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A CD that catches your attention, May 9, 2002
Reviewer: Rick Davis from USA
On May 5, Kim Buchanan had her CD release party for her new CD,
"Illusions". My wife and I have been following Kim and Jubal's
performances for a couple of years now, and the performance that night
was one not to be missed. So when I finally got a chance to sit down and
listen to her new CD, I was looking forward to seeing what she had done
with it. It is no illusion that it is a great CD! I am very impressed
with the quality of it - both music and recording quality.
The arrangements are well done and, of course,
Kim (lead vocals, guitar), Jubal (percussion), Robin (bass and bg
vocals), and Michael (violin and guitar) are each excellent musicians in
their own right. But together, they are more than the sum of the parts.
The music itself shows that Kim pours a lot of
heart and soul into her writing and performance. I was in a discussion
recently where a friend, who is an excellent fiddle player, was
describing the playing ability of a professional hammered dulcimer
player she and I both know. Her comment was that he "played
well" - he got all the notes and timing right. Then she went on to
say that there is such a thing as "playing well", but there is
also such a thing as playing with passion and heart. She thought the
dulcimer player played well. Kim writes and sings and plays well, but
she goes beyond that - she writes, sings and plays with passion and with
heart, and that is what makes the music on this CD worth hearing - more
than once.
But to leave it there would be to leave out the
rest of the equation - the engineering and the production. Kim
co-produced this CD with Jubal, and engineered and recorded it herself
in her home studio. Being a musician myself, and being interested in
recording, I was eager to hear what the quality of this DIY project was.
One of the things I noticed was the mixing of the percussion and guitar
in one piece to get a tolling bell sound. It was very nicely done - the
type of thing I hope to be able to do when my time to record comes. Kim
and Jubal did a great job producing this CD, and she did a great job
engineering and recording it.
OK, so I'm using the word great a lot, but it's
because this is one of the best CDs I've heard in a while! I listen to a
lot of folk music, American, Celtic, Scandinavian, and have listened in
the past more to Rock, Jazz, and Blues. Every once in a while, there
comes along a CD that catches your attention for it's sheer elegance of
production and performance and content. For me, this is one of those
CDs.
Illusions
Rocks the Triangle, May 9, 2002
Reviewer: Alan R. Light from Chapel Hill, NC United States
Illusions is the greatly anticipated second release by Kim Buchanan, one
of the most popular recording artist in the Triangle area. From the
title track to the reprise at the end, the music is written and arranged
in a style that just cannot be attached to existing genre's. The best
description is Rock with a folk edge, or maybe vice versa! The
concentration here is on music with memorable melodies and oh, that
voice! It's strong, sweet and perfect at the same time! A number of the
tracks, including the title track, "Illusions" are beautiful
in the pictures they paint with both the melodies and the lyrics, but
others like See Me and High Anxiety will throw you back in your seat.
Then their's the hilarious "Dress Code" taken directly from
the dress code at a local middle school! What a great piece of satire of
our modern hypocrisy!! You must listen to this and play the whole thing
over and over!!
