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Parama: Zantera Sacul MusicPatrick Watson – Tracy’s Waters: this track does nothing to dissuade me from my previous notions about Patrick Watson’s music: it provides a nice, dreamlike experience, but the vocals aren’t really my cup of tea. The instrumental track with strings and percussion is nice, the vocal performance, and the vocal melodies, too, aren’t just quite up to that level. This is a nice little listen, and I think I liked this just as much as I liked Lighthouse. Different tempo and atmosphere, yes, but the quality is consistent.
6.5/10Olafur Arnalds – Old Skin: this is beautiful. I don’t know why I haven’t checked out this particular album and artist before. He was on my radar, and I just kept postponing it, but you can be sure that I will check this out after this song, because this is just beautiful. I’m not sure if I even need to describe it further. It’s an amazing combination of keyboard melody, the subtle strings, the vocals and the brilliant vocal melodies. This is something I wanted to find in this roulette.
8.5/10mum – I Can’t Feel My Hand Anymore, It’s Alright, Sleep Tight: oh yes, instrumentals is the new trend in the EP world, it seems. Is that a fucking accordion too? This is nice, but ultimately this feels like a placeholder between Old Skin and the next track, as I don’t feel any emotional connection to it. It’s a well done instrumental, sure, but unlike some instrumentals in this round, this feels more like a transitional track than a standalone song. Not on the level of Deafheaven transitional track, but still. It works well on your EP, though.
6/10Death Cab for Cutie – Passenger Seat: this song is remarkable in its simplicity and just open honesty and, I don’t know, open expression of feeling of joy? After all the growls I’ve got in this round, this is refreshing as hell. You know, those moments when you’re simply glad that you exist, that you’re alive and well, and you don’t care about the outside world at all because you’re in a good place, at least for these few minutes or hours. This song aims to evoke this feeling and it does a great job at that. I can certainly think of some moments where I felt like that, and this song almost makes me relive them. I really like this.
8/10Billie Eilish – Listen Before I Go: oh hey, a suicidal song from a teenager. Without any prejudice though, this is a good song impaired by a few aspects which are, for certain, intentional, but still: the singer sounds like she didn’t eat for three days at least, and the instrumental part is almost non-existent except the somber piano notes. I get that this is intentional, I get it; the protagonist here is leaving a suicide note, feeling down. But I still wish this song was a bit louder and Billie sounded a bit more clear and not starving and murmuring words into the mic—if only because every time this song came up on my commute, I couldn’t hear half of it.
6.5/10Ulver – Let the Children Go: this is definitely the weirdest song on your EP, with almost no structure at all; but strangely, it works quite well. The mysterious atmosphere and the random vocal passages climaxing at certain moments somehow do a great job of tying the song together here, and while this isn’t something that would do well on its own, in context of the EP this is, in fact, strangely fascinating.
7/10Julia Holter – Vasquez: you know, if I wanted an ASMR session, I would’ve just find something on YouTube. As I’ve already expressed in the plug.dj session, I’m not a fan of this at all. This feels less like a song and more like a spoken word section which is six minutes long. There is an instrumental track beneath this, which is mostly rhythm, and then there’s just Julia (I assume that’s her on vocals) speaking the words into the mic. I know it’s not only spoken word, she sings some of it (bandiiido), but still, my impression is that this is barely a song. It makes a good sequence with that Ulver song, though, but that’s about it. I don’t like it.
4/10Gabriel Kahane – Empire Liquor Mart (9127 S. Figueroa St.): I know you said this is your favourite track from your EP, but honestly, this sounds like nine minutes of mostly mediocrity. I’m not a fan of most vocal melodies here, and I’m not a fan of the classical breakdowns with all the strings—they feel forced—and I feel the whole song feels a bit off, to the point that the vocal melodies were created on the spot. The chorus reprise in the end feels like a clumsy attempt to string the song together to me, and not too successful either. Perhaps five listens weren’t enough to actually get into this song, but I guess I don’t see what you see about this particular track. It’s alright, inoffensive, and that’s about it for me.
5.5/10Thoughts on the EP: I’ve never expected you to actually send something this good. I know it was after the roulette, but hey, most of this is actually good, and the rest is at least tolerable—except Julia Holter, I didn’t like that. I guess our tastes don’t collide in metal, but when it comes to chamber music and acoustic ballads, we’re at least a bit compatible. This was good and the flow was extraordinary, in fact I think the best of the round. I don’t know how it scores against Luoto, but know that I’ve enjoyed this EP way more than a few others in this round. In fact, I’m pretty sure this will end up in a Top 3.
EP score: (6.5 + 8.5 + 6 + 8 + 6.5 + 7 + 4 + 5.5) / 8 = 6.5 * 2 =
13/20Flow score: 4.5
Total score: 17.5
Luoto, man, you sent me some great stuff. I'm not sure what it is with you and the elimination format, but apparently you're out of luck with this whole thing, first losing to Seneca while sending the second best thing in the round, now losing to Parama—of all people!—with a pretty good EP. Oh well, I'm still going to check out a lot of the stuff you sent me—Eastern High, Ghost Brigade, Swallow the Sun, In Mourning, Communic, Wormwood... you didn't win, but you certainly left an impression on me. I couldn't be more glad you joined this roulette. Thank you for playing!
Topic: Evermind's Third Roulette v. Final Round Results (Read 70652 times)
