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The Skinny on Horsedrawn Wishes
Total genius
smoke damage
Sonic Masterpeice! ! ! !
Crash Bang Pow

Horsedrawn Wishes
Rollerskate Skinny
Manufacturer: Warner Bros / Wea
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Dream Pop | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Shoulder Voices
Dead City Sunbeams
Chokin' on the Jokes
Bait & Switch
Skyward in Triumph

ASIN: B000002MZJ
Release Date: 1996-02-27

Tracks:

Swingboat Yawning
Cradle Burns
One Thousand Couples
Swab The Temples
Speed To My Side
All Morning Break
Man Under Glass
Shimmer Son Like A Star
Angela Starling
Ribbon Fat
Thirsty European
Bell Jars Away

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One for that rainy-day, difficult-but-rewarding pile. This Dublin trio whips up dense stormclouds of guitar and electronic "orchestration" which singer Ken Griffin seeds with evocative streams of lyric fragments. --Jeff Bateman

Customer Reviews:

The Skinny on Horsedrawn Wishes.......2007-07-01

Horsedrawn Wishes...What can I say, this is a mini-masterpiece of neo-psychadelia, shoegazer and dream pop.
Too bad not a whole lot of people has heard of this, at least nobody I know has. I need to get the word out and make a few burns.
After listening to it a few times it really is a shiny gem!
I just recently discovered this band, that is Rollerskate Skinny, and I got to tell you it is one of the best albums I have heard all year.
Sadly though, Rollerskate Skinny only released two albums.
'Shoulder Voices' came out in 1994 and 2 years later (96) 'Horsedrawn Wishes' was released. I still need to purchase the former.
Filled with complex lyrics, and layered shoegazin' glory- the whole album really sets it's listener up on a Musical journey!
On the song "All Morning Break" - Ken Griffin sings in a more lazy-rainy day type of voice, more relaxed and distant. Then, the next track is back to a more upbeat heavy blast of pop bliss on "Man Under Glass" singing: "Your Mind is Racing like Cars..."

Although you may have never heard of this Irish band, 'Horsedrawn Wishes' was a resounding success.
Vivid and imaginative. Get ready to dream away the day. Take a ride with Rollerskate Skinny. So far, I have taken many and it's a glorious trip everytime. 4 1/2 stars.

Total genius.......2006-04-04

That's how i'd describe this album, plain and simple. How this album is always overlooked (it was only voted 14th in the greatest Irish albums of all time in 2005) simply astounds me. Huge walls of layered guitar, fantastic drumming, effects, samples...brilliant. If every band in the world sounded like Rollerskate Skinny, the world would be a better place.

Also buy Dead City Sunbeams by Kid Silver (Ken Griffen) and Kindness by The Radio (Stevie M).

I think Ken's in a band now in New York called "Favourite Sons". And i'd say they're brilliant too.

smoke damage.......2005-05-24

Horsedrawn Wishes is one of my favorite albums of all time. That said, when I first listened to it, I hated it. I kind of heard it as a mix of other pop and progressive excesses that I distrusted.

Gradually I understood Horsedrawn Wishes as a collection of impressions. This music is the closest you will come to a voice inside your head, recycling all kinds of found motifs, riffs, harmonies, sounds and swirling chaos into something that's referential without being clever, except in the way that the subconscious is clever - punning stupidly but with hidden import and intimacy. There is so much tension and so little resolution on this record. Everything just keeps winding up. When the resolution comes, it crashes down on you like crying your eyes out.

The only problem with this record is that the production is a little bit muddy. In a perfect world, this record would get remastered and rereleased. In this world, you can still find it in cutouts for a few dollars. That's a pretty good situation for the poor music fan, not so good for Ken Griffen, whose marvelous Kid Silver suffered a similar fate.

Sonic Masterpeice! ! ! ! .......2005-03-17

One of the most overlooked albums of the 90s ,I remember wanting to buy it the date of release and found it in the bargain bin a week later (how Fu*ked is that ?) Its a classic that will one day be fully realised ,this is the next SGT Peppers ! , Rollerskate Skinny were too ahead of their time . Do your ears a favor and listen to this sonic masterpiece at full volume .

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(the above reviews are all incorrect )
Jimi Shields left in 1993 [he is now in Lotus Crown] and nowhere on this album [thank god]
Ken Griffin is [Kid Silver]
Steve .M & Ger Griffin (no relation to Ken) are in [Walker]
Steve M. is now in [The Radio]

Crash Bang Pow.......2004-01-06

'Horsedrawn Wishes' is a cocophonous mish-mash of sounds, and just like his brother in My Bloody Valentine, Jimi Shields is pushing the limits of rock experimentalism. On the surface is an unconventionally produced 'shoegaze meets Krautrock' combination. Powerful, tense and surreal. The albums strength is in combining opposites: crashing waves of guitars and clanking industrial noises to dreamy vocals, trilling synths, and soothing instrumentals. Overall the sound is as tight as a wound-up ball of musical rubberbands, yet underneath it all, lies some brilliant arranging/mixing. Bittersweet elements that somehow found it's way to harmoniously co-exist with each other. A carnival cavalcade of sounds, and just like any carnival, it's about admiring the lights in the haze, discovering the beauty amidst the chaos.

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