Takes

Takes is most worthwhile for Adem fans, but intriguing for anyone who enjoys a new perspective on old tunes.

Adem has outdone himself, and has created what may be the strongest record of his solo career so far, and Takes merits hearing as an album in its own right, as well as being one of the best exponents of the maligned covers album genre. Highly recommended.

His evident love of his source material and the material's alternative-era continuity make Takes a vanity project that's much better and more universally appealing than what we usually mean by the term.

If there’s a criticism to be made it’s that the album’s perhaps a little one-note.

The duds are few and far between, and Takes is a worthwhile, if not always essential, venture.

This is the kind of project that could easily draw envious jeers but thankfully Adem delivers a respectful and restrained album that pays careful homage to those who have come before while looking forward to the future. [Summer 2008, p.81]

All in all, this a whimsical, unhurried and enchanting effort.

Takes never truly shakes the initial notion of a missed opportunity: failing to place a distinguishable spin on the material it seeks to celebrate, ultimately coming off a well-intended curio ticking as many boxes as it omits.

While this probably won't go down as Adem's greatest work (he's too talented a songwriter in his own right for that to happen), it makes for a nice curio.

There are exceptions, notably Tortoise, Aphex Twin and Björk songs, while Lisa Germano's 'Slide' is magnificent, mainly thanks to Adem's eerie, cracked delivery.

A 1991-2001 covers record is an odd move after just two solo albums, but he carries it off with unusual choices and twinkling instrumentation. [June 2008, p.137]

Much of it is overly polite, with Ilhan taming the hurt in PJ Harvey's 'Oh My Lover,' but he also teases mourful hidden nuances from Breeders, Smashing Pumkins and Tortoise tracks. [June 2008, p.83]

Takes could have used a few more experiments of this nature, because while his versions of the Breeders’ 'Invisible Man' and Yo La Tengo’s 'Tears Are in Your Eyes' are tasteful enough, there’s no real sense of adventure, no real feeling that these songs needed to be covered in this way, no real attempt at making this anything other than a stopgap between records.

Give Adem his props for chancing a foray into the cover album field, a move which always carries its risks. But Takes simply doesn’t warrant much attention, no matter how much its material means to its creator.