Shining Hours in a Can

East River Pipe | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 17, 1995)
• Label: Ajax
• ASIN: B000005NGO
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #309,665 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

F.M. Cornog's art is based on some striking contradictions, foremost being that he records as East River Pipe, a moniker inspired by a sewer duct near his apartment in Queens, but he's impatient with those who don't appreciate beauty. The formerly homeless Cornog recovered from debilitating mental and substance-abuse problems to record a series of striking Brian-Wilson-on-a-severe-budget albums, the austere Shining Hours providing a gateway to the lot of them. Recorded in his apartment on an eight-track ministudio (with two malfunctioning tracks), it's rife with fragile, dark-hued pop tunes about struggle and survival. The tunes are assembled on the delicate frame of Cornog's minimal guitar and percussion; his vocals give them flesh and blood. This 15-song collection proves that the path to wisdom passes through some seedy surroundings, but there's grace in the hearts of the vanquished souls you pass along the way. --Steven Stolder

Product Description

East River Pipe is the music of one F.M. Cornog. Shining Hours In A Can was his debut full length release. Compiling a series of 7 inch singles, EP's, cassette-only releases, and new material, the album was originally released by Ajax Records in the US in --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars personal songs tell a story (for a change), August 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Shining Hours in a Can (Audio CD)

personal glimpses of his inner psyche, evocative, introspective songs. if you don't like such artistic attempts, don't buy it. I found this CD refreshing due to the honesty and vulnerability of the singer, he expresses his insecurities in a soothing popish non-grating fashion and is a welcome relief from the strutting egomaniacs who normally inhabit Popland. I particularly like the Axl and Iggy song which pokes fun at pop and artists.If he has to sing about love he does so in an unconventional after the fact way as if rgurgitating a bad piece of meat. The songs have a staying power, haunt, they do not dry up after repeated listening as do most songs.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Gorgeously Depressing/Wistful Album, November 16, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Shining Hours in a Can (Audio CD)

An EXCELLENT album, full of sparkling/shimmering guitars, heavily reverberating keyboards, gorgeously written songs, and F.M. Cornog's lonely, nasal voice. These little sonic gems were recorded in an apartment in Astoria, Queens on an eight-track tape recorder, but you'd never know it by the sound of it ...Somehow, it all meshes together. Musically, it's a puree of Velvet Underground, U2, Neil Young, Television, Galaxie 500 and Eno. The subject matter includes a male go-go dancer, a would-be rockstar, driving past airports at night, and drinking beer. A winner.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Worthy Obscurity, February 1, 2005

By 

James Carragher (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shining Hours in a Can (Audio CD)

East River Pipe is one-man, F.M. Cornog, who recorded all his decidedly lo-fi songs in an apartment in Queens. Which makes his lush, layered instrumentation, frequently like Luna, Yo La Tengo's love songs or Spector on a severe budget, all the more remarkable. The stories wrapped in this sound brim over with solitude, missed opportunities, regret and loneliness, but somehow never depress. His characters are misfits come to the city, to find not success but at least the consolation that in a city of millions, there's a fit for everyone.

Of the 15 songs, only three are blah, Psychic Whore, Firing Room and When Will Your Friends Disappear. The best superbly combine loneliness and beauty or, maybe, show beauty and loneliness as two facets of the same life diamond -- Make a Deal with the City, Silhouette Town, Times Square Go-Go Boy, and 40 Miles.

Shining Hours in a Can is strange, one of a kind and wonderful.