The Lo-Fi Project

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
Chris Taylor's newest recording, The Lo-fi Project, is unquestionably the most emotional and vulnerable of his life, as he pours his acoustic alternative/folk-rock music like crème anglais over a souffle of honest Christian struggle to understand God's Will, resulting in some of his deepest, most memorable songs.

Tracks:

Find Me, Ruben Olivares - Red House Painters
Follow You, Follow Me - Red House Painters
Midnight On The Bay - Red House Painters
Smokey (Demo) - Red House Painters
Turning Over - Low
Lazy - Low
Venus - Low
Trip Over - Idaho
The Sun Is All There Is - Idaho
Wasting My Days Away - Hayden
Choking - Hayden
Tired Of Myself - Misc
Compression - Misc

Customer Reviews:

A must for any Red House Painters fan!.......1999-07-22

This collection includes 4 incredible Red House Painter Tracks, I am a devoted fan of RHP and these four tracks are absolute gems. The Idaho and Hayden tracks are also very good and add to the value of this CD. I also enjoy much of what Low does, however the Low tracks included here are not new and not my favorites and not as good as the stuff on their new CD.

moody, intimate collection of 13 new and rare songs.......1999-07-16

The Shanti Project Collection is a benefit CD with proceeds donated to 'enhancing the quality of life... of people with HIV disease and AIDS." It features songs by moody musicians Red House Painters, Low, Idaho, Misc and Hayden. Red House Painters' four song contribution includes a rendition of Neil Young's "Midnight on the Bay" and a version of "Follow You, Follow Me" that does for Genesis what Aztec Camera's "Jump" did for Van Halen. And Hayden's songs, "Wasting My Days Away" and "Choking," sound as intimate as a friend whispering secrets in your ear late at night.

slow-burning, meditative and, ultimately, immaculate.......1999-07-15

Benefit albums are good causes, but from a purely musical perspective, they're usually not that satisfying. Either there's a plethora of big-name throwaway tracks, or the roster is so scattershot that it hardly encourages fluid listening. However, the Shanti Project Collection, benefiting an AIDS help center in San Francisco, takes a welcomed approach in keeping cohesiveness to its spectacular benefit by choosing five bands to fill out the whole CD. San Francisco's Red House Painters wade through their usual magical mix of country and rock, trading electric and acoustic sounds on "Follow You, Follow Me." Their best contribution, and that of the entire album, is a smoldering version of Neil Young's bluesy "Midnight On The Bay." The sleepy, dub-like "Turning Over," from Low, is indicative of this band's inertia-less, yet potent, style. They can make a silly refrain like "Sarah, you're lazy" (from "Lazy"), sound surreal and sublime. The usually lumbering Idaho, meanwhile, revel in Shanti's most groovy track, relatively speaking, "The Sun Is All There Is," accented nicely by a female backup vocalist.Hayden's slo-mo aesthetic and the prancing rhythms of Misc. round out the compilation. All these bands suffer from sad souls and have heavy sounds because of it; a perverse cohesion, sure, but with their intensity, this collection plays out as a slow-burning, meditative and, ultimately, immaculate listen.

intimate and intense.......1999-07-14

The Shanti Project Collection is a benefit CD with proceeds donated to "enhancing the quality of life... of people living with HIV disease and AIDS." It features songs by moody musicians Red House Painters, Low, Idaho, Hayden and Misc. Red House Painters' four song contribution includes a spirited rendition of Neil Young's "Midnight on the Bay" and a version of "Follow You, Follow Me" that does for Genesis what Aztec Camera's "Jump" did for Van Halen. And Hayden's songs, "Wasting My Days Away" and "Choking," sound as intimate as a friend whispering secrets in your ear late at night.

Average customer rating:

The Lo-Fi Project

Manufacturer: N.A.
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B0000UV65I
Release Date: 2002-10-08

Tracks:

Oxygen Of The Gospel (Home Demo)
Courage To Crawl
Unknown Hour
I Am The Least In My Father's House
One Of Those Days
Grace, Speed, Urgency (Prayer For NYC)
Send Me A Friend
Wednesday (Acoustic Version)
Soft Place To Fall
Trouble For The World
Lovin' Arms
Before Our Wedding Day (featuring David Martin Of Lady Jane Grey)
Trophy Of Your Grace

Album Description

Chris Taylor's newest recording, The Lo-fi Project, is unquestionably the most emotional and vulnerable of his life, as he pours his acoustic alternative/folk-rock music like crème anglais over a souffle of honest Christian struggle to understand God's Will, resulting in some of his deepest, most memorable songs.

Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project

Average customer rating:

How to get away and make great music
captivating

Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project
Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn & Ginger Brooks Takahashi
Manufacturer: K. Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Lo-Fi | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Indie Rock | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

To All We Stretch the Open Arm
The Milk-Eyed Mender
Ys
Escondida
The Gulag Orkestar

ASIN: B0000ALFYG
Release Date: 2003-08-19

Tracks:

Lil' Bit (Of Baritone)
Red Curtain
Knife Thrower
Party
Life You Love
Pure
While We Have the Sun
Rock of Ages
Oh September

Customer Reviews:

How to get away and make great music.......2004-01-16

In the tradition of Henry Thoreau (or something like that), Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn and Ginger Brooks Takahashi (who, for the sake of my wrists, shall heretofore be known simply as Mirah and Ginger) temporarily forsook the familiarity of Olympia, Washington (the home of K Records), to make music in the mountains of North Carolina. And they didn't let the fact that they'd only known each other for a short time--and had certainly never written together--get in the way of their dream. I, for one, am thankful for their spontaneity and ambition--and that they had the talent to pull it off.

Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project is the result of their journey--a collection of nine songs peppered with nine tracks of musical experiments and found sounds that enhance the surrounding cuts and remind you that you're listening to an album not likely to be duplicated.

Not being a musician myself, I'm not experienced with a good time-to-music ratio, but it seems to me that nine songs in a month is pretty solid production. That would be enough in itself even if the songs were not as good as they are. Sure, they're stripped down, and perhaps the choice of instruments is rather unconventional (not that I'm complaining--I love the steel drum!), but looked at on their own terms, songs like "Pure," "The Knife Thrower," "Life You Love," and especially "Oh! September" would be fine additions to any musician's repertoire.

The album begins with "Lil Bit (of Baritone)," a mild baritone ukulele piece that is a lovely opener. After crickets and what sounds like the guts of a jack-in-the-box, the next tune is "The Red Curtain," which introduces us to the eclectic instrumentation that is the signature of the project. Steel drum, melodica, a Middle Eastern inspired ukulele melody are just some of the interesting choices made on this song. It's a moody piece that, while challenging the listener's perceptions, speaks directly to one's pop sensibilities. It is almost certain that this kind of experimental album could only be released on the independent-minded K Records.

"The Knife Thrower" is the first song from the Project to have lyrical content, although I'm not sure I could tell you what it's about. Nevertheless, it quickly became a favorite in my household due to its similarity to the kind of songs that used to appear in Disney movies (e.g., the Mary Poppins era) before Randy Newman took over. "The Party," despite being the third tune in a row to feature steel drums (everything in moderation, I say), is catchy enough for its minute-plus running time, but "Life You Love" is where the listener begins to look at this collection as something more than a novelty. "Mirah goes country" is as apt a summary as any, with lap steel guitar featured and Takahashi's ubiquitous ukulele standing in for the expected banjo.

Our first real introduction to Takahashi's smooth vocals comes in the form of "Pure." Using the sounds of crickets as a backing track, she is accompanied by a mellow hand drum and drone, with the occasional backing voice and guitar, as she opens with the mesmerizing "hypnoti-ize, hypnoti-ize" and sings about her lack of the title virtue in another of the highlights of this album. "While We Have the Sun" is reminiscent of Mirah's solo work, reminding the listener why she is one of K Records' flagship artists. "Rock of Ages," however, is a misfire. The out-of-tune piano jars and the different vocalists can't seem to get their acts together. But even this song has a pleasant group vibe going for it.

They've saved the best song for last and "Oh! September" is one you'll be humming for weeks to come. How they brought Olympian indie pop to North Carolina I'll never know, but this encapsulation of the experience the participants shared in the creation of the Black Mountain Music Project uses the basic bass, guitar, and drums motif (with handclaps and "doo-wop" backup) to create a catchy pop confection with its invitation to "meet me at the back shack baby/you'll bring your little ukulele" and "let's make a song on the eight-track tonight."

More people should "get away from it all" if such products as Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project would be the result. It truly embodies the independence ethic and shows that music-making doesn't need a studio to be of a certain quality. Take a romantic notion (music in the mountains and marking the end of summer) and combine it with two intensely creative individuals--invite a few friends over for social interaction--and hopefully you'll come up with something that resembles this album.

captivating.......2003-11-20

1. Lil' Bit (Of Baritone) - 1:10
2. - 0:37
3. - 0:08
4. The Red Curtain - 2:40
5. The Knife Thrower - 3:04
6. The Party - 1:14
7. - 0:21
8. Life You Love - 2:23
9. - 0:05
10. - 0:26
11. Pure - 3:37
12. - 0:57
13. While We Have the Sun - 4:22
14. - 0:31
15. Rock of Ages - 2:06
16. - 0:22
17. Oh! September - 4:10
18. - 0:32

I figured I should include the track list for the curious reader, since Amazon neglected to put one up. As you can see from the listing, this is hardly an album in the traditional sense, even considering the somewhat precocious releases in the K records catalog (The Microphones, Karl Blau, The Blow, Dub Narcotic Sound System). Of the nine tracks with titles, only six have lyrics. Those without titles range from field recordings of birds, insects, and trains to miniscule snippets of melodies from an array of instruments. Instead, this recording serves more as a document of a particular period of these artists' lives. The liner notes reveal that "Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn and Ginger Brooks Takahashi went to Black Mountain, North Carolina in the cusp between the summer and fall of 2002 to create music. ... For one month, [they] lived a life that combined summer's carefree nonchalance with autumn's diligence. They stayed in a grandmother's house, rode bikes through the six-block town, cooked with vegetables from the garden across the street, and played music every day. And they invited friends to come down for a few days at a time and help make an album to document it all."

What this all means is that somehow, without today's studio trickery, Mirah and Ginger have made a tiny and intimate statement about life and art. The snippets woven in between the songs create a transporting ambience that reveal the universal art of nature and the power of the setting in terms of inspiration and foundation. The songs themselves are incredibly evocative in their simplicity and focused eclecticism. From the impossibly gigantic girl-pop of "Oh! September" to the incredible melodic beauty of "While We Have the Sun", Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project is a true experience, even in its all too short duration.

Shanti Project Collection
Average customer rating:

An impressive compilation for fans of these bands...

A must have for fans of these bands!

Shanti Project Collection
Various Artists
Manufacturer: Badman Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Lo-Fi | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Indie Rock | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music
General | Rock | Styles | Music
General | Compilations | Rock | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00004SUVJ
Release Date: 2000-04-18

Tracks:

Find Me, Ruben Olivares - Red House Painters
Follow You, Follow Me - Red House Painters
Midnight On The Bay - Red House Painters
Smokey (Demo) - Red House Painters
Turning Over - Low
Lazy - Low
Venus - Low
Trip Over - Idaho
The Sun Is All There Is - Idaho
Wasting My Days Away - Hayden
Choking - Hayden
Tired Of Myself - Misc
Compression - Misc

Customer Reviews:

An impressive compilation for fans of these bands..........2000-07-30

The Shanti Project Collection bears tracks of 5 indie, "slow-core" bands, some more known than others. I purchased the cd because I am a Red House Painters fan, and not so much a fan of the others. Indie bands Low, Idaho, Hayden, and Misc also contributed songs to the collection, though it is apparent that RHP was targetted the focal point of the compilation. RHP contributed 4 memorable songs: "Find me, Ruben Olivares" (also on the Mark Kozelek solo effort), Genesis' "Follow You, Follow Me", "Midnight on the Bay" by Young/Stills, and a demo version of "Smokey".

My first notion was that the covers would be cheezy, but surprisingly, they came across as original would-be RHP songs. I mean, come on, an old Genesis song from years ago thats still played on the light rock stations? Now I think "Follow You, Follow me" is my favorite RHP song on the disc. However, after seeing how often Mark Kozelek performs covers and less original work makes me wonder if he's starting to lose the muse. Hope not...

Because I am not as savvy with the other bands as with RHP, I have to say that the songs are very promising; I have heard Low and Hayden in the past and think they are decent bands. They all mesh well together--all very mellow, slow, and emotional. This is one of those albums that one could fall asleep to. Fans of RHP will also like Mark Kozelek's solo album, "Rock'n' Roll singer".

A must have for fans of these bands!.......2000-04-26

A slow-burning meditative listen. A must have for fans of Red House Painters, Low, Idaho, Misc or Hayden.