Editorial Reviews Music Review:
Music Review
Repertoire for Women's Voices Vol. 4
Nu Yorica! Culture Clash in New York City
Sweet Charity (2005 Broadway Revival Cast) [Cast Recording] [Extra tracks]
Romantic Evening Music for Guitar
Amazon.com
One can see a lot from a secluded bedroom, even with the blinds closed. That's the paradox at the heart of the bleak, beautiful recordings F.M. Cornog alter-ego East River Pipe has conjured up in the confines of his Queens apartment for a decade. And while his determinedly singular methods have garnered that most left-handed of complimentary alt.rock tags--"lo-fi"-- there's a beautiful, understated opulence to every track here, tribute to Cornog's laconic pop sense and growing prowess with his faithful mini-studio. More importantly, Pipe's unique interior vista encompasses considerably more than his own hard-knocks résumé, from puzzled meditations on the old-cash class ("Where Does All the Money Go?," "Millionaires of Doubt") to litanies of free-floating dysfunction ("Monumental Freaks") and romantic deconstructions ("I Won't Dream About the Girl," "Girl On the Freeway"). Yet his troubled past can't help but deepen the shadows of "The Long Black Cloud," a nigh-perfect lament that sounds like it's been in permanent rotation on a jukebox in some dank, Lynchian roadhouse, or the detached, chilling impressionism of "I Bought a Gun in Irvington" and fade-away fatalism of the closing "It's Always Been This Way." In an age of oppressive pre-fab pop conformity, Cornog's a bracing reminder of the potential of a single, determined heart-- even when it doesn't get out much. --Jerry McCulley