Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and haunting mellodies, November 24, 2002
Jessica Bailiff is one of the most underated artists of the Post-Rock world. This new album is -surely- her finest to the date, and -maybe- one of the most interesting items of the year 2002. Imagine My Bloody Valentine. Add a cup of Flying Saucer Attack. Add a cup of Low. Serve in a glass of label 4AD. That's Jessica. Beautiful, Dark... Haunting.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The arcane siren of post rock & pseudo ambient, June 1, 2009
I stumbled upon Jessica Bailiff after discovering that she was on the Kranky record label. I am a fan of Stars of the Lid (among other ambient acts) and was wondering who else was on the Kranky label. I heard a sample of the song "Swallowed" and decided to order this album, which is either called "Jessica Bailiff" and/or "Untitled". Regardless of the record's official name, I am pleased to report that this is a really great collection of music.
The term post-rock is used when describing Jessica Bailiff's music. I am not going to try and explain or label what "post-rock" is or is not, but I will do my best to illustrate what this album sounds like. Overall it is a very mellow and somewhat haunting album. The music almost has an ambient flavor to it. However vocals and guitar keep this from being ambient and more pseudo ambient and/or "post-rock" (I guess).
As for Jessica Bailiff's doleful and attractive vocals they almost bleed into the music and at times are almost difficult to hear. I find this as part of the charm and allure to the melodies on this album, much the band Cranes. There is also a great deal of distortion from the guitar on many of the songs on this album, but the strange part is that normally guitar distortion is loud and is utilized in faster paced songs, the opposite is true from Ms. Bailiff. The guitar distortion is almost hypnotizing in a mellow and droning sort of way.
My only complaint about this album/CD is the packaging. The CD comes inside a cheap cardboard case, Kranky does this with many of their CDs and I personally find it very vexing, mainly because upon taking the disc out of the cardboard it becomes stuck and can result in scratches. In contrast, the actually album cover is really cool looking, a very colorful image with an outline of a woman's head that is mirroring Jessica Bailiff.
In conclusion, this album would be great to relax to on a cold night or if a person wants to zone out. I also think this music would be cool to listen to while taking a walk outdoors, in a big open space of land. I am already looking at other albums in Jessica Bailiff's catalog to see what collection of music I wish to attain next.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
title of review, August 9, 2003
I've listened to her previous two albums, been on the verge of wanting to buy them, but both times just decided they were too inconsistent. She is talented, and she does have some really inspired moments, but too often it seems like the dense drone is just there to cover up boring songwriting. On the song Disappear noise is used brilliantly to add a melodic depth seldom heard, but more often than not, it's just sort of there. This album has more defined guitar strumming amidst the drone than the other two, the song Mary for example, but it doesn't seem to compliment the layered noise backing, or be complimented by it, the two parts seem to be just strung together loosely. Time Is An Echo sounds way too much like Low, I assume there was some songwriting collaboration on that one. The base piano melody of The Thief is just a simple ascension and descension of a scale, it's added to and built upon as it progresses, but it never really goes anywhere. The opening track Swallowed has a lot of monotonous strumming, with some twinkling piano backing floating from the right channel to the left, basically summing up the overall intention of the album, it's all about atmosphere and sound tones, with little attention paid to interesting or engaging melodic structures, and I just can't get into that. In her defense though, the songwriting alone is on a par with that of Shannon Wright, Nina Nastasia or Kristen Hersh, all of which I find quite boring, so the experimental depth does put Jessica above the pack, but it's still just not enough to make this album something I'd want to listen to much. The song Disappear is a stand out. Other than that, blah.
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~ Jessica Bailiff
~ The Besnard Lakes
~ Beach House
~ Fleet Foxes
~ Fleet Foxes
by Jessica Bailiff 
