Reco mended

Karmacoda

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 1, 2001)
• Original Release Date: May 1, 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sola Musa Music
• ASIN: B00005BIAM
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #101,483 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

It is a simple objective really; create music to reflect the emotion of a specific time and space in the modern world.

Launched as a collective effort between songwriters, Brett "B." Crockett and Heather Pierce in 2001, Karmacoda laces their electronica/trip hop foundation with elements of rock, pop and jazz, creating truly addictive sonic recreation. Outfitting themselves with the turntable magic of DJ Rafael Acevedo, Eric Matsuno's hypnotic bass, B. on vocals, guitar and keyboards and the soaring lead vocals of Heather, Karmacoda's vibe is immediately engaging.

The summer 2001 release of Karmacoda's debut Reco mended garnered an overwhelmingly positive response. The music on Reco mended was heavily featured in film and television soundtracks and won several music awards including the 2003 IMG Music Award for best independent song used in film and television for their track Swan.

Karmacoda's second album Evidence was released in August of 2003, receiving critical acclaim, being extensively featured in film and television and winning several independent and international songwriting awards.

In 2004, Altered Evidence: Late Night Remixes, featuring remixes of the tracks on Evidence was released to additional critical acclaim and extensive international sales.

In 2006, Karmacoda began exploring the new realm of writing film soundtracks by contributing songs and scoring the soundtracks for several films. In 2007 Karmacoda completed their groundbreaking album Illuminate.

Product Description

From the opening track of Karmacoda's debut release Reco mended it's obvious that the listener is about to be taken someplace new. On Reco mended, Karmacoda uses organic and processed sounds and twists them into something never before heard while at the same time matching them with superb vocals that are at once soulful, haunting and beautiful. Karmacoda's genre melting music combines the most compelling aspects of electronic, trip-hop, pop and rock to offer up sonically addictive tracks that are drenched with emotion.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid!, March 28, 2002

By	sfbookreviewer "sfbookreviewer" (SF, CA) - See all my reviews

Karmacoda spool out soulful electro-pop in a leisurely fashion. On tracks like "Motion Picture", the mellow, sensual groove feels like top shelf Depeche Mode. Icy synth swooshes and spare piano touches provide a skeletal framework upon which the dueling male and female vocals are free to writhe. Elsewhere, a nearly New Jack Soul takes precedence over goth, yielding radio-perfect numbers such as "Frail". While either end of the spectrum represented by these two songs would be enough for a fine album, the band goes one step further and integrates them time and again. In many ways, this makes Reco Mended feel like a retrospective of the past fifteen years of radio-friendly electro-pop. "A Desolate Heat" bolsters the spare, rolling rhythms of trip-hop with a vocal brimming with the sly, powerful sexuality of Garbage's Shirley Manson. "About the Day" plays a similar mix and match game by combining the soundtrack smoothness of a Moby instrumental with the playful mystery of Denmark's Gry.

Because of the clean production and mid-tempo grinds, this album begs for radio play. This radio readiness, however, will probably put off some of the snootier listeners, for whom airplay is a sin far worse than mere poor quality. This is a shame, because the disc is nothing more than well-crafted, well-executed music -- not a desperate grab for stardom. True, it may lack the ugly edge of "underground" dance music, but this doesn't nullify the boundaries the band pushes. This is particularly evident in their choice of percussion sounds. Rather than relying on the standard drum machine presets, the trio turns these tasks over to a cornucopia of squishy and unusual sounds. Thus, while the mood evoked by the rhythms will be familiar to anyone who was alive during the '80s, the execution is something not found in most radio playlists. For this reason, the band's inventiveness may be lost in the immediate pleasantries of their music. Nevertheless, Reco Mended is an album packed with surprises as well as grooves.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funky Stuff... Great Vocals, July 19, 2001

By	Tim the Enchanter (Stonehenge, England) - See all my reviews

I downloaded the MP3's and was very impressed. The samples sound very live and the music is complex... I enjoy bands like Beatnicks to Massive attack and this album is definitely "reco mended"!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Electronic beat generation, May 3, 2003

By	"deljeff2" (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews

I could be wrong, but for some reason just listening to this album makes me feel a bit more hip.

On Recomended Karmacoda adds a kind of ambience throughout, either through the mixing of male and female vocals, the use of light piano, or other effects. Both singers have amazing voices, and the way they mingle or trade off in songs makes these tracks quite impressive.

It's the little things that make them stand out from their contemporaries. The almost ambient-sounding piano that trickles throughout the mellow trip-hop of "Motion Picture" gives the song an almost otherworldly feel. There's almost an electronic world-beat feel to the ultra-cool instrumental "Amsterdam Room," which does have a European feel, and the dreamy, swirling, playful pop feel to "En Passing" makes it one of my favorite songs here. The closing "After That, Because of That" picks up on the same feel, with layered drum effects, vocals, and a very thick sound to give it a very unique and slick quality.

Some tracks that Heather Pierce sings on tend to be most similar to Laika tracks, as her voice sounds very similar to Laika's Margaret Fiedler.

There are enough unique flares - usually through some intriguing electronic sounds - to keep this from sounding too derivative. And the voices, the attitude, the atmospherics are beautiful. By the end of this album, I'm was completely sold. This is music for the electronic beat generation.