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Review: Martin Carbow's "A Cappella And More" |
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Written by Robert N Dietz
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Wednesday, 16 November 2005 |
 Just today as I was wrapping up this review, I caught myself humming several of the hooks from Martin Carbow’s "A Cappella and More" to myself a good 15-20 times. I think it’s fair to say that this is a catchy CD. Martin’s songs do nothing if they don’t put you in a good mood and get you tapping your feet. Catchiness and toe-tapping aside, however, the album isn’t without a few problems. While the overall effect was fun, I wasn’t so crazy about some of the more puzzling aspects of Martin’s musical vision.
Ok, good stuff first: When I popped this CD in I was immediately struck by the quality and professionalism of the solo voices, which are energetic and suit their styles well throughout. Alexandra Doerk deserves special mention for her wonderfully gritty solo on “Highway to Hell” (which was also one of my favorite tracks on the first disc).
Backgrounds are also impressive, but not as consistent. This isn’t surprising considering that the group of singers (made up of Martin’s musician friends and colleagues) changes from track to track and it doesn’t sound like any one incarnation had an optimal chance to establish a cohesive ensemble sound. The most obvious offenders are the sopranos who were sometimes whiny and often mixed just a little too loud.
What is impressive however is that, despite the fact that the cover of the CD proudly proclaims “no autotune,” my problems with the backgrounds have very little to do with tuning. Sure there are occasional tuning slips, but certainly nothing that made me cringe or want to sacrifice the more natural sound in favor of tuning perfection. I want to congratulate Martin and his singers on releasing an album that has a lot of the natural sound (so often absent in contemporary recordings) that made me fall in love with a cappella in the first place.
Alright, now the confusing stuff. These singers sound really, really professional, so I don’t know why the arrangements couldn’t have been a little more complex. I’m sure they could have handled it, and it would have made Martin’s repetitive feel-good songs that much more interesting to listen to. In addition, while “a cappella,” is indeed entirely a cappella, “and more” is predominantly the same a cappella numbers from disc one, arrangements intact, with nothing added but a simple instrumental background.
Martin says that he chose to add this instrumentation to give people an idea of what his compositions might sound like performed by an accompanied choir, but from this listener’s standpoint I didn’t feel like the addition added anything to my experience. I would have much rather seen Martin release a CD with all the a cappella tracks from both CDs (“and more” has a few a cappella tunes too) and do the accompanied music as a separate project entirely. Also, what was up with the half an hour of silence between the end of each CD and the hidden tracks (which were nice, but not really worth waiting so long for)?
All in all, I enjoyed “A Cappella and More,” but I’m not sure who I would recommend it to. As a contemporary listener, I found most of Martin’s cheery jazz-gospel compositions to be a little too old school for my taste, but at the same time, I suspect they would be a little too contemporary for most old school listeners. It’s feel-good music. If that’s your thing, I’d say go for it.
To see what RARB reviewers had to say, check out these reviews.
To order: www.carbow.net/english.html
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 24 January 2006 )
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