Ott's Mir showcases a smorgasbord of musical expression

Alright, everybody:

Go listen to Ott and prepare to have your minds blown.

Honestly, that could be the whole review right there. But I am so esteemed about this album that I simply want to tell you more about it. I want to explain to you its every little facet and nuance.

And I want you to leave feeling as enamored about this album as I am. To deny you that would be an injustice. And I can tell you aren't really conviced yet.

Fair enough.

Ott is an electronic music producer associated with Brian Eno who is best known for being to create a kaleidescope of textures and soundscapes. I'm sure you hear the term musical journey thrown around often, but Mir truly encapsulates what an odyssey is all about.

The opener, "One Day I Wish to Have This Kind of Time," has a warm hypnotic feel underscoring an spoken word intro which lays out the album's central message - don't get too caught up in trying to analyze the what the music is all about; just chill out and let your mind soak it all in.

That is followed by six minutes of cool Caribbean themed music with a nice beat and melody. You can practically feel the waves lapping over your bare feet.

The followup track, "Adrift in Hilbert Space," is perfectly representative of its title. It presents a very relaxed and chilled out vibe, as though you're floating along in space, while distant wispy vocals float alongside you.

After that, prepare to descend to the depths of "Owl Stretching Time," a darker, more sinister piece of electronica that at times threatens to veer into dubstep.

There's plenty of other great musical ideas at play here later on. Psyched out Indian vocals, mellow, spacey guitar playing, and even lush underwater dreamscapes.

It's very clear Ott is into psychedelia, but it's not overdone. Just enough of it to serve as a catalyst on this mystical and often wacked out journey that is known as Mir. 

Many artistic musical works have attempted to do what Mir does, but none have done it quite like Mir has - because it refuses to take itself seriously, and never gets bogged down by being to pretensions or artsy.

Best of all, it never calls for an overwrought level of analysis or introspection. It simply is what it is. Now go buy the damn thing.

Score: 91/100

King of Limbs highlights Radiohead's artistic side

Genre: Electronic Rock
XL/TBD
Running Time: 38:08

Following the release of Hail to the Thief in 2003, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke famously prognosticated that the band would take an extended hiatus, then reemerge totally unrecognizable.

Nearly eight years have passed since then, and Yorke's prediction has been mostly accurate.  

In Rainbows represented a sonic step away from the Kid A/Amnesiac/Hail to the Thief arc. For those hoping for a return to those days, don't expect to be obliged by King of Limbs. I've heard some people compare this album to their Kid A days, but I don't see that.

My initial instinct is to say that King of Limbs bears some similarity to In Rainbows; the band has managed to  blend the sound of their instruments so well with the electronic elements of their music that it's tough to discern what's a live instrument and what's electronic.

In Rainbows was a pensive, emotional record, but that wouldn't be an accurate way to describe its successor. If I had to describe King of Limbs in a word, it would be hypnotic. It's not necessarily psychedelic, but it contains some hints of that.

I've heard comparisons to Animal Collective and I don't think that's really accurate but I can see it a little bit.With The King of Limbs, Radiohead has once again made something that sounds totally different from what they've done previously but it holds its own when stacked up against their back catalog.

One of the most striking aspects most Radiohead records is how they're able to set the mood for an album almost instantly after you hit play. Within the first 10 seconds of the opening track, expectations are forged or crushed. Here, you get Bloom, which sets the mood with its slightly psychedelic electronic intro.

But for a band that's well known for having stellar album openers, I can't help but feel that Bloom falls a bit short of the mark. Yorke's vocal sounds a bit flat, almost like he's just going through the motions. I think that most listeners will find Bloom to be one of the more abstract and experimental tracks to be found on King of Limbs.

Some of the effects sound like they could have been pulled right off Sufjan Stevens' Age of Adz album. Not a bad track, but it took some time to grow on me.

Bloom segues perfectly into Good Morning Mr. Magpie, and if you're not paying attention it may sound exactly like the the song before it. The vocals are still a little flat, but the instrumentation is more interesting than in Bloom.

That leads into Little By Little, the first track on the album that really grabbed me from the get-go. The guitar work provides something rarely heard in a Radiohead song - a real sense of groove. That earns it bunches of brownie points in my book. And it sounds as though Yorke has finally had his coffee, as he comes alive on the first time on this album to show great range and emotion in his voice.

Feral is a bit unique. There are no actually articulated lyrics, just formless, misshapen moans that drift through the eerie ethereal fog that is the backing music. It's powered by an ominous buzzing bassline and other creepy electronic effects. This song makes me feel like there's something stalking me in the shadows, but I don't quite know what it is.

Louts Flower is easily my favorite off King of Limbs. The drums and bass work together perfectly to create a serene and enlightened listening experience. Yorke also takes the opportunity to show off the depth and dynamism of his range. Lotus Flower is entrancing, captivating and magnificent.

From this point the pace of the album begins to seriously mellow out and slow down the pace. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I personally lose a little bit of interest at this point.

Codex is the token non-experimental song, as it features just Yorke's vocal and a piano. It's nice, reminds me a little of Motion Picture Soundtrack, but not as emotional or as brilliant.

Give up the Ghost presents an interesting proposition. Radiohead has been a band often known putting a lot of emotion in their work, but that doesn't really show so much on this album until you get to this track. It's a heartfelt emotional ballad in which Yorke begs for the pain to stop.

The effects applied to the backing vocals sound similar to the distortion used on the vocals for You and Whose Army from the Amnesiac album. Not my favorite song on the disc, but one I've grown to appreciate.

All that's left after that is Separator, which I'm not really a big fan of. Most Radiohead closers are usually pretty emotional pieces but this one is not so much. It's just rather bland, and the looping drum pattern is just annoying.

So once again Radiohead has managed to make a solid record and do something different from their previous works, though I can't help but mentally group it in the same general family with In Rainbows. It may not ever be a serious contender for the title of best Radiohead album, and may even come across as slightly obtuse at certain points.

But give it time. It took a little while to grow on me, but I can now safely say it's moving up the ranks of my favorite Radiohead LPs.

Score: 80/100

Avey Tare album should tide over fans of AnCo, but not much more.

Genre: Psychedelic/Experimental
Paw Tracks
Running Time: 34:44

2009 was easily the year of Animal Collective. That was the year the avant-garde indie/electronic rockers, to that point fairly obscure, dropped their glittering opus of totally tripped out electronic pop influenced album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, and the rest was history.

The band has spent this year on the sideline, but that hasn't stopped frontman Avey Tare from diving in headfirst with his debut solo album, Down There. Being as Tare is one of the biggest influences on his band's sound, you can expect Down There to offer heavy helpings of the trippiness that makes Animal Collective so unique. The sound you'll hear here is much closer to the signature Animal Collective sound than, say, a Panda Bear album.

The opener, "Laughing Hieroglyphic," features a demented accordion playing over gurgling electronic beats, while Tare's loopy vocal engages you and won't let go. At the same time, there definitely are some departures from Animal Collective. For starters, Avey's disc tends to be much more minimalist in nature than some of AnCo's works.

For those who tried to get into Animal Collective but were turned off by just how over the top it was, you might want to give this one a shot. The relatively subdued nature of the songs means that it's nowhere near as grating as some of Animal Collective's more over the top compositions.

But they also aren't as fascinating, either. Remember how the shimmering wall of synthesizers took your breath away the first time you heard "My Girls?" Or how about the brooding, all over the place vocal melody from "Summertime Clothes?"

Nothing on Down There can come close to the majestic results we get when the foursome of Animal Collective get togehter, but there is a lot here to like. One of the elements that make this album unique is its water theme. Worked into the mix are plenty of dripping, splashing, and tinkling sounds. It's like you're sitting in an underground basement while water leaks out of the pipes, listening to Avey spin his tale.

As far as the vocals go, no one's ever going to accuse Tare of being the greatest singer. But he covers that up a bit by submerging his voice into a myriad of different effects. I swear he's got a new distortion for every song. It gets to be so much that after a while you could start listening to the title track off Radiohead's Kid A album and think it sounds perfectly normal.

Instruments? Well, there's not a whole lot I could make out on this album. It's mainly driven whatever electronic effect Avey's got programmed into the background, thought I wouldn't be surprised if there was a guitar here and there.

Vocal samples also prove to be a considerable part of Tare's repitorie. "Glass Bottom Boat" begins with a guy looking for directions to a cemetery, and a stranger offers to give him a boat ride there. "Oliver Twist" features some guy talking about someone who looked into a rock and saw a skull or something. It's strange, but it fits the mood.

Some of lyrical themes are also pretty out there. "Ghost of Books" is, I'm pretty sure, a song about a guy who wants to make love to a ghost. But there are also some more evolved lyrical themes. "Heather in the Hospital" talks about feelings of depression when a loved one has to go into the hospital, while "Cemeteries" deals with feelings of anger and fear.

Perhps the biggest strength of Down There is its uniqueness. No one can make an album quite like Avey Tare, and you certainly won't hear anything else like this album this year. It comes off as more of an Animal Collective-lite, but if you're a fan you owe it to yourself to check it out. If you've been intrigued by the Collective, but find their sound to be too oppressive, you might find Down There to be a little more palatable.

Score: 70/100

Sufjan Stevens takes a left turn on Age of Adz

Genre: Psychedelic/Folk/Experimental
Asthmatic Kitty
Running Time: 74:51

One of the great things about Sufjan Stevens is that he is never complacent. Stevens built his name as an indie folk god before unleashing 2005's Illinois, an odyssey into freak folk featuring acoustic guitars, dynamic arrangements, and a smorgasbord of well placed sound effects.

Fans hoping for more of the same might be let down by his latest, The Age of Adz, but Stevens uses the record to demonstrate one of his greatest strengths - his ability to adapt and evolve.

On The Age of Adz, Stevens has almost entirely dropped his folk/acoustic influences and has added electronic and ambient influences to his palette. And the zany arrangements that defined Illinois are more elaborate and over the top than ever, although you would never know that from the opener, "Futile Devices," styled much more in the mold of "John Wayne Gacy Jr." from the Illinois album. It's simple, effective, and beautiful.

After that song, however, be prepared to take a proverbial trip down the rabbit hole. "Too Much" features a slew of electronic beats while a zipping sound effect occurs in the background. Meanwhile, Sufjan's voice is floating along over it all like nothing's going on. That gives way to a spacey, mellow ambient section before coming back with one more blast of weirdness at the end.

The title track features a bleeping and booping electronic beat while a menagerie of sound effects clutter up the background, while "Now that I'm Older" starts with gospelly oohs and ahhs, before leading into Stevens's loopy, slightly demented vocal. Outside of the opener the folk element has almost totally vanished, although "Vesuvius" opens with a nice mellow acoustic section and "The Age of Adz" works a little of that into the mix as well.

Lyrically, the album has some great creative imagery going on, and the love letter that is "Impossible Soul" certainly has the power to move you. 

Of course, I couldn't go without mentioning the album's closer, "Impossible Soul," which clocks in at nearly half an hour. It's bombastic and grandiose to be sure, without necessarily being consistent over the course of its staggering 25:34 running time. It's got it's moments sure, but you can't deny that it also has its moments of repetitiveness.

The Age of Adz represents a major shift away from Illinois, but it comes with mixed results. If anything, I think Stevens may be guilty of trying too hard. Illinois represented the perfect balance of weird and wacky effects combined with well composed folk influenced music.

But on Adz the sound effects have taken over. There are just too many disparate background noises and effects on this album that don't go well together, and after a while it starts to give me a headache. There are moments of beauty on this album, but they're too few and far between.

I also have to call some of Stevens's vocal performance into question. I'm not sure if it's just because his vocals don't fit well with some of the backgrounds, or if it's an actual issue on Sufjan's part, but I noticed some moments on this album where he sounds whiny, and with the combination of the loopy background sounds it's more than enough to cause me to hit the skip button. There are also some repetitive moments, such as the last three minutes or so of "I Want to Be Well" or the end of "Impossible Soul," where he keeps repeating the same line.

I'm not saying this is a bad album, but it's certainly not for everyone. The Age of Adz is a very experimental record, even by Sufjan's standards, and there's a certain target audience he's trying to appeal to.  The album is somewhat like Animal Collective, in terms of the complex layering in almost every song. So, this album wasn't for me but if you think you might fit into the niche Stevens is aiming for by all means check this out. You might discover a new favorite.

Score: 70/100