Mud

Mud Artist: Eszter Balint
Label: Bar/None Records
Category: Music


Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1


UPC: 032862015229
EAN: 0032862015229
ASIN: B0001BFDIC


Release Date: 2004-03-09

Mud


Related Categories:

General General
Categories | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Indie Rock Indie Rock
Categories | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
General General
Categories | Rock | Styles | Music
Pop Rock Pop Rock
Categories | Pop | Styles | Music

Tracks:

  1. Pebbles & Stones
  2. Here We Are
  3. Good Luck
  4. It
  5. No One
  6. This Lie
  7. Paperweight
  8. Your God
  9. Weeds
  10. Who Are You Now

Similar Items:

  1. The Disconnection
  2. Flicker
  3. Anybody
  4. Pooka
  5. Robin Holcomb

Album Description

On Mud, Eszter Balint displays a singular vision that filters elements of country and blues through a jagged-edge urban sensibility. If you had turned a corner in Lower Manhattan and discovered the flickering lights of a wood-frame juke joint shimmering from the far end of some shadowy alley, the sound floating towards you in the darkness might be something like this. From the first snarl of the slide guitar in opening track "Pebbles & Stones," you'll hear the mystery and menace that distinguish most of these starkly arranged tunes. But once Eszter starts to sing in her hypnotic, unsentimental voice, you'll discover there's a lot more to Mud than atmosphere. Eszter is a terrific storyteller, terse but evocative. "You'll come out of this alive," she assures someone - maybe the listener? -- over the stripped-down blues-funk of "Good Luck." "You're just stuck in a bad dream tonight." <P>On Mud, bad dreams have never sounded so good. An accomplished musician who has contributed both violin and vocals to recordings by cutting-edge talents like Marc Ribot and Michael Gira, Eszter has long been a notable figure on the downtown Manhattan music and movie scene. The players she's assembled here - Michael DuClos, Chris Cochrane, and Nic Brown - have backgrounds in rock-jazz-noise combos like Curlew and Skeleton Key. Co-producer and guitarist J.D. Foster has worked with artists ranging from Dwight Yoakam to Ribot. With Eszter, he manages to keep these songs musically and emotionally direct, while allowing enough unpredictable touches to give each one of them a unique, not-quite linear shape. The arrangements may generate a lot of tension, but, in the end, Eszter and Foster let the listener off sweetly, with a piano-and-voice balled called "Who Are You Now" that serves as a gentle denouement to these backwoods urban dramas. <P>Who are you now? You might just be asking yourself that after you experience the persepective-altering sound of Mud.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Requires repeated listens.......2004-06-16

This is a quiet and well-made little record. Nothing revelatory and somewhat more conventional and less atmospheric than I expected. There isn't much gaslight old country and Appalachia to be found here - it's somewhat reminiscent of Joe Henry's "Scar." The first track is the least of the songs on the record but it builds from there. Balint at times sounds like Exene, but this works to her advantage, particularly on the songs that sound more like sketches. It will probably take 10 listens before anything on this records starts to repeat itself in your mind. Stick with it and you'll be rewarded.

5 out of 5 stars Jon Pareles of the New York Times says:.......2004-05-07

The answer is obviously yes when Eszter Balint asks, ''Do you like looking for trouble?'' at the beginning of her new album, ''Mud'' (Bar/None). Her songs are full of characters on the run: at least one murderer and a half-dozen others seeking escape, sanctuary, oblivion or ''the end of the trail.'' Ms. Balint, who was the star of Jim Jarmusch's film ''Stranger Than Paradise,'' has her own film-noir sensibility as a songwriter. Her voice is knowing and almost nonchalant as she drops hints and casts sidelong glances: ''Searching for a smoke and for your eyes/Where are they?''

Backed by a handful of musicians including her producer, J. D. Foster, Ms. Balint puts arty twists into back-alley Americana. A modal Appalachian banjo is interrupted by clanky guitar distortion; funky wah-wah guitar supports sleek vibraphone and shards of dissonance; folky fingerpicking adds shadowy echoes or slips into a bossa nova; a blues vamp skips a beat.

But the cleverness is not the point. Ms. Balint slips inside her characters to project their restlessness and longing, their disorientation and cunning. Just because she's gotten them into their predicaments doesn't mean she's not fascinated by what might happen.

5 out of 5 stars Jon Pareles of the New York Times says:.......2004-05-07

The answer is obviously yes when Eszter Balint asks, ''Do you like looking for trouble?'' at the beginning of her new album, ''Mud'' (Bar/None). Her songs are full of characters on the run: at least one murderer and a half-dozen others seeking escape, sanctuary, oblivion or ''the end of the trail.'' Ms. Balint, who was the star of Jim Jarmusch's film ''Stranger Than Paradise,'' has her own film-noir sensibility as a songwriter. Her voice is knowing and almost nonchalant as she drops hints and casts sidelong glances: ''Searching for a smoke and for your eyes/Where are they?''

Backed by a handful of musicians including her producer, J. D. Foster, Ms. Balint puts arty twists into back-alley Americana. A modal Appalachian banjo is interrupted by clanky guitar distortion; funky wah-wah guitar supports sleek vibraphone and shards of dissonance; folky fingerpicking adds shadowy echoes or slips into a bossa nova; a blues vamp skips a beat.

But the cleverness is not the point. Ms. Balint slips inside her characters to project their restlessness and longing, their disorientation and cunning. Just because she's gotten them into their predicaments doesn't mean she's not fascinated by what might happen.

4 out of 5 stars

Music Album:

  1. Chronicles (Sound+Vision) [2 CD/1 DVD Combo] ~ Rush
  2. Welcome to Winners ~ Lowgold
  3. Townburg ~ Virginia Coalition
  4. Radio K.A.O.S. ~ Roger Waters
  5. Fixation Orale ~ Les Sans Culottes
  6. Encores, Legends & Paradox: A Tribute to ELP ~ Various Artists
  7. Boogie 2000 ~ Canned Heat
  8. Incense, Herbs & Oils ~ G.E. Smith & the Saturday Night Live Band
  9. Live at Nec ~ Spandau Ballet
  10. Destination ~ Eloy

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

Tribes Vibes + Scribes ~ Incognito

Battle Stations ~ Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Johnny Griffin

Most Famous Hits ~ Oscar Peterson

The Prestige Legacy, Vol. 2: The Battle of the Saxes ~ Various Artists

It Looks Like a Big Time ~ Sarah Bissonette

Hard Groove ~ The RH Factor

Liebe Ist, Vol. 1 ~ Die Flippers

Nepal Festival Music of Newar ~ Various Artists

Barbara d'Alcantara ~ Barbara DAlcantara

Made in Studio ~ Oserockets