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May 2002 Rockbites Alternative Daily |
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Azure Ray release 2nd LP, get boost from Moby 10 May 2002 While everyone is listening to Mobyhis new album already ranks at #5 on Amazon US and at #1 on Amazon UK, with a few days to go before its releaseone of the artists that he (Richard Melville Hall) puts on the stereo is Athens, Georgia experimental/chill/twee duo Azure Ray. They co-wrote and performed track 4, Great Escape, on Mobys 18, invited into a coterie along with Sinead OConnor, Angie Stone, and MC LyteMobys other collaborators for his first LP in three years. A month ago Azure Ray (multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Orenda Fink and keyboards player/vocalist Maria Taylor, both also in Now Its Overhead and previously in Little Red Rocket and Bright Eyes) released for the US their second full-length, Burn And Shiver, on Athens indie label WARM Electronic Recordings. It follows their November EP, out since January on Saddle Creek, and their debut, self-titled full length, released January 2001 on WARM. Azure Ray make heavy-duty introspective dream music, boldly minimalist & anti-pop, quiet nearly to the point of disappearing into silence. In moments the new albums melodies and emotional colors touch the transcendency of Glasgows Adventures In Stereo, who, like Azure Ray, make magic of multi-tracked, reverberant female vocals and elemental, repetitive themes. Floating over synthetic bells, hints of percussion, strings, and acoustic guitar, Finks and Taylors lyrics hang in the air almost indecently personal (Its funny how you can forget theres a world outside yourself/ Where the one who loves you keeps on living/ Without you there). The albums an open diary on a bed illuminated by a shaft of light from the hall... you walk up to it quietly, hesitate, then pick it up. Its OK... she left it there... you know she trusts you and wants you to read it. Azure Rays minimalist and highly personal aesthetic, focused by producer Eric Bachmann (previously in Archers Of Loaf, now in his solo act, Crooked Fingers), reminds me a bit of the Cluster & Eno LP from way back in 1977. First exposure to that album left me wondering, in its time, whether the artists were just fucking with mewhether they arrogantly expected to get away with less studio and production time by proffering such extreme simplicity as 'art.' An open mind and a few more listens eventually paid off well back then, and does now. The Cluster & Eno record remains timelessly beautiful in its minimalism and will forever. I predict the same to prove true of Burn And Shiver. Five bites out of five. Rockbites ratings 5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying. | Azure Ray | | Burn And Shiver CD from Amazon US | | 18 CD from Amazon US | | discography | | top of page | |
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