The three reviews we’ve received have all been warmly enthusiastic.
Still to us it feels as though it wasn’t totally easy for their authors to figure out what they wanted to write, as though our music forced them to stretch the boundaries of the standard CD review even as we’ve widened the definition of music.
So Frank Oteri, editor of NewMusic Box, the internet magazine of New Music USA, in addition to bravely attempting to describe the actual sound of our music, reports in some detail on his reaction to our website as well as quoting extensively from what he refers to as our “anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment” lyrics. ( Back when we wrote our songs we were furious and hurt, now we’re more sad. )
While Zeno on his unfortunately now defunct blog, The Hollow Tree Experimental Music Report, talks about our non standard take on doing music, about the way Sweet Heresy sent him off into a deep and comfortable sleep, and about how our general unspecialized approach makes us forerunners of what’s to come in his (and Heinlein’s) hoped for post-apocalyptic world.
We are deeply grateful to both of them for trying so hard to share their clearly positive impressions of our not-so-easy-to-write-about music.
The blue links will take you to their complete reviews.
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Work In Progress
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“…. extremely slow-moving melody that hovers over the sustained growls of….bass bowus…. sounds like the breathing of alien life forms.… The album’s nine tracks alternate between instrumental and vocal pieces…. to use the word ‘song’ for the four vocal tracks on Work in Progress does not quite accurately describe these free-form mini-epics fusing words and music…. subtle microtonal melody…. stark, pointillistic instrumental utterances…. cadences of a harpsichord continuo in a Baroque recitative…. Although the accompaniment retains its austerity throughout, the lyric ends on a positive, poignant, and downright romantic note…. I, for one, am totally a fan of their work.”
Frank J. Oteri – NewMusicBox – February 7, 2012
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Sweet Heresy
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“.… an extraordinarily uncompromising slow and inward music inspired by musical traditions from around the world utilizing such instruments as bowed deep bass monochords played like the South Indian vina, a 48-key quartertone kalimba (I want one, don’t you?), and shakuhachi-type instruments with larger finger holes to allow for all sorts of microtonal fingering variants…”
Frank Oteri – NewMusicBox – November 4, 2005
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“.… a fascinating website which goes beyond the usual “hey lookit me!” myspace wankery and delves with a rare insight into matters much undiscussed… new here is the combination of texture, and resonance, with traditional European musical concepts such as melody and scaled tuning… the near-physical texture of the sounds… the resonances and the splashback of one soundwave upon another that make this music a pleasure to listen to… their music is highly inventive yet obviously related to a long history of human sound crafting… Right now, our culture is changing rapidly and radically. When the transition is over, what has survived will most likely resemble the music of Untravelled Path.”
Zeno – the Hollow Tree Experimental Music Report – March 25, 2006
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