Amazon.comThis soundtrack for the popular, goth-rooted, X-Box role-playing adventure is anotherpowerful example of how artistically accomplished the video game industry has become. Indeed, its ambitious musical score frequently outshines many of its mega-budgeted Hollywood competitors. Oingo Boingo founder-turned-noted contemporary film scorer Danny Elfman anchors the album with an ominously heroic main theme worthy of one of his sweeping, big budget superhero sagas. But in providing the balance of the music, composer Russell Shaw doesn't so much follow Elfman's muscular symphonic lead as skillfully play off it. Shaw's impressive cues here manage to conjure an inviting aura of non-specific time and place, filling it with masterful orchestral and choral arrangements that evoke suspense, wonder, terror, and mischief with equal aplomb. His dark, Omen-invoking "Lychfield Cemetary" is particularly effective, as is the pizzicato string waltz of "Bowerstone." --Jerry McCulley
REVIEW
Beautifully done The theme, which is all that Elfman contributed to this set, is stand-alone, the best track in the entire album. It maintains a great tempo, and reminds you of some deep and dark introduction to some masterful movie.
The rest of the tracks are excellent and blend nicely, while complimenting Elfman's work.
You would almost expect this to be a piece for a movie, it doesn't have the feeling of a game composition at all.
Composer Russell Shaw describes the overall atmosphere and game play of Fable II. "The Sound, Music and Dialogue are intended to compliment the rich graphics which give the game it's unique feel." "Every region has it's own musical style and atmosphere" "The Fable II Soundtrack is no less than a sonic feast for the ears!!" Music composed by Russell Shaw Fable I theme music composed by Danny Elfman
Album Description2008 CD EP release from Dawn McCarthy and company, the first in an ongoing series of projects based on a theme largely unexplored in recent times: the age-old practice of tending a home and it's immediate impact upon our day to day lives. The music is largely shaped by the spirit, tools and movements of physical kitchen work and by the dimensions of housekeeping that are positive,pivotal and even revolutionary. Four tracks. Drag City.
REVIEW
Warm and Beautiful Only 4 songs which sucks ,but still its another beautiful piece of work by Faun Fables.
Amazon.comR.E.M.'s third full-length recording, Fables of the Reconstruction delivers the purest distillation of the band's early sound. With the exception of the horn-laden, radio-friendly "Can't Get There from Here," the songs form a connected soundscape. Nearly transparent production highlights the glittering guitar arpeggios, active bass, and the disciplined, patterned drum lines, with organ and spare string arrangements adding texture to several pieces. And then there are the vocals: dense harmonies of voices calling out to each other,a rich humming and howling around Michael Stipe's central mumble. A careful listener can discern most of the lyrics, though what exactly they signify remains unclear. The album is best contemplated in its entirety, and the songs reward careful, repeated listening. This is a seminal alternative album, its material evocative, its ultimate meanings elusive. If your CD collection has room for only a few R.E.M. albums, Fables should be one of them. --Albert Massa
REVIEW
Very Underrated This is that rarest of things: an underrated R.E.M. album. The sound is like nothing R.E.M. did before or since. "Maps and Legends" and "Green Grow The Rushes" are personal favorites, but almost everything here is solid. Much better than "Murmur" or "Reckoning," but seldom mentioned in the same sentence-until now!
5 stars are not enough! Five stars simply is not enough for this wonderful record. I had the great pleasure of seeing Faun Fables open for Rasputina here in Florida year before last when they performed at least two of the songs from this album. Their version of "The House Carpenter" puts a new spin on one of my favorite traditional folk songs."Taki Pejzaz" is another great song from Zygmunt Konieczny who's "Carousel With Madonnas" was on "Family Album".
"The Corwith Brothers" is great piece in the classic musical theatre vein.It would be tough to find a weak song on record.If you get the chance to see Faun Fables perform the "The Transit Rider" live,run (don't walk) to the box office for tickets.Faun Fables are spectacular live and this record is really something special.
Album DescriptionDepending on who's counting, there are anywhere from 100 to n-frigging-thousand subgenres of rock music a band can slide into for easy categorization. And depending on where you drop the laser on Fair to Midland's debut album, Fables From a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times is True, at least half of those subgenres are being reinvented at once. But to call this Dallas quintet merely eclectic is to sell them way short. No, Fair to Midland are masters of fusing those subgenres into something that's cohesive,intensely focused, and in a bold new category all its own.
Recorded with art-rock super-producer David Bottrill (Tool, Muse, Peter Gabriel), Fables From a Mayfly finds Fair to Midland stretching out even further into the aggression and atmospherics at their core while taking their inherent gift for melody to new levels. Tracks such as "Kyla Cries Cologne," "April Fools and Eggmen," and the gripping first single, "Dance of the Manatee", showcase Fair to Midland's flair for combining progged-out virtuosity with lead-heavy riffs, dynamic tidal waves, and frontman Darroh Sudderth's operatic vocals. Even when the volume lets up--as in the softer, spacier folds of "The Wife, The Kids, and the White Picket Fence" and "Say When"--Fair to Midland create sonic tidal waves big enough to level arenas.
With Fables From a Mayfly, Fair to Midland have truly delivered, capturing the kinetic energy of their live show while harnessing the array of influences that make them impossible to pigeonhole. "For the most part, our musical tastes are completely different," says Sudderth, who rounds out the band with guitarist Cliff Campbell, drummer BrettStowers, bassist Jon Dicken, and keyboardist/electronics manipulator Matt Langley. "We've just gotten better at listening to each other over the years. All of our songs are just us trying to find a happy medium between what everyone in the band listens to--and I think that actually being able to do that is what makes us so different from a lot of other `rock' bands today."
REVIEW
Most Awesome Band EVER!!! This album is so good that almost all of the other cd's I own are now abandoned to the corner of my closet to collect dust, lol. One of very few cds I have ever owned that I am able to listen to beginning to end without feeling the need to skip over any songs. There really are no words I can find to adequately describe how amazing this band is.
Album DescriptionMid-priced reissue of the foreign edition of their 1985 top 30 album with five bonus tracks added, their cover of Pylon's 'Crazy', 'Burning Hell', 'Bandwagon', 'Driver 8' (Live) and 'Maps And Legends' (Live). 16 tracks total, also featuring the college radio staples 'Can't Get There From Here', 'Driver 8', 'Feeling Gravity's Pull' & 'Maps And Legends'. 1992 release.
REVIEW
It's exquisite! I'm a fairly new fan of R.E.M. and this albumn is a new discovery for me. It really is exquisite. They have a genius for giving one a glimpse of the weave of the carpet of Creation and that is very apparent in this albumn. It has more than the usual exquisite patterning of harmony and discord, high and low, voices andmusic and lots of other things I can barely percieve. The harmonies do wonderful and shocking things. It's an education! All this and a lively dance beat too! That said - it's not for the faint hearted.
Dawn the Faun will make you cry (if you're a baby) Hmmm...I am notoriously bad (in my own mind, at least) at trying to describe music - but luckily (for you) their are some itty samples right here - so that you can hear sounds with your ears, instead of with your eyes. I am a big fan of Idiot Flesh and SleepytimeGorilla Museum - and they share some members (well, one member) with Faun Fables - though I must say that FF is very different from either of those bands (fans of one may not be fans of the other). Anywho - you should go see them - even if you have to drive for three hours in the snow after 24 hours of wakefulness - (it was worth it for me, anyhow) Sleepytime and Faun Fables are both AMAZING live shows - and I suppose I should stop rambling on about going to concerts when you want to buy a cd - but I highly recommend that you do get the CD - it is top notch all the way through - I like it even more than their earlier album - which is also excellent - you can hear some decent length samples from at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~dawnthefaun/sounds.html I like you, and you should like you too. Ben
Album DescriptionJean Luc Ponty has been the premier Jazz/Fusion violinist of the past 3 decades. He is one of the few Jazz musicians to have numerous albums make the Billboard charts, 12 of them to be exact. Fables features Scott Henderson.
REVIEW
More great stuff This album completed a trilogy for me. Get this, Civilized Evil, and Open Mind and you have some classic Ponty. Not that these were the only good things he's done - but they really do give you a good spread of work.
Nothing bad to say about this album. It's Ponty straight from his Civilized Evil period.
