Member:
Windhawk
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by Windhawk)
Date:
9/25/2007
Format:
CD (Album)
Baku Llama is a California-based trio releasing their debut album this fall. They have other releases to their name according to their MySpace page - but this release is what they themselves consider to be their first real release, according to the promotional info.
Musically this trio seems to draw their influences from a lot of places. Many of the songs are structured in a way that makes me think that krautrock is a genre they are familiar with, whereas the guitar riffs in many songs are quite similar to what can be heard on Hawkwind's more psychedelic output in the 70's; slow, dark and at often gritty. Keyboards often have a jazzy feel to them, but are also used to create lush or symphonic atmospheres. The piano is used for more or less simple and often beautiful melody lines, but also for jazzy improvisations. Often in the same song.
The overall soundscape in most songs here consists to a great extent of contrasts; beautiful melodies paired with dark and gritty sounds, repeated patterns paired with improvised playing. And the songs as such rarely have an average A4 development, the main thing on this release seems to be mood explorations, where a specific theme or mood is explored in as good as every detail. If I had to make a tag for this music, avant-garde fusion would probably be my best description, adding words like eerie, dark and dreamy to the tag.
As for the songs here, they are a slightly mixed lot in my opinion. All the songs here have moments that really intrigued me, and most to the extent of me really liking them.
What I see as the main weakness in some of the songs here, is that somewhat limited patterns and moods tend to get over-explored. The moods and patterns are interesting and intriguing; but after a certain amount of time there's really nothing else to explore, and these songs then get repetetive in my opinion. When the band gets it right though, as they do in most of the songs, the music is really captivating.
My overall conclusion is that this is a good debut album. Fans of krautrock and fusion will perhaps be the ones who will easiest be attracted to this release, but I suspect that this music may have a much wider appeal as well. As the band has samples on their MySpace site, it should be easy to check out if you like this or not.
Personal highlights: “Tragic Mask”, “Discord”, “Side Two”, “The Rite”
My rating: 74/100
Member:
maribor
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by maribor)
Date:
11/13/2007
Format:
CD (Album)
The American trio Baku Llama was formed when three acquaintances ran into each other after a long time and a series of lucky coincidences. They discovered their musical tastes were fairly similar and after a jam session it was clear they gelled really well. The album Eris sounds like a consequence of improvisations because most of the pieces have a feel of being written through jamming.
Even though the members have similar musical interests, there is a variety of different influences in their music – jazz-rock, avant-garde, symphonic rock, folk and even pop. No genre is prevailing and sometimes we can witness several genres being combined in an interesting fashion. Thus, this group never gets boring or one-sided. The music is not too one-dimensional and does not get tedious after several listens.
“Discord” and “Discord Resolved” are rather reminiscent of Happy The Man and here Baku Llama create the only pure symphonic pieces. “Hamatsa” is a typical fusion number with electric piano and heavy guitar riffs. “Betrayed” and “This Time” are more pop, with some folk thrown in for good measure. They are also (for me) the low points of the album, mostly because the vocals are sub-par. “Eris” also features vocals, however here the lyrics are spoken and this works much better for Baku Llama. “Punch It” displays elements of folk, pop and symphonic rock, while the rest of the album features mostly really good pieces, which combine jazz-rock with avant-garde.
The biggest deficiency lies in the vocal department, however this really isn't much of a problem because only three pieces feature it. Fortunately, they decided to focus more on creating good instrumental music. The songs with vocals are also more folk or pop oriented than the other ones (except for the eerie (in a good way) “Eris”). The keyboards feature mostly electric and acoustic piano, plus a variety of synthesizer effects. For me, the keyboards are the best element on the album. They are quite varied and ambitiously done. The guitar usually creates a contrast to the keyboards with its heavy riffs and is mostly responsible for the dark atmosphere. The guitarist occasionally uses acoustic guitar as well, though mostly on the weaker vocal tracks. The keyboard player occasionally uses some nice percussion (vibraphone, glockenspiel), which give the music a symphonic flavour. The drumming is more or less basic and not too flashy, but for music that is based more on moody improvising they're right on the mark.
Eris is an album that will appeal mostly to fans of quality improvised music. Their jamming abilities are without reproach, but I do miss some more compositional elements to elevate this album from good to excellent. My favourite passages are the jazz-rock, symphonic and avant-garde ones and I feel that's where they're best. The more pop oriented songs are in need of some refinement, but basically only two numbers fall into this category (“Betrayed”, “This Time”). All in all a very satisfying album, though I am hoping for an improvement in the future, just because I think these guys are capable of even more.
Member:
ffroyd
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by ffroyd)
Date:
11/13/2007
Format:
CD (Album)
Count me in as another one who thinks this is a pretty cool CD. If I were to have judged this band by the pictures on their MySpace page, I probably would have thought them to be a boring folk pop band or something but this is some pretty neat space rock meets haunting ambient psychedelia or something along those lines. Baku Llama is a trio based in the outskirts of Los Angeles consisting of Ann Bernath on drums, vocals and keyboards, David Bernath on guitar and bass, and Rick Whitehurst on keyboards. Eris is the band’s first official CD.
While I think this is excellent music, I’d admit that it isn’t all that complex, in fact, I found most of it to be quite rudimentary. This is not a bad thing at all though, it gives the tunes a rather primitive quality that is very enjoyable. There haunting starkness to the proceedings on most cuts. Ann’s vocals sound like something that would come from a 60s hippie cult band. Quite a bit of the guitar work reminds me of something Dave Brock from Hawkwind might have played. The keyboards have a Doors-like quality to them in spots, with the rambling organ work of Ray Manzarek often decorating the background.
As I mentioned before, many tunes have a haunting soundtrack quality. The band usually lays down a spacey groove and jams away overtop of it. One of the highlights for me would be the title track, with some wonderful vocals and a spoken word accompaniment. The track just after that one is “Six to Midnight” and has some really nice abstract piano playing. Sounds like something you would hear in an old horror movie. The closest the band gets to a normal song would be on “This Time” which has some really nice vocals from Ann.
Towards the end of the album is where things get a little odder. “Dreameater” has some interesting chunky but subtle guitar work from David. “Torrential” includes some weird synth noises to go along with some improv piano playing. The longest track “Side Two” is a nice long jam and while it’s still pretty mellow, it’s about the heaviest the CD gets.
Overall, I’d say this is some decent music. It’s not earth shattering but it should be worth a listen for folks interested in atmospheric rock with a psychedelic edge. The band has a decent selection of music to listen to on their MySpace page and this should give you a good idea of what they are all about.
Member:
Pnoom
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by Pnoom)
Date:
2/5/2008
Format:
CD (Album)
Author’s Note: In the interest of full disclosure, this CD was sent to me by a progressiveears member who asked me to review it.
Rating: A-
Some would claim nothing new is happening in music. Others (myself included) are forced to wonder whether such people are living under a rock. Whatever genre of music you like, there are artists pushing its boundaries, but by far the most interesting modern acts are those who are truly doing something beyond any established genre boundaries. There are not many in this latter category, but what few there are, are uniformly excellent (among those I know, at least). And - cue fanfare – Baku Llama is among that group.
Their music is comprised of just three major elements: drums/percussion, guitar, and keyboards, but they create a richly textured soundscape marked by jazzy keyboards in the forefront, Glenn Branca style guitar providing textures (and occasionally joining the keys in the forefront), and soft but interesting beats that propel the music forward. It doesn’t seem revolutionary on paper, but when these sounds actually come together on Eris, the sound itself is unique. As Valdez (who sent me the CD) said when I informed him that I had received Eris, “I think you will agree that it is quite different if nothing else.” As it happens, I agree that it is quite a bit different, and much more - Eris isn’t just “different,” it’s fantastic.
In general, the quality of all the songs is very consistently good, with a few songs standing out as especially strong. My favorites are “Hamatsa,” “Side Two,” and “Six to Midnight,” all of which showcase the jazz-keys, Branca-guitar, driving-percussion/drums trio I mentioned before, using the combination to create tension and keep the listener riveted. “Six to Midnight” is particularly intense, with the drums holding steady as the guitar pulses in and out and the keyboards go absolutely haywire, perpetually building up to a climax that is the most captivating moment on the CD. The only other standout track is “Betrayed,” which is one of three vocal tracks on the CD. While “Betrayed” works really well, mixing powerful female vocals with the instrumental background I’ve described, the two other vocal tracks are less effective. “Eris” is, musically, one of the most interesting on the CD, but the spoken vocals feel out of place and detract from the power of actual music. I still love it because of the music, but when I listen, I always wonder what it would be like if it were instrumental. “This Time,” on the other hand, is perhaps the sole weak spot of the CD, straying from their established style into more conventional pop/rock territory. While still interesting, it feels out of place on the CD, in part because of the stylistic differences, but also in part because it just doesn’t feel “different,” as the rest of Eris does.
That said, one average (for it’s not bad at all) song doesn’t ruin what is otherwise a phenomenal CD. Hopefully, future releases, will see Baku Llama improving (not that they’ve got far left to go) and producing a masterpiece. Should they leave behind vocals altogether (or at least stay closer to “Betrayed,” letting the vocals complement – rather than drive – the music) and focus on honing their tremendous ability to engage listeners instrumentally, I could easily see them returning with a masterpiece. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it sounded nothing like Eris. After all, coming from Baku Llama, it’s sure to be “different.” Wherever they go from Eris, however, will not change that Eris itself ranks among the strongest CDs of the decade and is a clear highlight of 2007. Highly recommended.
Member:
Epilepticgibbon
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by Epilepticgibbon)
Date:
2/19/2008
Format:
CD (Album)
I’d like to think that there’s a great deal of diversity to the music that I listen to, even though much of it falls broadly into the category of progressive rock. So although I like what many would consider to be the more typical, symphonic style of prog bands I try to keep my ears open for bands that are still considered prog but are doing something that little bit different. And on that note, I’d like to welcome Baku Llama to the table, an American three-piece consisting of Ann Bernath on vocals, drums and keyboards, David Bernath on guitars and bass, and Rick Whitehurst on pianos, keyboards and vibraphone. Ann also writes the lyrics for the occasional tracks where there are vocals (four out of the 13 tracks on Eris have vocals though only three actually have lyrics).
The album’s overall sound is difficult to pin down, which is refreshing but does make it slightly difficult to describe. The band seem happy with the following genres being applied to their music – progressive, rock, jazz, ambient, pop, and avant-garde – and they are all appropriate but that list of words hardly sums up Baku Llama, nor does it indicate the relative weights that should be applied to those different genre tags.
So although the music is definitely progressive and very jazzy at times, it’s less obviously straight-ahead or conventional rock and rarely dips into territories that I would call pop (the closest the band get to this is the track “This Time”). The music often drifts into ambient directions, but don’t go expecting music for airports, and while there are avant-garde moments I don’t think you’d ever say that the album is wildly experimental. On the other hand it is an innovative album and pushes a few boundaries, plus the fact that much of the album is a "product of spur-of-the-moment musical conversations between percussion, acoustic and electric guitars, and keyboards over a period of several jam sessions" indicates an unconventional approach to songwriting. So all of this creates something of a contradiction – an album that dabbles with both pop and the avant-garde, a prog rock album that skips most of the prog rock clichés, and a collection of well constructed tracks that nevertheless arose from a series of jam sessions.
The album covers many genres and no particular one dominates, though I do think the jazzy elements are especially important. This is partly because these elements seem to underlie the band’s approach to composition but also because the keyboards and piano have a strong jazzy feel to them and often form the basis for the band’s improvisations.
There’s another side to the band which doesn’t specifically appear in any of their approved musical descriptions but it’s one I can hear quite clearly: the sound of the late 1960s American hippy and art rock movements. There’s a strong hint of The Velvet Underground and Nico, particularly in Ann Breath’s vocals, whilst there’s a certain Ray Manzarek quality to the keyboards and that brings a whole Doors element to the Baku Llama sound, and there are more than a couple of psychedelic freak-out moments too. These elements don’t serve to make Eris sound dated, largely thanks to the innovation and improvised composition that I discussed earlier, but there are definitely ghosts of the 60s haunting this album.
There are a number of very strong tracks. My favourites include the short opening track “Discord”, which sounds like its going to lead into some symphonic prog epic (but doesn’t) and is both charming and haunting at the same time; “Betrayed”, which is the first track on the album with vocals and probably represents the band’s best effort at trying to combine their proggy improv with more straightforward, slightly folky songwriting; “Punch It” is a quirky piece, much lighter than much of the rest of the album and it makes for a good palette-cleanser after the dark themes of “Betrayed”; the title track makes good use of vocals and spoken word sections from Ann, whilst musically there’s something a little bit David Lynch about it all, or maybe it’s the opening music to a dark road movie; “The Rite” is also rather creepy and is the first of a series of tracks that sees the album move into slightly more eccentric and occasionally heavier territory, which is particularly obvious on the later track “Dreameater” with its crunchy guitars and “Torrential” with its unique mixture of silt drum, recorder, nano piano and synths; and the album ends with one of its most mellow tracks, the impressive “Tragic Mask” which actually reminds me a little of something from Vangelis” “Blade Runner” soundtrack.
On the downside, I think that “This Time”, the track I referred to earlier as being the closest thing on the album to pop, feels a little out of place and isn’t the strongest piece of songwriting. I’d also say, despite all the variety and innovation on the album, I wonder if at an hour-long it doesn’t begin to get a little repetitious. The basic styles and sound palettes are extremely interesting, but certain themes do keep reoccurring and I wonder if the album might not have been tighter and even more affecting had a couple of tracks been dropped.
But that said, there’s a lot on this first official CD by Baku Llama to appreciate: an extremely original collection of tracks that draw from assorted influences and genres but still leave you guessing as to what you can expect next. It’s also dark, stark and yet strangely compelling throughout. Whilst it may not suit everyone it should still have very wide appeal and if this review has caught your interest then it’s definitely worth checking “Eris” out.
Best tracks: “Discord”, “Betrayed”, “Eris”, “Dreameater”, “Tragic Mask”.
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