Folktronic

Amazon.com
Whatever goes on in music, whichever genres rise and fall, you can always rely on Momus to be there in the background, cackling madly and intriguing/annoying the world with his latest collision of sounds. Having played the intense folk-merchant and the shabby traditional troubadour, this laconic and challenging New York-based Scot (real name Nicholas Currie) has turned to electronica for Folktronic. But, being Momus and fancying himself as a "minor god of mockery," he chooses to mix this shiny new form with the centuries-old tunes and rhythms of America, Ireland, and his native Scotland, as well as the dockside shanties and vaudevillian choruses of his early career. The result is a strange collage that's sometimes silly, often hilarious, and usually interesting. The opening "Appalachia" sees him dreaming of his "electronic mountain girl" over pattering percussion, sampled banjo, and tacky, Stylophone-style organ, while "Mountain Music" is a pointed and lyrical essay on the origins of U.S. folk set to a weirdly subdued hoedown. Throughout, Currie proves himself (once again) to be a witty social commentator and an able comedian, his insights allowing us to forget the music's occasional descent into cheesy Frank Sidebottom territory. --Dominic Wills

Product Description
2001 album for the prolific indie singer/songwriter, the follow-up to his critically acclaimed 1999 album, 'Stars Forever'. Tri-fold digipak. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Folktronic,Momus,Le Grand Magistery,Alternative Dance,Alternative Pop/Rock,Chamber Pop,Indie Pop,Indie Rock,Pop,Producer,Rock,Rock/Pop,Shibuya-Kei,Singer/Songwriter,Songwriter,Synth Pop

Average customer rating:

Mutinysunshine Talkdemonic Manufacturer: Lucky Madison ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music General | Folk | Styles | Music General | Rock | Styles | Music Similar Items: Beat Romantic You, You're a History in the Rust Days to Come ASIN: B000B798BY Release Date: 2006-01-10

Tracks:

1. I Am The Son And The Heiress
2. Dec27
3. Final Russian
4. In The Machinery Of The Night
5. Indian Angel
6. Blood Dripped From Yr Eyes
7. Mutiny Sunshine
8. Versus The Above
9. Starry Dynamo
10. Andean Twilight
11. The Last Untouched
12. Eardrum Symphony
13. When I Spent October With Erik
14. The Snow Melted, It Was Goodnight

Album Description

"Talkdemonic have the most scrumptious sound in music today. With Kevin O'Connor's hip-hop aesthetic and Lisa Molinaro's classic viola, the two create a sound that is dynamic and textured, as if you could run your hands along the melodies and feel the undulating forms beneath. They are equal parts gypsy and technology, playing to audiences who watch with rapt attention, swaying close under O'Connor's powerful rhythm and Molinaro's intoxicating strings." - DAILY VANGUARD

"Mutiny Sunshine ebbs and flows with the murmur of mellow acoustics, East Asian drones and digital pop. There are no vocals in this eclectic mix and, really, no need for them. The entirety of Talkdemonic is rich and textured enough to stand alone, and when Molinaro's viola is featured, she conveys a tension and emotion few crooners could match. This is a delightful new stew." - MISSOULA INDEPENDENT

"Though Talkdemonic may best be known for the drumming and viola performed live, the programming, beats, and instrumentation bring together a complete sound on Mutiny Sunshine, providing a consistency lacking on many first releases. With a first-rate debut and an impressive live show, O'Connor has situated himself to be positioned in a flighty echelon of up-and-coming music makers. 4.5/5" - TINY MIX TAPES

Talkdemonic melds the primal, the classical and the modern to create songs that are as sweeping in scope as they are shattering in intensity. The band calls its music "folktronic hop," and has created a fan base on a national level sans the help of any sort of distribution - a fan base that grows with each performance as spectators witness Talkdemonic's ability to capture the most human emotions with only drums, viola and an iBook. Mutiny Sunshine is a wonder of Kevin O'Connor's meticulous mind, featuring a sweeping orchestra of instruments - humming synth lines, plaintive acoustic guitar, dead-steady programmed beats, mournful concertina and soaring viola all tethered by O'Connor's drumming and the enchanting string orchestrations of Lisa Molianaro.

Average customer rating: good If You Get the Joke... Crazysexyannoying Momus in the Mountains

Folktronic Momus Manufacturer: Le Grand Magistery ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music Singer-Songwriters | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music Indie Rock | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music General | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music Chamber Pop | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music Alternative Dance | Alternative Styles | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music General | Pop | Styles | Music Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music General | Rock | Styles | Music Dance Pop | Compilations | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music Singer Songwriters | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music Similar Items: Little Red Songbook Stars Forever Otto Spooky Circus Maximus 20 Vodka Jellies ASIN: B000059MO6 Release Date: 2001-02-27

Tracks:

1. Appalachia
2. Smooth Folk Singer
3. Mountain Music
4. Simple Men
5. Finnegan The Folk Hero
6. Protestant Art
7. U.S. Knitting
8. Jarre In Hicksville
9. Tape Recorder Man
10. Little Apples
11. Robocowboys
12. Psychopathia Sexualis
13. Folk Me Amadeus
14. Handheld
15. The Penis Song
16. Heliogabalus
17. Going For A Walk With A Line
18. The Lady Of Shalott
19. Mistaken Memories Of Medieval Manhattan
20. Pygmalism

Amazon.com

Whatever goes on in music, whichever genres rise and fall, you can always rely on Momus to be there in the background, cackling madly and intriguing/annoying the world with his latest collision of sounds. Having played the intense folk-merchant and the shabby traditional troubadour, this laconic and challenging New York-based Scot (real name Nicholas Currie) has turned to electronica for Folktronic. But, being Momus and fancying himself as a "minor god of mockery," he chooses to mix this shiny new form with the centuries-old tunes and rhythms of America, Ireland, and his native Scotland, as well as the dockside shanties and vaudevillian choruses of his early career. The result is a strange collage that's sometimes silly, often hilarious, and usually interesting. The opening "Appalachia" sees him dreaming of his "electronic mountain girl" over pattering percussion, sampled banjo, and tacky, Stylophone-style organ, while "Mountain Music" is a pointed and lyrical essay on the origins of U.S. folk set to a weirdly subdued hoedown. Throughout, Currie proves himself (once again) to be a witty social commentator and an able comedian, his insights allowing us to forget the music's occasional descent into cheesy Frank Sidebottom territory. --Dominic Wills

Album Description

2001 album for the prolific indie singer/songwriter, the follow-up to his critically acclaimed 1999 album, 'Stars Forever'. Tri-fold digipak.

Customer Reviews:

good.......2002-08-01

Probably the most idiosynchratic cd in my collection, momus has once again carved out a sound so unique that it deserves its own genre. I still fidgit in delight every time I hear that digital banjo on "Mountain Music." Maybe it's just because deep down I've always wanted to hear a blend of science fiction and folk music, but I think this is a pretty damn good cd. Though it's more of a "musical essay" and some may find it guilty of being "too conceptual", I think this cd more than holds up musically, as well. He's not just commenting on the regurgitation of American culture through increasingly fragmentary postmodern mediums, but he's making it sound catchy and giving it witty momus lyrics. If you're new to momus, however, this might not be a great starting place. You might want to check out some of his earlier albums before you delve into his cerebral genre-mixing experiments. I've also heard a few people enounce the album as "too silly" or as being full of "joke songs", but I think, similar to stephen merrit, Momus's primary goal is genuinely evocative, albeit sometimes intitially ridiculous sounding music, even if it comes across as smarmy, ironic decadance at first listen. One should also be warned that the album leans away from the fake-folk motif halfway through the cd as we get a silly song about momus's [privates](that I thought was far too silly at first, but like all of momus's body parts, grew on me)and a few sprawling epics that touch on the subject of Americana through heavily 80's lenses("Robocowboys" reminds me too much of a cartoon show called "galaxy rangers" i watched as a kid)and songs like "heliogobalus" and "pigmalism" that are just sort of bizarre and indulgent. Recap: digital banjos are catchy, momus is sexy, the future is synthetic,and viva la folk.

If You Get the Joke..........2001-07-28

...then this is a brilliant CD. Whether he's name-checking Beck, Johnny Cash and Oprah or crooning about "Little Apples," he managed to find the weird middle ground between techno and folk -- managing to destroy both in the process.

Crazysexyannoying.......2001-04-22

Momus is back! with songs about monks, murder, his penis, and applacian mountain girls! If you're already a Momus fan, there's a lot here to like, including a clever and almost-moving love song between a palm pilot and his human, and a brilliant song about his penis that is a funny and memorable as "Coming in a Girl's Mouth" (from Little Red Songbook) should have been and just wasn't.

If you're not a Momus fan, be prepared for a funny, fascinating, erudite, and annoying CD. Folk music is the predominant theme, but the last few tracks sound like Nick Cave writing a Comp Lit final while on poppers - and therefore would have fit perfectly on Little Red Songbook.

If you want to ease into Momus, I'd start with Hyacinths and Thistles - a 6ths album where he gets the best track. And then move on to either this or Little Red Songbook.

Momus in the Mountains.......2001-02-23

It's the year 2000 (still remember back then?), OS X is just about to go beta, and the flower power iMac is just a glint in Steve Job's eye. Our intrepid Celtic explorer encounters a crooked-toothed hick kid in the foothills of Appalachia and challenges him at gold Pokemon. Gameboys linked, they duel amiably by the light of a laser show..

Folktronic is finally playing as mp3 files on my Fuji 40i, after months of teaser Flash movies on momus's website, and it's well-worth the wait. The 'fake folk' genre that Nick's carved out is here in abundance, but it's not the whole story: we also get the fake prog-rock of 'Mistaken Memories', the fake Coward stylings of 'The ... Song', and the fake Brechtian epic 'Pygmalism'. Along the way, Momus also finds time for 80's pop and the exquisite baroque Romance of 'Handheld'. Kevin Warwick couldn't even begin to imagine such a delicate love between flesh and silicon.

I'll leave it to you to discover the other delights herein, particularly 'Appalachia' (in which Momus puts the 'corn' into Cornelius) the astounding 'Finnegan the Folk Hero', which nattily updates Dylan's 'Quinn The Eskimo' archetype with a tale of an exploited web designer. Where next for Nick? Negro Spirituals about the woes of legacy systems programmers? You need this CD!

Average customer rating: good If You Get the Joke... Crazysexyannoying Momus in the Mountains

Folktronic Momus Manufacturer: Analog UK ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music Singer-Songwriters | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music Indie Rock | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music General | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music Chamber Pop | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music Alternative Dance | Alternative Styles | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music General | Pop | Styles | Music Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music General | Rock | Styles | Music Dance Pop | Compilations | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music General | Dance Pop | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music Singer Songwriters | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music Rock | Imports | Stores | Music Similar Items: Little Red Songbook Stars Forever Otto Spooky Circus Maximus 20 Vodka Jellies ASIN: B000056F5U Release Date: 2000-01-26

Tracks:

1. Appalachia
2. Smooth Folk Singer
3. Mountain Music
4. Simple Men
5. Finnegan the Folk Hero
6. Protestant Art
7. U.S. Knitting
8. Jarre in Hicksville
9. Tape Recorder Man
10. Little Apples
11. Robocowboys
12. Psychopathia Sexualis
13. Folk Me Amadeus
14. Handheld
15. Penis Song
16. Heliogabalus
17. Going for a Walk With a Line
18. Lady of Shalott
19. Mistaken Memories of Medieval Manhattan
20. Pygmalism

Amazon.com

Whatever goes on in music, whichever genres rise and fall, you can always rely on Momus to be there in the background, cackling madly and intriguing/annoying the world with his latest collision of sounds. Having played the intense folk-merchant and the shabby traditional troubadour, this laconic and challenging New York-based Scot (real name Nicholas Currie) has turned to electronica for Folktronic. But, being Momus and fancying himself as a "minor god of mockery," he chooses to mix this shiny new form with the centuries-old tunes and rhythms of America, Ireland, and his native Scotland, as well as the dockside shanties and vaudevillian choruses of his early career. The result is a strange collage that's sometimes silly, often hilarious, and usually interesting. The opening "Appalachia" sees him dreaming of his "electronic mountain girl" over pattering percussion, sampled banjo, and tacky, Stylophone-style organ, while "Mountain Music" is a pointed and lyrical essay on the origins of U.S. folk set to a weirdly subdued hoedown. Throughout, Currie proves himself (once again) to be a witty social commentator and an able comedian, his insights allowing us to forget the music's occasional descent into cheesy Frank Sidebottom territory. --Dominic Wills

Album Description

2001 album for the prolific indie singer/songwriter, the follow-up to his critically acclaimed 1999 album, 'Stars Forever'. Tri-fold digipak.

Customer Reviews:

good.......2002-08-01

Probably the most idiosynchratic cd in my collection, momus has once again carved out a sound so unique that it deserves its own genre. I still fidgit in delight every time I hear that digital banjo on "Mountain Music." Maybe it's just because deep down I've always wanted to hear a blend of science fiction and folk music, but I think this is a pretty damn good cd. Though it's more of a "musical essay" and some may find it guilty of being "too conceptual", I think this cd more than holds up musically, as well. He's not just commenting on the regurgitation of American culture through increasingly fragmentary postmodern mediums, but he's making it sound catchy and giving it witty momus lyrics. If you're new to momus, however, this might not be a great starting place. You might want to check out some of his earlier albums before you delve into his cerebral genre-mixing experiments. I've also heard a few people enounce the album as "too silly" or as being full of "joke songs", but I think, similar to stephen merrit, Momus's primary goal is genuinely evocative, albeit sometimes intitially ridiculous sounding music, even if it comes across as smarmy, ironic decadance at first listen. One should also be warned that the album leans away from the fake-folk motif halfway through the cd as we get a silly song about momus's [privates](that I thought was far too silly at first, but like all of momus's body parts, grew on me)and a few sprawling epics that touch on the subject of Americana through heavily 80's lenses("Robocowboys" reminds me too much of a cartoon show called "galaxy rangers" i watched as a kid)and songs like "heliogobalus" and "pigmalism" that are just sort of bizarre and indulgent. Recap: digital banjos are catchy, momus is sexy, the future is synthetic,and viva la folk.

If You Get the Joke..........2001-07-28

...then this is a brilliant CD. Whether he's name-checking Beck, Johnny Cash and Oprah or crooning about "Little Apples," he managed to find the weird middle ground between techno and folk -- managing to destroy both in the process.

Crazysexyannoying.......2001-04-22

Momus is back! with songs about monks, murder, his penis, and applacian mountain girls! If you're already a Momus fan, there's a lot here to like, including a clever and almost-moving love song between a palm pilot and his human, and a brilliant song about his penis that is a funny and memorable as "Coming in a Girl's Mouth" (from Little Red Songbook) should have been and just wasn't.

If you're not a Momus fan, be prepared for a funny, fascinating, erudite, and annoying CD. Folk music is the predominant theme, but the last few tracks sound like Nick Cave writing a Comp Lit final while on poppers - and therefore would have fit perfectly on Little Red Songbook.

If you want to ease into Momus, I'd start with Hyacinths and Thistles - a 6ths album where he gets the best track. And then move on to either this or Little Red Songbook.

Momus in the Mountains.......2001-02-23

It's the year 2000 (still remember back then?), OS X is just about to go beta, and the flower power iMac is just a glint in Steve Job's eye. Our intrepid Celtic explorer encounters a crooked-toothed hick kid in the foothills of Appalachia and challenges him at gold Pokemon. Gameboys linked, they duel amiably by the light of a laser show..

Folktronic is finally playing as mp3 files on my Fuji 40i, after months of teaser Flash movies on momus's website, and it's well-worth the wait. The 'fake folk' genre that Nick's carved out is here in abundance, but it's not the whole story: we also get the fake prog-rock of 'Mistaken Memories', the fake Coward stylings of 'The ... Song', and the fake Brechtian epic 'Pygmalism'. Along the way, Momus also finds time for 80's pop and the exquisite baroque Romance of 'Handheld'. Kevin Warwick couldn't even begin to imagine such a delicate love between flesh and silicon.

I'll leave it to you to discover the other delights herein, particularly 'Appalachia' (in which Momus puts the 'corn' into Cornelius) the astounding 'Finnegan the Folk Hero', which nattily updates Dylan's 'Quinn The Eskimo' archetype with a tale of an exploited web designer. Where next for Nick? Negro Spirituals about the woes of legacy systems programmers? You need this CD!

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