Various Artists - Fall Is A House Of Gold And Rain

As a pre-paragraph to the actual review, I would like to state that this shall be a two part review of the VoxxoV Records Compilations. As there are two different compilations released under the record label, each of these freebies were released on the same day, just under two different collections. The first compilation focused on IDM and electronica, while the second part of the compilation focused on drone and ambient music. However, enough of the preface, and onto the thick of things.

VoxxoV Records is a French based record label founded in 2011 by two dudes (Mourad Kachroud and Vinnie Blandin-Canonne) with the vision of creating their own version of electronics and yada-yada, the same shit we've heard a thousand times before by a thousand different other record labels we all know. I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but I just don't see the point in going over what has already been said again and again.

Nonetheless, the first part of this compilation is called Fall Is A House Of Gold And Rain. The title speaks of poetry, as gold can represent the colors of the changing leaves, and the rain is perhaps the leaves falling from the trees and blessing us with their natural beauty. For myself, however, Fall stands for Halloween and horror. But, I tend to save my own personal tastes for myself; for who can better enjoy than them my own self?

I don't mean to sound biased from the start, but I have sort of come to hate the term IDM (an acronym for Intelligent Dance Music). I suppose it's because it almost sounds like a royal bastard. I mean, what are you trying to do with yourself? Make yourself sound like a genius in comparison to a lot of the other music around? Personally, I find myself saving the term "intelligent" for men and women or even robots who deserve such a praise (such as the fictional HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey or even Stephen Hawking). Not only that, but I do say that music is, in general, intelligent.

In my personal opinion, you have to be somewhat bright in one way or the other in order to create a real masterpiece. And I have come across plenty of other music styles in which I can sit down and call it intelligent in thought, lyrics, and overall rhythm rather than not. However, let me put this personal rant aside, and continue on with the actual music.

Like most compilations from smaller record labels, I really just have never heard of any of these band before in my life. As I stated with the last compilation I reviewed, this is not a bad move on the label's part; so many parties pooled together can only lead to at least some acts of greatness. And possibly some acts of weakness. And, I really do find myself sitting about a lot of weakness, and little greatness.

Sure, the music is slow, soothing, and can even bring some sci-fi inspired mysticism (in my own head), but I really just can't point out one track or the other on the first part of this album that can have me throw my hands to the heavens and shout, "Dear God, this is why I was put on Earth." Perhaps that last sentence was a bit of an exaggeration, nonetheless, if a song was able to do that to me, I would be most shocked.

What I find to be most disturbing, I suppose, is that a lot of the songs on the album just sound like they came from the same artist over and over again. I know that they're all supposed to be under the same genre, but, holy Hell, if you're going to give me an eighteen track release, at least make the songs sound unlike one another.

Even as I sit here and listen to Everyday Stories by Esoteric Sobs, I feel as if it could have been by the artist's track prior to it, which would be Moonship by Tapage. I'm being given eighteen different artists, and I feel as if I'm only listening to one. Their styles easily mix and match with one another's. I think I would lose a game of "match the artist to the song title" even if I listened to the album a hundred times.

So, for the night, I give you the review of the first part of this compilation. I do hope the second will be better, and it shall be reviewed either tomorrow, or the next day. I'm not quite sure yet. I suppose I need some time to recuperate from this before I decide to move on. But, not because it's bad, but because everything just sounds so similar to me I feel like I'm staring down eighteen clones of the same person, all bug eyed with wide open grins, saying, "Welcome to the neighborhood, new fella!" I would be scared of that, and I feel scared now. Aug 04 2013