Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Review: CD Swap : 2 : Tree

Project : CD Swap 2010 Review 2 of 12
CD Name : (the image of a tree- sorta' Prince like. I'll call it Tree for now)
Arranged By : Helen
Duration : 1.3 hours
Tracks :

Shempi Ratatat
1980 World Champion The Bad Plus
Unless It's Kicks Okkervil River
Shaping Lights Ohm Guru
Neighborhood 1- Tunnels Arcade Fire
Phenomena Yeah Yeah Yeahs
The Big Score The Fort Knox Five
A Love Song Part 2 Foxtail Somersault
World Class Tomihira
All To Be Undone Tomihira
Ayahuasca Deep Fall Gaudi
A cheater's armoury Hanne Hukkelberg
We're From Barcelona I'm From Barcelona
Just For Now Imogen Heap
"Andy, You're A Star The Killers
Black Magic Carpet Lilys
From a Tower love like fire
Letter Read Rachael Yamagata
A Love Idea Mark Knopfler/Last Exit To Brooklyn Soundtrack


CD case:



First listened to it : The first half was in the car while I was driving down with Adam from SF to Mt. View. 1/10/10 @ ~5:32 pm. In it's entirety would be 1/12/10 @ 8:16pm

Favorite Track: I liked track 4- Shaping Lights as well as track 11 Ayahuasca Deep Fall. They both fit well with the CD and work well stand alone. Since listening to it my preference between the two swings one way and then back the other.

Overall Thoughts: A solid CD. It has a very strong "walking somewhere" sound to me. A steady beat throughout everything- some songs are slower, some are a bit faster- but I felt always. I feel that it goes from strange instrumental songs back to indie quite well. A vaguely feel-good CD.

Specific Thoughts: First off my CD is scratched. This causes some tension between Adam and I because I think his dying car stereo might have done some of this. He claims it came that way. The CD is listenable, but on my computer Neighborhood 1- Tunnels had some hiccups.

I like the CD casing. It's simple and pretty and sturdy and thin. A CD casing I'm likely to keep for the entire CD's lifetime. My Tree CD was #7-- I like that it is numbered.

As I said in the Overall section, a strong, well flowing CD. All, that is, except for the second track. On initial listening I tried to defend it but repeated plays I'm still, like, -"WTF?" when it comes on. But it rolls by rather quickly and everything else flows. I like the mix of female and male musicians- I feel most CDs fail to mix them properly. A little on the long side, but there isn't a single turning point where this was obvious. I'd shake my finger about the 3 songs coming from the same sampler- that's cheating for a mix CD!- but I've used 2 from the same source myself (I just was clever enough to list them as coming from their original sources). Still, 2 songs by the same artist back to back looks strange on paper... though I don't believe my ear noticed much.

I find it interesting that I like, but am not wildly in love with the CD. I feel this stems from the fact that the music select is similar enough to what I listen to that I can follow along but lacks the more aggressive style I like and therefor fails to kindle great passion in my heart.

Closing Thought :
Fish! I swear the CD sang of fish! From the opening track I had such a visual image of a young, normal girl walking down the street observing fish swimming through the air about her. Three or more other tracks backed this vivid image up. Strange... intentional?

CDexchangeDisk2

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