MI MEDIA NARANJA

3.5 stars. I just can't pull the trigger on 4 stars. To my ears their self-titled album is so much better, just my tastes in music I know but it is an amazing headphone album and quite dark and emotional. This one lacks the emotion completely for me and I don't like some of the sounds they've added here. Very much hit and miss for me. This was released in 1997 and a promo copy I've seen does have song titles instead of just a letter or letters for the songs so I'll give them in brackets as I speak briefly on each one.

"S" (Spaghetti) opens with some nice depth to the sound with guitar and organ. A beat and violin join in just before 2 minutes but I'm not into this sound. It settles back thankfully at 3 minutes and it's quite melancholic with that violin slowly playing over top. This continues to the end. "G" (Footsteps) has picked guitar along with a second guitar as a beat joins in with faint voices and more.

"WR" has the same title and it's one of my favourites. Relaxed guitar along with picked guitar with samples of a child before the keyboards arrive. Some nice bass. I like this one a lot. "C" (CM) has sounds that echo with atmosphere, high pitched percussion-like sounds and more. A change around 5 minutes as the organ arrives and sounds start to build. Nice. It fades out late.

"I" (Grate) is a top two. The organ floats in as a sample arrives then picked guitar and bass. The organ starts to lead actually playing a melody. Gasp! Some water sounds start to come and go. A spoken word sample at 2 1/2 minutes is very brief but it's back a minute later but for a longer period. "V" (Victor) has some depth to it with that atmosphere and bass. Almost spoken words before a minute then violin along with piano. It picks up some before 3 minutes as the vocals leave and the guitar becomes the focus. Cello after 4 minutes.

"P" (Piano) ends it and it's the longest at over 9 minutes. Piano to start surprisingly as we get some guitar that echoes. This is laid back and slow. Piano and atmosphere only before 3 1/2 minutes then the guitar returns. This stays slow and repetitive to the end. Not big on this one.

So right from the first listens of these back to back albums I favoured the previous self titled album by a lot, and many listens of both confirmed this. Well worth checking out to those into ambient Post-Rock.