All Is Fair is a meditative album. It slowly stretches, winding its way through folk forms from nearly every continent while managing to fold in elements of Jazz, Rock, and the Western Classical tradition all of which results in a fine example of Fusion. If you are a fan of Kronos Quartet, and in particular their trance-like work Night Prayers, then you might find yourself drawn to the work on here as it possesses many of the same qualities though approaching them from different angle as Gojogo blend together upright bass, violin, tablas, with various brass and woodwinds to create a sometimes dark yet warm tapestry of sound.

“All Is Fair In Love and War”, nestled near the middle of the album and by far one of my favorite songs on the album, shows the group shaking loose the somnolent work of the prior tracks in the opening bars with a rhythm section built upon an angular tabla line and flanked by a very aggressive staccato violin and bass. Layered on top of it is a slightly restrained guitar line that growls and paces like a caged cat growing more pensive as the piece moves forward. At the midpoint it all crashes, falling on top of itself, and out of it emerges a plaintive melody on trumpet carried by soft woodwinds. Gojogo, in this track, demonstrates a keen ability to construct a narrative through the composition and choices in arrangement. Conversely, “Taal Mama”, which you can stream over at Myspace, is likely one of their more Trance-like pieces as it built around a cluster of simple rhythms and melodies that ensemble makes use of to hang variations on themes. It is understated but very enjoyable at the same.

All Is Fair is a breath of fresh air as it seamlessly blends together so many disparate musical traditions capturing the Trance elements of Modal Jazz and Abstract Electronic with Folk forms of Africa, Europe, and the Americas while maintaining a sense of urgency often found in Rock. It makes for a compelling listen and I highly recommend it. All Is Fair is one of my picks for Best of 2006.

Possessing no discernible reference to the mythical city of the same name Newsom has dropped an album that is just as enigmatic and shrouded in mysticism. After reading so many glowing reviews I felt enticed to pick up Ys and see what lay within and having not heard her debut, The Milk-Eyed Mender, I was not entirely sure what I would encounter. While the album spans a scant five tracks each song is often a sprawling epic that is at once minimal and dense, gilded with metaphors, allegories, and allusions that will leave a listener fretting for sometime at each song like they were tiny knots.

The trouble I have is that I want to love this album as an album but I’m not. Some might take exception to Newsom’s delivery style, a sort of breathy twitter punctuated by squeaks, however I do not since it seems to fit the material so well. Ys is more of a literary experience, one that is best enjoyed as a performance like the work of Shakespeare or studied like The Divine Comedy or Beowulf. The music of the album is regulated to the background, it is akin to the soft strumming of minstrel to help set the mood or provide moments of dramatic flair to the tale. Newsom fleshes out her work with her harp and songs are occasionally padded with soft string arrangements but both are unobtrusive never really rising above the lyrics which leaves me wanting, particularly given the length of each song which range from a brief seven minutes to one that strains at seventeen.

As literature I love Ys. Newsom proves herself to be both a deft poet and a nimble storyteller, drawing characters that are compelling and breathing life into them as she relates their tales. Take for instance the improbably love story of a monkey and bear who attempt to run away to live out the remainder of their lives together.

but still;
they have got to pay the bills
hadn’t they?
that is what the monkey’d say

so, with the courage of a clown, or a cur
or a kite, jerking tight at its tether
in her dun-brown gown of fur
and her jerkin’ of swansdown and leather

Bear would sway on her hind legs;
the organ would grind dregs of song, for the pleasure
of the children, who’d shriek
throwing coins at her feet
then recoiling in terror

sing, dance, darling
c’mon, will you dance, my darling?
oh darling, there’s a place for us
can we go, before I turn to dust?
oh my darling, there’s a place for us

Ys is ambitious and a very worthwhile experience as it pushes the boundaries of what people might consider the conventional forms of Folk music. Yet it is an exhausting listen as it demands your attention: miss a bar or a phrase and you could be hopelessly lost in the story. Highly recommended but with that caveat.

Paper Tigers reminds me of the drawing exercises I encountered in studio classes so many years ago, particularly the ones where we were asked to draw the space that the model occupied and by interacting with that space gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Sasu Ripatti appears to take that visual arts concept to heart on this release as the arrangements are often indicative of something lusher and more detailed but have been worked down to those essential threads that bind the work together. It is at once abstract and organic, possessing a warmth and depth that can only be arrived at by realizing that a supposed finished composition can often be reworked into something more meaningful and that objects are often defined by the space which they occupy.

Ripatti’s process of carving and sanding his compositions is best felt on “Really Don’t Mind” which for all intents is a House track with a strong club beat and lush, soulful vocals. Execution of the piece takes a different turn as the vocals a reworked as an instrument and a texture much like the beat production, being used to both provide a structure and context to hang arrangement from as well as to serve as a primary focus for the listener. Wrapping about the arrangement are beats that occasionally skitter into the soft pads and sweeps that make up the songs open landscape. As the song bleeds into “Let You Know” it becomes clear that Ripatti approached the album as a whole rather than a series of discrete tracks. The composition sees the arrangement of the prior track evolve into a sort of minimalist Deep House production, similar to the trance leaning “Good To Be With”, though that description does not really do it justice as the compositions are more carefully thought out than just layering samples and beats.

The songs on Paper Tigers have a tendency to slowly unfold, quietly rotating and shifting in a manner that is more akin to the ambient work of Thom Brennan, Robert Rich, or Pete Namlook. It is this tendency that makes the album best suited for headphones rather than pumping it through your stereo as it is a study of contrasts: sparse and lush; wispy and warm; minimal and detailed. For myself, it is one of Ripatti’s best releases and easily makes it on my Best of 2006 list and finds itself to even be a contender for my favorite album of the year. Paper Tigers is simply outstanding.