Customer Reviews

Windows

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album has bestiful tunes. These songs has a power of healing. So, I recommend this album to the tired people. If you feel this music, you will want to travel somewhere. And you will search your window.

Windows is a quiet record you can listen when you feel really tired and worried. Between Ambient and Rock, Steve Nieve released an instrumental cd which will bring you anywhere its author may have been during the recording. Different moods, different styles, it's a journey with one of the greatest keyboard player of our times.

I have little I can add to the excellent, perceptive and accurate reviews that preceed this one. All the other 5 totally 'get' what Steve Nieve is saying on this sublime album, and frankly for the (sadly) rather exclusively small club of people who own this cd, we have a real musical gem, a masterpiece, an album that thankfully goes so far to counter-balance the endless poor quality rubbish the music industry churns out. This is thoughtful, unique, beautiful, qenuinely therapeutic (in the nicest sense of the word) music, that repays your time and concentration by the spade-load. BUY THIS ALBUM! BUY IT FOR THE YOUR FRIENDS. they really will thank you!
PS: I agree, I wish it was 2 hours long...

Steve Nieve is not just another supporting player, he is THE keyboard player of our generation. Sometimes lost in Elvis' shadow, Steve steps front and center here with haunting melodies and diverse, subtle movements of sound and emotion, imploring the listener to use imagination to see and hear the moment the music defines. Unimaginative folk need not apply, this album requires thoughtfulness and investment, time and attention, whether looking out your car window (recommended listening venue) or your bedroom window Steve's personal view of the windows he has seen will add to your enjoyment of that memory or the moment you are in. An interesting, singular view from an interesting worldly wise traveller.

It is always interesting to hear solo projects from musicians strongly associated with past group efforts. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Steve Nieve's career has been essentially defined by his association with Elvis Costello as the keyboard player for the Attractions (renamed The Imposters in recent years due to the replacement of the original bassist). Costello is one of the great songwriters of the rock era (or of all popular music for that matter) and the contribution of the Attractions to his success cannot be overestimated. Albums like "This Year's Model" and "Armed Forces" are classics that regularly end up on various all-time best lists. Though Costello plays guitar, it is really Nieve's complex web of highly imaginative keyboard orchestrations, combined with the technical facility to pull-off just about anything his mind can dream up, that really defines and accentuates the harmonic structure of Costello's songs.

Over the years, Nieve has released the occasional solo project consisting of music that does not stray too far from that for which he is known. That is why listeners of "Windows - Music for Musician(s) and Open Windows" will most likely be taken off-guard. Nieve's travels around the globe over the past twenty five or so years have given him plenty of opportunity to contemplate windows - and contemplate windows - and contemplate windows. Tour bus windows, hotel room windows, restaurant windows, car windows... As anyone who has traveled extensively for business can tell you, there is quite a bit of time for contemplation - and this CD captures the various moods perfectly. Always at Nieve's side during these travels was a DAT recorder and camera to document the audio and visual associations for each of the windows. "Windows" is a very effective collage of sounds recorded through the windows (people talking, sirens, music, rain...) accompanied by Nieve's keyboards recorded in various studios around the world. While extensive liner notes are lacking, performance credits would indicate that Nieve also plays saxophone on "Declan's Window" and guitar on "window #7."

On his web site (http://www.stevenieve.com) Nieve has said that "Two musical themes, one representing a man, the other a woman, interact with these ambiances, so that the music and the couple the music seeks to represent, embark on a voyage, as if searching each other, across all the planet, and beyond......" At the risk of misinterpretation, I would say that "window #1" which opens the CD in a solo piano style evocative of Erik Satie's Gnossiennes would represent the man - and window #2 with its fleeting reference to Nino Rota's theme from "Romeo and Juliet" would represent the woman. Maybe we can get one of those "I am the author and here is what I have to say" posts to clarify.

Window #9 (Muriel's window) is easily my favorite track, with its haywire oscillator connected to an amplifier via a cable that is badly in need of an electronics technician with a soldering iron, this is traditionally the type of sound that musicians have considered to be undesirable noise, yet Nieve has created an endlessly fascinating melody from the pseudo-random static.

My only complaint is that, at 47 minutes, "Windows" is a bit short. Odd for a CD that represents embarking on a voyage across the planet and beyond...

Complex... elusive... beautiful... the effect of "Windows" is profound, but quite difficult to articulate!

Its multi-layered melodies and ambient sounds evoke subtle moods and musings, with an impact unlike any album I've heard. "Meditative" is an apt description; the tracks on "Windows" are perfect for daydreaming. Steve Nieve's musical themes are inherently lovely... and the layers of "found" sounds create so much more meaning and emotional depth than conventional lyrics ever could. Each time I listen to this album, I hear something new... it's a real pleasure to discover "Windows."