{"id":1750,"date":"2010-10-04T00:36:55","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T04:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/?p=1750"},"modified":"2010-10-04T22:11:45","modified_gmt":"2010-10-05T02:11:45","slug":"liz-allbee-theseus-vs-cd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/?p=1750","title":{"rendered":"Liz Allbee – Theseus Vs. CD"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Liz Allbee<\/a> – Theseus Vs. CD<\/p>\n

Resipiscent<\/a><\/p>\n

Be prepared for a strange and varied release when you pop in Liz Allbee’s Theseus Vs.! Packaged in a slick cardboard box with artwork printed right on the front – how’d they do that? The image of the double-headed lamb working quite well to represent the sonic mutations that are housed within. Theseus Vs. is innocent and playful, but also inexplicably weird, and I sense some tongue-in-cheek humor within these odd passages as well.<\/p>\n

The sounds represented here range from experimental, electroacoustic, dark ambient textures merge with dark jazz interludes and even – as in Leisure Sport Overlords<\/i> – meandering into lounge territory. The album took me some time to warm up to but by the time The Undersides<\/i> rolled around – a track that combines strange synthesized pulses with almost gamelan style percussion and well sung female jazz vocals – I have to admit I was intrigued, and waiting to see what would happen next.<\/p>\n

The varied atmospheres continue to expand and befuddle. With Hide It In The Lie<\/i> taking a more ambient\/noise approach and leading into Your Medicine<\/i> which again takes a more musical approach using what reminds me of xylophone sounds, and vocals. History of the Automotive<\/i> is a slowly building track featured garbled spoken word samples covering a variety of obscenities. Finally Allbee brings it home with A Charmed Life<\/i> which is probably the most musical track on the disc using chanting, repetitive vocals, drums, and an organ line and later lines of horns kind of making me think of a more technological A Hawk and A Hacksaw.<\/p>\n

I can’t say I really like this record much. It’s so varied and all over the place I find it kind of difficult to form an opinion of it. The production is crisp, clear and the tracks are obviously well thought out and there is a large amount of material here for it’s running time of a little over 30 minutes. The concept, along with the sound tends to be very scatterbrained making it feel like Theseus Vs. is more of just a collection of songs rather than a larger work. That said, there are a few good moments here and it is definitely creative and unique. I’m going to have to throw this one to the wolves and encourage you to form your own opinions – I don’t know what to say!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Composition:<\/td>\n\"★\"\"★\"\"★\"\"☆\"\"☆\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sounds:<\/td>\n\"★\"\"★\"\"★\"\"☆\"\"☆\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Production Quality:<\/td>\n\"★\"\"★\"\"★\"\"☆\"\"☆\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Concept:<\/td>\n\"★\"\"★\"\"½\"\"☆\"\"☆\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Packaging:<\/td>\n\"★\"\"★\"\"★\"\"½\"\"☆\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Overall Rating:<\/td>\n\"★\"\"★\"\"★\"\"☆\"\"☆\" <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liz Allbee – Theseus Vs. CD
\nResipiscent
\nBe prepared for a strange and varied release when you pop in Liz Allbee’s Theseus Vs.! Packaged in a slick cardboard box with artwork printed right on the front – how’d they do that? The image of the double-headed lamb working quite well to represent the sonic mutations that are housed within. Theseus Vs. is innocent and playful, but also inexplicably weird, and I sense some tongue-in-cheek humor within these odd passages as well.
\nThe sounds represented here range from experimental, electroacoustic, dark ambient textures merge …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-webzine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1760,"href":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions\/1760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/existest.org\/ee_v3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}