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april review on download.com
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John Paul Scesniak shows a slight vocal quaver copped from Pac Northwest hero Isaac Brock, but his wet and abstract folk is a more natural mixtape partner for early Devendra Banhart. Ideally, of course, he'll be the influencer, not the influencee, and with this sturdy tone, we'd call that likely.
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sept. 07 review on opening bands dot com...
The first thing that came to mind when I put in Seattle's Origami Ghosts' debut album Solving My Own Puzzles... was how much of a debt they owe to another Seattle band, older and now disbanded: Carissa's Wierd [sic]. But don't just go and label Origami Ghosts as another chronically depressed Pacific Northwestern band, although they are quite melancholy. The lyrics of band leader John Paul Scesniak are more subtle and restrained than bleeding heart on the sleeve and angry. Scesniak uses the tension found within oneself when you are confused and lonely even if you're not alone. In the standout tracks "Clouds Look Down," "When the Sidewalk Ends," and "Pendulum," you and he know things will change for the better, just not when. His voice helps set the mood, never rising beyond the occasional crack and extremely reminiscent of Pall Jenkins but singing in his bedroom instead of a nightclub lounge.
Sometimes, though, Scesniak is especially unclear in what he is trying to get across, and the words can just get dismissed as something depressing, but when that does happen it doesn't necessarily take much away from the song because the music is pretty strong. The guitar work is usually handled by one or two acoustic guitars plucking out lines and occasionally tuning it up to a strum. Think Rob Crow's acoustic songs and "Third Planet" Modest Mouse along with well placed cello parts and a hammered dulcimer plinking throughout accompanying the guitar work. The pace of all the songs is kept pretty steady as well, never nearing the crawl Carissa's Wierd and The Black Heart Procession would sometimes go for.
The brevity of the album is a major plus. With all the songs around the three-minute mark, the listener can get through the whole album in one sitting and take the music in at one time. Plus, no one likes to be overloaded with glumness, and Solving My Own Puzzles... has just the right amount. I have to say, though, that the album will not immediately grab people as music needs to immediately to gain a new fan base. It will probably take a new listener some alone time with the album to concentrate on picking out what makes each song its own because without that kind of time to let things sink in, I'm afraid to say it might just all blend together into some shade of blue.
With Carissa's Wierd broken up and turning into the reverb-laden Crazy Horse-inspired Band of Horses, and The Black Heart Procession releasing one of the best reviewed but also most criminally ignored album of their career, Origami Ghosts could be the freshest group out there in their self-described "moody and spacious anti-folk/pop/punk/hop" genre.
http://www.openingbands.com/reviews/#8
review in intelligent pop 8/1/07
OK, I kinda like this record. Certainly not at all right for our top 20—there’s not much melody here, except for the infectious chant of track 6, “lawnlaying,” but there’s a coherent vision here and something that draws you in. And this coherence is strange because, well, because this album is so aptly named. “Solving my own puzzles” is a perfect description for what is essentially an album of music set to cryptic poetry—not the other way around. Yes, songwriter John Paul Scesniak could be legitimately accused of being a self-indulgent nihilist pseudo-intellectual writing lyrics that sound deep but which even he is not prepared to interpret—not even to himself. But there’s a sense here that there really is substance behind much of his poetry. It’s not entirely indecipherable, and some of the images really do haunt. Scesniak perhaps thinks he has no faith in words. In what is lyrically the best song, “using words to describe the ocean,” he says, in a wonderful line, “words are trivial…thoughts are just as petty…using words to describe the ocean you’re acting like a jetty.” True, John, but here you are using words to describe experience, to refer to a deep and interesting truth, and the image of a jetty does in fact help you accomplish this. Words are not like a jetty, by which I take you to mean a power drain on real meaning. No, words supply power, and at a deeper level you know this, because while you pretend to be a modern dada-ist with no faith in the power of words, you’ve devoted your entire creative enterprise to them. Your behavior belies your true faith. Perhaps Scesniak knows this. But it’s interesting to watch him battle himself over this issue in his lyrics. “We look down like clouds in the sky…we contemplate nothing, we have no designs,” he writes. Not true, obviously. Plus, that’s a nice metaphor. But Scesniak is afraid to do too much with it. In other words, he’s afraid to imbue his words with too much transparent meaning, but sometimes he’s quite poignant despite himself. Our guess: Scesniak is a young and very talented poet who will fairly soon solve the particular puzzle he’s working out about how much he wants his lyrics to say and to how many people other than himself alone. The guess here is he’ll remain somewhat cryptic but open up at least somewhat, and at that point Scesniak may become a wonderful and important indie rock poet. The poetry is front-and-center here, but what about the music? Well, it marries perfectly to the mood of the lyrics and their imagery, and that’s why this is a recommended album for people who are interested in experimental and avant-garde indie rock. A terrific dulcimerist and an equally competent cello player accompany the requisite sloppy acoustic guitar tracks, creating a sort of acoustic version of the experimental electronica that became too popular in the wake of Radiohead’s transformation of several years ago from pop band to experimentalists. And the result is a nice spin on the experimental aesthetic—and a spin which goes beyond random experimentalism by actually supporting the lyric in a meaningful way. But the real treat is the innovative drummer, who uses natural but wide, warm drum sounds to steer changing grooves around the lyrics in a thoughtful way that really moves and gives life to the images. In fact, probably the most important strong point of this record is that the musicians all sound like they’re listening to the poetry, trying to make their own sense of it. That’s the source of the unified vision and why the album doesn’t spin off into meaningless experimental masturbation—as Radiohead sometimes does. It’s definitely a niche album, for fans of avant-garde indie-rock and people who don’t mind lyrics that can be frustratingly indecipherable. But while there’s a glut of music in this genre, this artist is a cut above most, and the prediction here is that a little maturity will make John Scesniak a touch more accessible, a touch more concrete in his imagery, a touch more concerned with melodic theme, development and arc, a little less interested in disjoint stream-of-consciousness experiments. The talent, both musically and as a poet, is there. For these reasons, while this album doesn’t make a serious run at top-20 status, this is still an artist for many intelligent pop fans to introduce themselves to and watch in the future. You should know who you are.
http://www.intelligentpop.com/reviews.shtml
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new july review in red alert!!!
Soft guitar pluck strained psychedelic folk trippiness that moves up and down like some half-remembered trip from some summer in the past. Indie-folk rock that gets you in the mood for some picnic blanket reading and red wine drinking. Falls in nicely beside the mellowest moments of Modest Mouse, and throws in a cute kind of quirkiness that plays well beside some of Will Oldham’s work, but it’s a much warmer feeling – maybe not warmer, but lusher. Sometimes it feels a little like if Pinback was from some rustic barnyard in Ohio. The Modest Mouse comparison hits more than once, not only in the guitar play, but also in the vocals, which can move in that almost hushed rasp of some backwoods rap, and the movement of the voice as it goes up and down across long sentences that feels almost more like storytelling than song singing. Songs that reference lost books from childhood, like “When The Sidewalk Ends” and songs that fall into that Red Red Meat / Califone kind of country voice.
—
Marcel Feldmar
http://www.theredalert.com/reviews/origamighosts.htm
hey a new review from chico state radio station kscs...
"There is a lot of good indie rock out there, yep, a lot. Its (un)natural
evolution out of the cest-pool of the garage and folk rock of the 90s was inevitable.
From coffee-shop open mics to large-scale music festivals like Coachella and
whatnot, indie rock bands have become like a bacterium, spreading to all corners
of the globe. That said it becomes obvious why it might difficult to find an
indie band that stands shining above the rest. It may only produce only a tiny
twinkle because of its lack of financial backing to get truly blinged-out, but
it is a noticeable one nonetheless. The band I am referring to in this case
is Seattle's Origami Ghosts (yeah, of course they're from Seattle, though Portland
perhaps would have been a bit more appropriate...) They describe their music
as "moody, and spacious anti-folk/pop/punk/hop" which definitely has
a certain ring to it especially after hearing their latest album Solving My
Own Puzzles. The album is pretty raw and basic in its production because O.G.
(yes!) produced/released it on their own label, aptly named Hand To Mouth Media,
now available on www.cdbaby.com (no Amazon, thank you very much.) Cellos, vibes,
heartfelt lyrics, and sweetly sung vocals come together in songs that are happy
to break your heart, stuff it with batting, and sew it back together like very
few bands nowadays can..."
RIYL: Pinback, Modest Mouse, L'Altra
MP3: Origami Ghosts'
Myspace
By: Sophia Dufort
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here's a sweet short review...from a talented writer on dagger -- a zine out of Portland:
ORIGAMI GHOSTS- SOLVING MY OWN PUZZLES…-HAND TO MOUTH- Trippy/folky stuff from Seattle-ite John Paul Scesniak (and what is it with people using their middle name these days ??!! Who do the think they are, serial killers ?) . On that alone I wanted to hate this but I can’t cos’ the songwriting is good and I like JP’s voice. You’re lucky JP, a bad review in DAGGER can sink your career ! ( www.origamighosts.com )
http://www.indiepages.com/dagger/short.html
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REVIEW BY: Vish
Iyer
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 04/06/2007
Hailing from Seattle, Origami Ghosts -- primarily a band of singer-songwriter/guitarist
John Paul Scesniak -- doesn’t have the sound stereotypically associated
with bands from this revered city of rock. It throws the flannel, the hair and,
most importantly, the youth angst and thoughts of gloom and doom into a coffin
and buries it deep into the ground. This is an untroubled act that makes honest
folk music with a lot of heart and soul.
The music is fully acoustic, dreamy, laid-back and very ‘60s folk, with a warm-hearted tree-hugging hippie attitude. Scesniak writes down-to-earth and pretty tunes; his words are poetic, with plenty of references to the simple things like trees, clouds and everything else that a peace-loving, Whole Foods-frequenting, Yoga-practicing vegan would find as sources of inspiration.
Scesniak’s sleepy vocals are almost as tender and sensitive as his words. The harmony on “Clouds In The Sky” when he sings “We look down like clouds in the sky” as he elegantly describes his elevated mood with his lover has the kind of serenity that best expresses the feelings his words are trying to convey. On “First Time Talking To Myself,” Scesniak turns the anguish of loneliness and the feeling of being estranged, into calm melancholia and self questioning, as he asks himself, “Is this world something you’ve forgotten? Is this world something you’ve ignored?” with a healing tone rather than with a self-poking frustration.
Origami Ghosts’ brand of acoustic music is almost reminiscent of very early REM in that it is simple and minimal, but the tunes are elegantly crafted. The cello and the hammered dulcimer, which are as important as Scesniak’s voice or words, give the songs that balance of wistfulness and allure that makes his words and his singing even more fascinating.
The standouts are plenty and this album’s got a lot of pleasant surprises, but “Clouds Look Down,” “Pendulum” and “Using Words To Describe The Ocean” are near-perfect. Solving My Own Puzzles is a great debut record by an incredible band that every fan of folk music should know.
Rating: B+
© 2007 Vish Iyer and The Daily Vault. All rights reserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without written permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of Hand To Mouth Media, and is used for informational purposes only.
http://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=4784
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here's someone who had somethin' to say about origami ghosts...
Origami Ghosts aren’t a star vehicle. They’re a mediocre indie rock band at best, so spending much time running through the credits isn’t worth it. They have a cello player. People still like the cello, right? How about hammer dulcimer? Well forget about it. They may as well be stage props.
An album like “Solving My Own Puzzles” really makes you think… hasn’t Modest Mouse broke up yet? They should have.
With much of the music I have been reviewing these days, I am often left clamoring for adjectives to evoke the mood of the recordings. Not so in this case. Seems like any adjective I could throw at this music would still be too exciting.
But I can imagine. I can imagine you and me, two patient listeners, sitting around the house on a Sunday afternoon, waiting out the nine-songs on this not-quite-an–album. “They deserve a shot,” I will say, half-questioning as I read the press sheet and their kooky list of influences. You’d shrug. And when the album is over, I’ll shrug and say, “There it is.” You’d sip your water. Then I’d ask you if you’d like to take a walk. Life is still cool even if we’re not wondering where the sidewalk ends or if the clouds indeed peer down upon us or what scent abstract concepts such as peace emit. But I’d be hard-pressed to convince you to pay attention, let only pay money, just to be unengaged.
Try again OG’s, as if I could stop you. Unfortunately, with indie rock, there’s always a second chance. Maybe next time out you’ll listen to the cello player for a change. 3/10 -- Kenneth Zubiate (27 March, 2007)
http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/reviews.php?which=2247
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***a page that we did for Seattle Sound Magazine***
for more info on Seattle Sound go to...
http://www.seattlesoundmag.com
***a review of our new album....on palebear.com***
(cd review)1.28.07 | Origami Ghosts - Solving My Own Puzzles
Origami
Ghosts
Solving My Own Puzzles
[Hand to Mouth]
Got in this rather nice CD from Origami Ghosts the other day that’s been making the rounds on my Itunes. Though the band is mostly the vehicle of John Paul Scesniak from Seattle, he doesn’t drive the car all by his lonesome preferring to create some rather nice soundscapes with the help of various musical friends.
The influences listed include Modest Mouse and Pinback, which might be a good starting point. I especially here that in the vocals. But there is less rockabout and a stronger, evocative Americana /Folk type of feel injected throughout many of the songs. Part of this probably has to do with the different instrumentation (hammered dulcimer and cello?).
But it’s also inherent in the songs themselves which mostly run in the vein of moody acoustic folk dirges punctuated by occasional off-kiltre drum outbursts. The overall effect is fairly artsy, but not beyond the average listener’s reach.
A few of the artists brought to mind are Matt Pond PA (must be the cello), Built to Spill, Sam Prekop, American Music Club and Joan of Arc though Origami Ghosts don’t by any means sound exactly like any ONE of those bands. I liked at least 3/4 of this disc which is saying a lot in the new Palebear review format. Which is pretty darned picky…
Listen:
on Myspace
Visit:
Origami Ghosts website
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***here was a nice comment that a nice person said about our music...*** http://amusicalkiss.blogspot.com/2006/07/origami-ghosts-i-never-learned-how-to.html
Monday, July 31, 2006
Origami Ghosts
I never learned how to fold decent paper planes. I remember how the talented
people used to fold the paper to planes looking like fighter jets. I never managed
to do that. My planes just crashed and burned a meter away from me. I guess
my paper planes was more like the first aircrafts that was built. You know the
silly looking ones that you can see in old movie clips, with people trying to
fly but everyone just ends up face down in a bush...
Origami Ghosts must be masters at folding paper. If they are half as good as they are making music, they could probably make a living out of it. This six piece band from Seattle, USA is about everything you need this week. The use of other instruments than the ordinary pop/rock band would use is what makes the gold that is Origami Ghosts shine. Four wonderful songs are available at their myspace site. Their website is not really finished yet, but you can find it here.
Origami Ghosts - Peace
Smells Nice
Origami Ghosts - Clouds Look Down
posted by Daniel at 10:08 AM
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