Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway
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Free Music Notes for Ghosts of the Great Highway
Free Music Review: Saw a typhoon coming in close
Hit: 5 Stars
Um. Wow. This album is flat out amazing. I am going to see a (postponed) show at a tiny beachside cafe in Florida with Mark K. and am now absolutely drooling over the prospect of hearing his stripped down acoustical genius in such an intimate venue. There are so many incredible songs on this album, even a up-tempo rocker or two. There are others that have a south of the border flair that puts me nice swollen headed-out at Pancho Villa's ranch-sipping tequila and looking over my plundered-loot state of mind. and collections of haunting, ballads lamenting over the missed opportunities and memories of drifters and criminals that sound perfect teamed with a Decemberist release in a playlist. And then there is the crown jewel... "Carry Me Ohio" ... whose orchestration and sound drive me to the brink of emotional break every listen. I thought I had heard every great album of last year... I was wrong. Listen for yourselfFree Music Review: Mark Kozelek is back!
Hit: 5 Stars
Fans of Mark Kozelek will be thrilled by his new project, Sun Kil Moon (also featuring Red House Painters drummer Anthony Koutsos.) Ghosts of the Great Highway is gorgeously melodic from start to finish. There's no trace of self-indulgence here; "Duk Koo Kim" (named for, and partly about, a boxer who was killed in the ring) is fourteen and a half minutes long and every second counts. Great lyrics, especially on "Salvador Sanchez"/"Pancho Villa". Highly recommended!Free Music Review: 1 star is too much
Hit: 1 Stars
the lead singers voice is too whinny and sad to listen to. The band is boring in their playing technique. The music is not good at all.Free Music Review: Another Pretentious Review
Hit: 5 Stars
Okay, seriously now. I won't add any more beautifully (!) descriptive adjectives to the melange of reviews thus far (yes, it's called sarcasm, and I am dangerously comfortable with it). Here is the story of how I ended up buying Ghosts of the Great Highway today. I first heard of Mark Kozelek when flipping through the Vanilla Sky soundtrack (if you're wondering: eh, I'm not a big R.E.M. fan) and loved the song on there--don't remember which one it was. Anyway. Burnt it onto a mix cd, listened to it for months. Forgot about it for a while. Then, last week, I was at a music store looking for a certain Creedence Clearwater Revival cd, and found "Ghosts" in the wrong spot. I thought it was a fantastically interesting cover, name (no I did not think it was Korean), and title. I mentally made a note to find out who the heck this band was.
Yes, I forgot about it again. Dammit, I know. Then this morning I found a bit review of Sun Kil Moon in a magazine and I found out that it was not a mystery band after all, but the new project of a songwriter I had fallen peacefully in love with. Oh, my God. I bought it right away. Fifteen bucks be damned. I waited until I got off work. I had a long drive ahead of me, in rush hour, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The sunlight was perfect.
I have been looking (without really looking) for music that is real and quiet and positive and realistic at the same time. I even started to get off my ambient track and into old stuff like Woodie Guthrie and Artie Shaw and Marian Anderson as well as roots-type artists, just old musical people who are completely overlooked today (but it's better that they are not advertised everywhere, either, I mean, look what happened to poor Norah Jones). Discovering Mark Kozelek and the Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, for me, was like finally waking up and noticing something that had always been there and that I had overlooked for flashier things. Kind of like being in love with that hot surfer guy in high school and not realizing that my best buddy was in love with me. That kind of thing.
Here's to noticing the subtle, small beauties of life. Yay!
The tracks I loved: "Glenn Tipton", "Last Tide", "Floating", and "Si Paloma" . . . okay well I loved the other songs too, I love the whole damn album except for "Lily and Parrots". Sorry, it's just kind of noisy. Anyway. Enough of this.
Free Music Review: All hope for music is not lost...
Hit: 5 Stars
Truly brilliant piece of work from M. Kozelek. From the get-go, the beautifully crafted melodies hit you. And of course, his seemingly effortless lyrics can make the most mundane of topics appear uplifting and redeeming. As a member of "gen X", I must say Mark always knows how to drop little tidbits from our youth into his lyrics. Anyone catch the reference to Glenn Tipton and KK Downing, Judas Priest's dueling guitarists, in the opening track?!His lilting voice during the chorus of "Gentle Moon" makes that little chill go down your spine. And "Duk Koo Kim" is a wonderful meandering epic referring to the Korean boxer (the one whose death made Howard Cosell quit covering boxing), and lost love/life. And yes, I am a sucker for when Mark plugs in the guitars and cranks it up a bit, as he does on "Lily and Parrots".
Along with Manitoba's 'Up In Flames', Pernice Brothers' 'Yours, Mine and Ours' and Sufjan Stevens' 'Greetings From Michigan', this is a MUST-have CD for 2003.
Download all the Britney Spears you want, but support these artists!!