KraftiM - "Flaxas" [EP]

I didn't like it... (6/10) Awaiting the new album, here's a little excursion inbetween. These rather meditative tracks are based on saxophone play from Alfred from Benin. KraftiM took the liberty to play around with those waves. Objectives were to give a dreamy, introspective and relaxing reading from the playing from this great african artist, who generously provided me with these special wavs. Thanks Alfred. WarMocK is the German artist who made the great sleeve and let the sax shine. Thanks WarMocK. I really didn't like this album. This is just the type of KraftiM's work that I cannot dig, no matter how hard I'd try. This album is 100% pure ambient. Everyone who read some of my reviews knows that it's not my favourite genre. On the other hand, there are ambient works that I adore (or maybe somebody dares to question the ambiance of "Selected Ambient Works" by Aphex Twin? Nobody? I knew it.) Typical for true ambient, you won't find here any beats at all. Just long atmospheric passages without the beginning or the end. Oh, did I say atmospheric? I should say sleepy... boring... monotonous... repetitive... uncreative... OK, maybe you could say "unfolding the atmosphere of boredom", but that's not exactly the thing I expect from ambient works... My reviews are usually rather analytic, while others prefer to write about their feelings raised by the music. So, this time let's talk a bit about my feelings. Listening to this album I felt like I was a husband of a saxophone player, who arrived at the club to pick up my wife after rehearsal. Unfortunately, I arrived early and the doors were locked, so I had to wait outside in strong wind and pouring rain for my wife to finish playing. I didn't want to disturb her, but I heard that she wasn’t even playing any particular melody. It seemed like she was just tuning her instrument or just fooling around to kill her boredom playing accidental notes, while she waited for me after the rehearsal had ended. After 20 minutes and 11 seconds of listening to these accidental sounds, which in a strong wind were sometimes louder, sometimes almost couldn't be heard at all, I had enough. I love my wife's playing on a sax, but this mess-from-behind-the-wall in any way couldn’t be called listening to music. So, after the said 20 minutes I finally banged on the door and my torture ended. I wanted to give this album 6/10 rating. But as you see - I didn't. Why? I don't know. Usually I rate the albums that I don't like, because I don't believe in writing 100% objective reviews. The art you experience is always filtered by your preferences, emotions and thoughts and cannot be judged completely objectively. You can say something is professional, stylish etc., but you shouldn't (and you can't!) rate it without taking your feelings into consideration. Potential listeners are also human beings, not robots, and it could be useful, when they'll read "I personally don't like this album, because it does not fit my taste" or "it's too noisy" or "the subject of songs is unpleasant". Maybe they also don't like explicit lyrics or noisy music or have a similar taste to the reviewer's. The true masterpiece will defend itself, despite a few negative reviews. But this time... I don't know, maybe it's a matter of extremely enthusiastic reviews, maybe extreme vulnerability of KraftiM ;-)... And maybe I feel this can be something great that I just don't comprehend or I'm not able to appreciate... So I don't want to spoil general rating of the album? Maybe... So, to end this much-too-long review: believe the others and check this out... And if you won't like it, don't forget to write a negative review. So I could stop feeling so lonely down here. ;-)

Royalty-free music for professional licensing [Myspace]

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