Legends & Deeds - Album I: The Glass Room

With a cover ripped from the Alan Parsons Project and enough pop sass to make Weezer envious, this is fine brainless entertainment.

Rivers Cuomo would envy The Glass Room; it's pure retro-pop with a heavier edge, spiraling harmonies and production sensibilities that seem more in line with Starship's We Built This City On Rock And Roll. Some of the harmonies wouldn't, admittedly, be out of place on a Weezer album, though they're sufficiently dissimilar to warrant further attention; the directions these tunes take aren't as predictable as an initial flick through the tracks would suggest.

I don't know how they manage it, but Legends & Deeds seem to have a knack for making their songs sound like they're theme tunes from sitcoms that invariably star Alan Thicke or Scott Baio. Tonga Where Time Begins is a great example, laden with a guitar chorus that cries out for TV broadcast. The tune thumps along with suitably island-influenced beats and just a hint of early REM. Elsewhere, Lunchtime In The '80s is a pick-slide-filled jaunty number that dips into Queen territory in terms of soupily delicious tempo changes, while Young Ones is a retro call-to-arms that stands up against anything Twisted Sister could put out and features an exhortation to wear black. This, my friends, is rock done right, especially when coupled with One Time Looker Easy, which is (for my money) one of the most successful cigarette-lighter-in-the-air moments ever captured on an album. It ends in a crescendo of smooth fuzz that leads straight into Is My Source, two and a half minutes of fantastically cheesy soloing that should, if there's any justice in the world, be followed by the words "Goodnight, Cleveland!"

It's not all jokiness, though; Crow Canyon, while a little labored, is a pleasingly airy tune with a country feel. A Summer's Goodnight is just begging to be used in a teen flick, preferably in a scene involving confetti blowing in the wind. It's an endearing sound that fills the album; though I'm sure repeated exposure to these tunes might force you to commit terrible acts of violence, it's a great way to lift your spirits.

The round-up? Legends & Deeds sound like geeks. They sound like they've got big hair and Converse boots on. And their album artwork looks like an Alan Parsons Project ripoff. If there's anything more brainlessly enjoyable around, I certainly can't think of it.

This article originally appeared on splendidezine.com.

Robert Normandeau - Clair de terre

When you take the moon in your musical sights, it's often difficult to convince your listeners that you've been there.

Robert Normandeau is primarily an acousmatic composer, and his latest disc is broken into three chunks: two smaller pieces culled from Normandeau's work in the theatre, and a larger piece from whence the album's title comes. Malina is an eerily effective piece for effected and looped shakuhachi, full of menacing sibilants and pressurised blasts. It's probably also the album's most effective composition, being one of the few to encourage a visceral reaction. Erinyes, on the other hand, is like a hyperactive version of Ligeti's Aventures, and part of the composer's Onomatopoeia cycle -- pieces of dialog from Sophocles' Electra are sampled and rejigged so that only the sounds of letters, not complete words, are heard. It's startling, and often sounds like cries for help in a swarm of bees - but is undermined by its 20-minute length.

The larger, titular piece is much loftier in intent, aiming to be a meditation on elements of cinematography, by way of a photograph of the Earth from the Moon. It's hit-and-miss, but in places (Ternary Colors) it's also where everything seems to click for Normandeau, and the idea of "cinema for the ear" really does start to work.

Phillipe Henry's work influences this disc in many ways -- in fact, the track Micro-Montage is, as the name suggests, a brief selection of construction sounds, jets, thumpings and other eyebrow-raising found-sounds. However, it's not used in the same way one finds samples in Matmos' or Einstürzende Neubauten's recordings: this is the sound of a train going by, a brief reminder of Earth and its kerfuffle, designed to lend more weight to the disconnection one would feel in space. This unexpected approach is one of the reasons that, despite its flaws, Clair de terre is a disc worth investigating.

As a work that says something about cinematography, I don't think this disc cuts the mustard. As a collection of sonically-interesting pieces, it's great. Normandeau's tendency to either cut fantastic tracks too short, or to allow his ideas to dribble on a little too long notwithstanding, it's a swag of wonderful electro-acoustic pieces.

This article originally appeared on splendidezine.com.