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December 06, 2004
winston giles orchestra - soundtracks for sunrise
How appropriate that I should meet Winston from the Winston Giles Orchestra sitting in the sunshine drinking wine. So much sunshine and so much wine... I'm surprised that I was even able to speak in any form of coherence at all - maybe Winston was just giving me a CD to fend me off. I think this is well within the acceptable list of things that I can be fended off with. That and large wads of rolled up fifty dollar notes, preferably of a size large enough to choke a cow with.
At any rate, Winston very kindly supplied onetonne with a copy his new album Soundtracks for Sunrise. I had a listen to the promo EP and managed to cobble together a few sentences here.
Read this review and you could WIN a copy of Soundtracks for Sunrise!
So in my initial piece about the promo EP I raised the point that I was a bit concerned about the music’s similarity to that of Lemon Jelly's work - which isn't really a complaint so much as an observation. I'm happy to say that the entire album lays that concern to rest. It's good stuff and it wanders musically but it's a nice collection of psychedelic groove tunes. The looping acoustic guitar on a lot of the tracks adds a nice texture and organic-ness to a quite electronic sounding record.
A lot of the album has some really nice stereo effects - it's really hard to do that rotating cabinet stereo sound nicely, but I think that a little song is really nice example of this. It's a really dense lush sound with lots of other sounds hidden inside the mix. I love that there’s so a wide variety of instrumentation on this album, there’s horns and guitar sitting quite happily next to really densely filtered electronic tomfoolery. It's an overwhelmingly sunny record, and if you don't like the more upbeat and groove orientated stuff you might not like it so much, but if you do, you'll probably think all your Christmases have come at once.
There's a lot to like about Soundtracks for Sunrise, and Golden was a real highlight for me - it features crazy reverse samples and really deep sounding reverb. I kept on wanting the understated arpeggiated synth guitar to really break through into the main mix - and as soon as it did it turns into something else. I really want to see the track Revenge with a film clip with 1970's style James Bond style action - It's that kind of track. I mean that in a nice way. It's hard to write about this kind of album as it wanders all over the musical spectrum. It ends on such an upbeat ecstatic note you end up wanting to play it all over again.
You can preview/listen to the tracks on the website, but it's the sort of music which really benefits from decent quality speakers - the preview tracks don't do it much justice. It's a small wonder Soundtracks for Sunrise is getting some airplay - it's an excellent album and well worth tracking down. I like it a lot and I think you will too.
Send onetonnemusic an email with the subject "Winston Giles comp" in the heading and we'll randomly pick out a winner in the next week or so!
Winston Giles Orchestra -Soundtracks for Sunrise
File Under: Surreal positive beats.
Website:Winstongilesorchestra.com
Track Listing
1. We Wait for Sunrise
2. Welcome to the Hotel
3. A Little Song
4. Revenge
5. Mercy for the Wicked
6. Morning Shine
7. All Come Together
8. Golden
9. The Banished Matadors
10. The Hostess
Posted by funnelbc at December 6, 2004 09:47 AM
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