The Juliet Letters and The Gorey End

You know what i did? I accidentally crisscrossed (jump, jump, i missed the bus 'cause it's hard to run in backwards pants) the Kronos and Brodsky quartets in my review of Black Angels. I hid my blunder on the blog, but it's still sitting right there in the pdf of A Year In The Life... for your eyes and brain to gawk at. Honest explanation for an honest mistake, because the 40 something albums of Kronos involve all kinds of collaborations and even i can't tackle that fondant covered football theme wedding cake. See what i did there? Tackle, football? Bottle's back everybody, put on your hip waders (again with the tackle jokes, did somebody spike my not particularly strong rum and punch?). Whatsamawhosits aside, let's make it up to Declan and the Brods by comparing the two albums side by side.


I'm not about to do a head to head/which is better review, because both of these albums are fantastically amazing in their own special way. Apples vs. Beef Stroganoff. I'll simply say that they are very experimental in terms of string quartets accompanying things that no other string quartet would even dream of doing. Remember when Apocalyptica was just a couple Finnish cellists playing Metallica covers? That's the kind of crazy thing we're talking about.


First up, the maligned by me Brodsky Quartet and their collaboration with Elvis Costello, The Juliet Letters. That title comes from the weirdly Italian tradition of writing letters to the actual character from whatever play that guy wrote. They all contributed to writing actual letters from various viewpoints, junk mail, bathroom graffiti, love letters, confessions, etc. I think Mr. MacManus sums it up best as not in any way being a "crossover" album. It is completely unique and one of my favorite albums of all time. Definitely go check it out.


The other album isn't really a "crossover" album either. I say that because both Tiger Lillies and Kronos built their careers doing, pardon my Portugese, weird shit. Edward Gorey loved them so much that he literally sent them a cardboard box full of his unpublished writings and said "hey, weirdos, make an album from this." They did. He even drew the artwork for it.  Not gonna lie, there's a whole lot of vaudevillian  falsetto on this album and you might need to adjust your diet accordingly going into it (snails, and salmon mousse, and anything else that might give you an urge to lie down and die), but if you want to hear an album that Edward Gorey himself asked Martyn Jacques to make but died before he could hear, then pony up for the repub cause you can't have mine.

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