Et les Boites a Musique, by Colleen (CD on Leaf)

A Norman Records recommendation (15th November 2006)

Description:	Cheap CD of 14 music box recordings on Leaf	UK ORDERS OVER £50 SHIP FREE!
Format:	CD
Label:	Leaf
Price:	£7.79
Availability:	despatched in 2-5 working days (on average!!)

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What we say

Rating: ecstatic This record left our Phil feeling ecstatic.

Cos I'm busy listening to the new COLLEEN (French for Colin) CD on Leaf rather Frenchily titled Colleen Et Les Boites A Musique. This album has been entirely built using music boxes. I actually really like music boxes a lot and was seriously considering collecting 'em a while back but decided not to bother cos it seemed too much like hard work and I'd have no money to buy smack. (joke....). Wrongness aside this is by far the twinkliest thing I've ever heard in my life. This makes the famous nursery rhyme 'twinkle twinkle little star' sound like Extreme Noise Terror. When you end up at the pearly white gates of heaven all dazed and confused, dripping with blood from the multiple stab wounds from a bad night in the pub, head concussed from being pushed to the ground by drunkard idiots, this twinklefest will be on in the background and you'll soon forget what has happened to you. Also you'll be dead I guess so I'm not really sure how the whole memory thing works after you've died 'n all. Very nice indeed.

What the label says:

It seemed like a dream opportunity to explore further the miniature continent of sound that music boxes in all their variety generate says Colleens Ccile Schott in response to the carte blanche handed to her by national radio station France Cultures Atelier De Cration Radiophonique to record music for a special broadcast. The commission would have remained just that, but Schott was so pleased with the results she decided to give the nod for the recordings to be released on this 38-minute EP, under a temporarily revised artist name. No stranger to the use of music boxes in her recordings and live performance, the consciously limited palette yields extraordinary dividends; this is arguably the most intimate and wonderfully melodic release of her career to date. Composed entirely using music boxes (but for one track), the pieces use everything from miniature boxes hidden in 1940s birthday cards to large Victorian boxes. Not content with the orthodox sounds produced by the boxes, Schott hijacked them, playing them with her fingers or with mallets on the comb. She re-sampled and affected pitch and delay in a quest to produce unique sounds and melodies. Utilising the natural loop in each box, the different boxes move in and out of time, evoking memories of childhood. This playful nature ebbs and flows throughout the EP like a stream unsure of its chosen path. Sounds reminiscent of harps (What Is A Componium? Part 2), xylophones and Fender Rhodes (Your Heart Is So Loud), and electronics (Calypso In A Box) appear and then disappear on the landscape, fooling the listener into believing that the noises emanate from more than one type of instrument. This 14-track EP will provide refreshing new material for those anticipating Colleens third long player, scheduled for release in early 2007. The material is all new with the exception of the final track, Ill Read You A Story, which can also be found on 2005s The Golden Morning Breaks.