Sunset Reverie Review by George Miler
Post date: Aug 26, 2014 11:8:24 PM
"Two very human souls are investing every musical phrase with a rich and mellow power"
George Miler on Sundown Cafe's Sunset Reverie Album August 24, 2014
The Bandcamp page* promised the sort of ambio-audionic experience I love to bliss out to. The write-up for track 2, “Suburban Sunset,” even reminds me of when New Age and easy-listening jazz became popular, when society got all suity and agonic.
smile must be hiding something. Or perhaps it’s forbearance. The style I recognize as Kuutana’s is here, as in the beginning of “Nightfall,” but it quickly moves up to the next level.
Speaking as an American, it evokes a time when this isolationist country grew up and took a good look at the world and became wise…without, in this case, becoming cynical.
No cyberpunk shortcuts to dystopia or urban angst here. Nothing raw or harsh, depressing or bleak. (A hint of melancholy, perhaps, like the red rays of sun in an autumnal city, every object smoothed and aged.) Two very human souls are investing every musical phrase with a rich and mellow power...
George Miler, August 24, 2014
EDITOR'S NOTE: Click on the image to go to the Bandcamp page.
But from the first track “Midnight Sun”, Sundown Café’s Sunset Reverie has the undertones of heartfelt yet sophisticated passion.On the question of genres – lines are somewhat arbitrary. The number of colors in the visible spectrum is infinity. A fact Kuutana and Celestial View seem to know on some level as they blend these influences consistently. The effect is seamless. Even the sax does not sound imported and plunked down, but is an essential, integral component that lends an incredible maturity to music that already possesses the resonance of lived experience. No empty tropes for their own sake like you might find in a bad graphic novel. This is replete with content from the very bedrock. Yet the whole effect of these enveloping layers of emotion, leavened by an earned expertise, is relaxed, and invites you to breathe deeply.
My few encounters with Kuutana left me with the impression of a zesty, enthusiastic musician. And Celestial View’s shy