Two Words, One Answer.
Black Mountain
 Black Mountain $14.98 I've been reading some of the reviews and am surprised at how much some people are rippin' on these guys. I'd heard a buzz about them for awhile but never got a chance to listen to them till recently when a friend loaned me the CD. At first, I just put it in as background music to listen to while I was working. But the next thing I knew, I wasn't able to concentrate on a bloody thing because I was too busy listening! Realize that I do much of my work on my home computer and always have music playing while I do, and rarely--as in, very rarely--does anything distract me from that work. But this album kept hooking me and drawing me in, until finally I just gave up, set the work aside, sat back and let the music do its thing. I agree with what a lot of the reviewers have said here. Yes, the female vocalist is superb and probably deserves to be featured more prominently. Yes, some of the songs are probably a bit longer than they need to be. Yes, they sound like bits and pieces of other bands. But even so, this is one of the freshest albums I've heard in awhile, if for no other reason than that they are clearly trying to make something fresh--and that's not an adjective you can use with many bands this group. Each song is different than the one before it, and by the later parts of the album, they sound almost like a completely different band than the one playing the opening tracks. And for that, I think they deserve a lot of credit. So, torn between giving them a 4 or 5 stars, I finally went with the 5, mainly for the reason that their effort deserves my vote. To quote another reviewer, these guys are destined to become something great. For the sake of rock, let's hope they do.  Druganaut $9.98 the extended version of druganaut is much better than the one on the full length and the two new songs are great. I reccomend this to anyone who already has the full lenght Black Mountain album.  Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community $24.95 My purpose for writing this review is to discourage people from buying this book if they are buying it to learn about John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, and their Black Mountain collaborations. This is not a book about that subject. In fact, Duberman seems to disparage the public's interest in Black Mountain's "celebrity" alumni. This book is in fact a well-researched, thorough account of the history of Black Mountain College. But who cares about all the rest besides the celebrities listed above? Chapter after chapter details the petty in-fighting and political backstabbing of the college's staff and administration, largely people you've never heard of, so again: who cares? It really left me with a bad view of BMC, whereas, before reading the book I'd romanticized it as the birthplace of postmodernism and "Happenings." My bad, I guess, and I'm all for full-disclosure, but my overall reading experience was disappointing. This is a book I wish I hadn't spent the money on, and one I hope I can sell back to a used book seller. |
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