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- Summary: The San Francisco-based singer releases his latest album on the Sub Pop label.
- Record Label: Sub Pop
- Genre(s): Indie, Rock
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 15
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Mixed: 4 out of 15
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Negative: 1 out of 15
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Circular Sounds is altogether smoother than the musician's previous work, but it's far from slick, packed with enough grit (note the slightly off-key horns in 'Everything Begins') and solid songcraft to set itself apart from the retro-rock catalog.
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Circular Sounds takes the craft aspect to a higher level. Stoltz’s early records were scrappy, guitar-centric home recordings, and his previous LP, Below the Branches, was a piano-dominated, primary colors affair, but this one is a study in how to blend signifiers and sonorities so that they enhance each other.
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While Circular Sounds isn’t quite the modern sound of the American west coast, it feels very much like the classic sound of California: a sound left blissfully alone by the stresses and rigours of a modernity forever on the move.
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Under The RadarAnother intimate, handcrafted gift from a criminally unknown--in his own country, anyway--artist. [Winter 2008, p.84]
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Sure, it might be nice if Stoltz could innovate more with his influences, like the Pet Sounds impressionism of Panda Bear's Person Pitch. But flashbacks this vivid are good enough for now.
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Circular Sounds can feel impersonal, especially in how Stoltz hopscotches from voice to voice, some far stronger than others.
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Except for the admittedly awesome surf-rock instrumental 'Reflecting,' there’s nothing done on Circular Sounds that you can’t find done better on old vinyl, battered mixtapes, and (shudder) Counting Crows albums.
Score distribution:
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Positive: 0 out of
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Mixed: 0 out of
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Negative: 0 out of