes it one step further by laying in samples like falling water or singing birds. The birds especially show up in the two-song cycle of "Tone Twilight Zone" and "Bird Watching At Inner Forest," which sound like a rainforest soundtrack. And the vocals are inobtrusive. It's not hard to hear them, but the vocals are so submerged in the mix that they sound almost like another instrument.

Cornelius shows again that he's a master of avant-pop in "Point," a worthy follow-up to the outstanding "Fantasma." Beautiful, eerie, and fiery, this is a definite keeper for indie-electro fans.

These days the word `innocence' in art tends all too much to be read as naïve. This album will lay that to rest. Cornelius's second, (and by far his best) album mixes cutting edge avante guard techno with some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful vocal harmonies you'll ever hear anywhere on a recording. Utilizing acoustic guitar & Bass samples in innovative ways, & seemingly dropping anything he wants into the mix, from water being splashed around to bird & cricket noises & guitar harmonics, both in & out of rhythm with the songs they inlay, he tries not so much to create any particular atmosphere but to use the air around us as a big canvas on which to splash any sound colours he feels fit to be called beautiful or interesting. This is an interesting album but not at the expense of beauty, which so many albums seem to trade off one for the other. On top of all that, he keeps the whole experience rolling without any darkness. (Aside from `I Hate Hate' a very humorous parody on `heavy') It's all light, fun & yet still very, very credible. His obvious talent for detail proves that. Innocent it is, but light only in colour, not weight.