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Music CD - Keren Ann: Keren Ann
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Music CD: Keren Ann
Artist: Keren Ann
List Price: $17.98
Our Price: $8.79
Your Save: $ 9.19 ( 51% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Blue Note Records
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. It's All a Lie
2. Lay Your Head Down
3. In Your Back
4. The Harder Ships Of the World
5. It Ain't No Crime
6. Where No Endings End
7. Liberty
8. Between The Flatland And the Caspian Sea
9. Caspia
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0094638510321
Label: Blue Note Records
Manufacturer: Blue Note Records
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Blue Note Records
Release Date: 2007-05-08
Studio: Blue Note Records
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: An intoxicating collection of ethereal reverb-infused melodies.
Comment: I have been a fan of Parsian chanteuse Keren Ann since her debut release, La Biographie de Luka Philipsen in 2000. Not only is she gifted musically (she plays guitar, piano, and clarinet, and writes, arranges, and engineers her own music), Keren Ann is multilingual (she is fluent in English, French, Hebrew and Dutch). She presently lives in Nolita, an Italian neighborhood in lower Manhattan, which is also the name of her breakthrough 2004 album (Nolita). Mixed by Joe Barresi (Queens of The Stone Age, Alanis Morissette, Tool), her eponymous 2007 album, Keren Ann, is her fifth album, and her third album in English. It is an intoxicating collection of ethereal reverb-infused melodies that rival the best of Hope Sandoval (of Mazzy Star), Cat Power, Norah Jones and Feist. Dare I say I think of her as a young female Leonard Cohen with the voice of Astrud Gilberto? Her songs are sensual and cerebral. Complete tracklist includes:
1. It's All A Lie 5:40
2. Lay Your Head Down 4:46
3. In Your Back 5:36
4. The Harder Ships Of The World 4:08
5. It Ain't No Crime 4:17
6. Where No Endings End 3:37
7. Liberty 6:00
8. Between The Flatland And The Caspian Sea 5:28
9. Caspia 3:51
G. Merritt
Customer Rating:
Summary: Keren Ann refines herself again, but still against the norm in this excellent album
Comment: Keren Ann Zeidel's self-titled fifth studio album (third in English) is, if you've never heard her, something new. If you're looking for something a little deeper, varied, and against the norm...look no further. Basically Zeidel oscillates between and incorporates elements of a contemporary Mazzy Star (a la So Tonight That I Might See), an unassuming under-the-radar folk-pop princess, and a guitar-playing chanteuse. The result is an entirely unique sound: one that changes from song to song but remains undeniably her. As Q Magazine (7/01/07) stated, the album "remains resolutely unconcerned with commercial clutter. Its nine songs are introspective and exclusively indifferent to anything outside its own self-created world."
For some reason, this album sucks you into that world; it is essential to listen to the album straight through, because the songs move you from one feeling to another, like stops along a journey through an emotional and imagerial dream. In the first two tracks, I felt like I was trapped in a dark cell, then released into a sun-lit, breezy garden with a view of the sea. She takes you sailing, down a slummy alleyway, into a cabaret, and floating across the sea (in a song that reminds me very much of Moby's "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters"), then reflects on it in a fun and completely carefree epilogue...all in 43 minutes.
Her voice is smokey, laden with a distinct flavor of complexity (in its variations between hopeless depression and euphoria), but also pronouncedly delicate. The instrumentation is somewhat minimal, but very diverse, ranging from typical rock-band elements, to backing orchestral and choral arrangments, beautiful piano, and even some twangy guitar (reminiscent of Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang," e.g.). A common criticism that I hear of many bands is that "all their songs sound the same;" well, my feelings on that statement notwithstanding, none of these songs (even her voice in each one) sound alike. I recommend this album highly, especially since it's best experienced as a whole.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not as good as Not Going Anywhere or Nolita
Comment: This cd just seems to wander... a little more distortion, a little less melody - not real happy with the purchase.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "It Ain't No Crime" to Love This CD
Comment: On this, her fifth album, Keren Ann really nails it. With echoes of the Velvet Underground & Nico, Mazzy Star & Hope Sandoval and a bit of Suzanne Vega, this CD sounds like having a waking dream. This is only the second CD I own of hers. I didn't enjoy "Nolita", having listened to my brother's copy but I am quite fond of "Not Going Anywhere". As much as I enjoyed that effort, this one knocks me out. The arrangements, both instrumental and vocal are at once subtle, complex and surprisingly unexpected and fresh. A few of the disc's shining high points include the Mazzy-infused "It's All A Lie" with its buzzing guitar swaths propelling the rhythm and great atmospherics adding color; the infectious hand-clap-happy "Lay Your Head Down". These have got to be the most intricate hand-claps I've ever heard- really cool. There's also an excellent string section and some Laurie Anderson-like "ah-ah-ah"s near the song's end that echo the rhythm of the previous hand-claps. With its squalling guitar and dirty-sounding minimalist drums reminiscent of the V.U.'s Mo Tucker, "It Ain't No Crime" sounds just slightly out of place with the rest of the set but it somehow works just the same. We end our journey in "Caspia" and I anxiously await Keren's next CD.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Clarity.....
Comment: So, after several listens to this album, I kept thinking, where have I heard this before?
Obviously, I have'nt heard it before but one singer/songwriter from the past that I dearly love became apparent; Dagmar Krause/Slapp Happy.
They are very different but in some strange way it's as if Keren has channeled that brittle beauty that Dagmar is/was so good at.
I'll listen to it many more times over the coming months to see how it holds up.
Could possibly become a classic....
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Editorial Reviews:
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The fifth album from the Paris-and-New-York-based chanteuse is mesmerizing and beautiful all the way through. Unlike with, say, Mazzy Star or even Feist, Keren Ann shows that she can rise above the slyly sensual signing style to deliver actual croons. From the deliberately breathless vocal delivery to her own smartly minimalist and subtly layered production work, Keren Ann is the singer's finest work to date. Her voice remains the focal point, but intriguing instrumental choices dot the album, from the twisted, distorted guitars on "It Ain't No Crime" to the lovely flutes of "Harder Ships of the World." Just listen to the slowly-percolating "Lay Your Head Down," the album's first single. That song begins as an addictive combination of sparse guitar, hand claps, and crooning to gently accrue bluesy harmonica and guitar licks before drifting away in a layered wash of strings and Carl Orff-ish vocal flourishes. It sounds modern and from the more rarefied aspects of pop's past at the same time. You watch: Keren Ann just may prove to be Blue Note's smartest signing since that Norah Jones person. --Mike McGonigal
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