(I googled "Moviola reviews" and got a CMJ thread as one of the returns, so I'll just copy and paste what I wrote this past July because it's still true)
Moviola East Of Eager - laid-back midwest americana, with a slight nerd edge and clever lyrics. In the past they were kind of like "Guided By The Band" or maybe "Ronnie Lane Shambles into Lo-Fi," but this one isn't quite so early 70's alt-country as previous ones. It's much warmer sounding, though not exactly slick. They might remind you of the Fruitbats a bit, if you've heard them. There are Uncle Tupleo influences. but not as much as on early albums.
It's backyard/backporch country pop, without any of the hokey and lots of subtle observation.
The make lovely roots ballads and tell memorable stories. Everyone shares vocal and songwriting duties, so there's a fair variety of style. The songs concentrate on small moments and are quite poignant, but there's nothing pissed off here. There's dread and forboding in tone, but not aggression.
Their tone and delivery has a post-modern feel, their actual instrumentation feels really old. Neil Young does this well. So do Moviola.
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Tangle Eye -
Alan Lomax's Southern Journey Remixed
Steve Reynolds and Scott Billington got Alan Lomax's estate's permission and cooperation to take his original Southern Journey field recordings and rework them.
What they came up with could have just been "more Moby." But, instead, they've created an album that feels both new and ancient and one that's very spiritually moving.
Most of the original vocals were acapella and Tangle Eye have done much more than just add beats to them. There's some incredible jazz piano, some fantastic gospel, slide guitar, awesome drum band sampling, inspired organ playing, reggae, dobro, trombone solos, double bass, and much, much attention to maintaining the spiritual feel of the original 1940's-60's recordings while at the same time moving your booty.
This is a jazz/blues/house/gospel album that's much more than the individual parts & genres. You hafta hear it to know what I mean.
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Sigmatropic -
Sixteen Haiku & Other Stories
Sigmatropic is actually Greek musician Akis Boyatzis.
Sixteen Haiku & Other Stories is the English version of haiku-ish versions of poems by Greek Poet Laureate (and Nobel Winner) George Sefaris set to music and sung/played by a number of indie rock artists (like Robert Wyatt, Steve Wynn, Carla Torgeson,Lee Renaldo, Cat Power, Edith Frost, Laetitia Sadler, Mark Eitzel, Marc Mulcahy, James William Hindle, Alejandro Escovedo, Howe Gelb, James Sclavunos).
It's an odd and beautiful thing and there's so much going on that the concept doesn't fall down.