Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BEAUTIFUL. SMARTLY SO., February 28, 2006
This music belongs to a highly developed category: Tagging Clogs as "adventurous listening" is kinda sweet, kinda sad, but too simple. If we must define it, let's at least say "compelling" and make an effort to support the music and musicians that ask us to think as well as to feel.
But for the sake of context, and despite the fact that the pieces here are shorter, their expressive nature more direct and in many ways more approachable, I'd put "Lantern" next to something along the lines of parts of the Kronos catalog, aspects of Lindsay Cooper's work or even Gavin Bryars' "Vita Nova". Perhaps even moments by Rachel's. If you are familiar with any of these or like artists, Clogs will fit right in without sounding like some pale imitation. While similarities of form exist, Clogs remains original.
"Lantern" is at turns less abstract and more accessible than the Clogs' prior releases. The music is alternately airy, dense and, especially when compared to the earlier work, much more melodic. Possessed of a wonderfully refined sense of proportion, there's nothing excessive, nothing stray. Even the more assertive passages refrain from indulging in overly ornate flourishes. Like all their work, the performances here exhibit tightly knit, precise, difficult, unsentimental and still profoundly affecting ensemble playing with an ear that at times extends beyond the instruments to pure and purposeful sound.
The instrumentation fits together with remarkable result: a (principal) combination of guitar, bassoon, violin, viola and percussion -- and an occasional, fragile voice -- forms Chamber Orchestra depth and range: not nearly as familiar, but equally convincing. If you are working to develop an ear for beauty (not prettiness) harmonic complexity (not just major scales) rhythmic subtlety (not the tyranny of four) "Lantern" is here to light your way.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful, July 22, 2006
Lantern is largely a minimalist piece, but one that is concerned with producing music that is emotional, rather than with experimentation. And it works; the music is very beautiful throughout. The average track length, at around 4 minutes, is signficantly shorter than many similar pieces which makes it accessible even to those who normally find minimalist music overly repetitive.
My favourite tracks include "Kapsburger", which sounds like it could have been taken straight from Philip Glass' "Glassworks", and "Lantern" which is the only pieces featuring vocals, which it integrates nicely with the music to produce a relaxing meditative effect. I think that tracks #7-#10 let the album down somewhat, but it's still one of my favourite CDs that have been released this year.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the winter skeleton trees, February 1, 2007
in order to search for music, i always have to wear a pair of headphones. im not quite sure what it is about the exact feeling towards variables of soundwaves traveling through tiny speakers to my ears, through my head and if its lucky, to my heart but when it works, its almost like partaking on a brand new beginning, a realization that music will always need to have this important aspect and still wont ever lose its spark.
hailing from australia, clogs are a quartet compromised from a neo classical background that share parts of acoustic-electronica and turn it into something divine. beginning from smooth levels of guitar, viola, bassoon, and percussion, they take smaller toys of instruments and integrate them into their sound as if the missing pieces found are apart of a patterned puzzle that has been waiting there all along. these certain different dimensions collide as curious repetition and experimentation takes the listener on their own private journey, full with calming daydreams of rich soundscapes detailing golden fields, turquoise blue oceans and magical, oriental foreign lands, the clogs are sure to make you feel safe anywhere even when yr far from home.
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by Clogs 
