Oct 23 2012

Ronald Jenkees – Disorganized Fun review

Earlier this month, I reviewed the self-titled first album by Ronald Jenkees. Now that I’ve listened to his second full-length studio album, Disorganized Fun, several times, I can share my thoughts on it.

Ronald Jenkees - Disorganized Fun album cover

1. Disorganized Fun – 9 / 10
Coming in full-force with his mix of disjointed synth elements and smooth beats, this first track lives up nicely to its title. Jenkees played around a lot with pitch bending, and it worked really well with his choices of sounds. In the middle of the track, there’s a great bridge followed by a keyboard solo. Not only does the style live up to the title of the track, but it serves as a great start to his second full-length album.

2. Fifteen Fifty – 8 / 10
Unlike the previous song, this one is a bit more fluid. As such, however, it doesn’t have as much of a stylistic edge, and I found it to drag a bit in spots. There is a neat bass line that comes in around 1’15” or so, but unfortunately, it doesn’t carry through the rest of the tune. Whilst not a bad song at all, it just doesn’t have the energy of its predecessor (even with the wild solo at the very end).

3. Guitar Sound – 10 / 10
It’s really impressive to me that Jenkees is able to emulate an 80s-style guitar sound as well as he does. The opening portion of this track sounds a lot like some of Eric Johnson’s work, especially in the vein of Cliffs of Dover. There are some great hard-hitting riffs in there that, when coupled with the up-tempo beats and breakdown/variety of the bridge, make for a fantastic track all around! Even at just over 7 minutes, the song doesn’t drag at all.

4. Synth One – 6 / 10
This song has a little stronger emphasis on the drums and beats than the previous tracks, and as such, they stand out more prominently than do some of the synth parts. There are a lot of sound effects in this track that have an old NES feel to them, which is a bit nostalgic. However, I don’t really find this to be one of the stronger songs on the album.

5. Throwing Fire – 8 / 10
I stand corrected about the throwback to old Nintendo games, as this song starts out in a way that almost makes me feel like I just put in the cartridge and fired up Blaster Master. Unlike the former track, however, Throwing Fire has a really upbeat and lively feel to it. There are a couple parts around the 2-minute mark, though, where it seems like Jenkees stumbles a bit on the notes, but they add a nice human element.

6. Minimal MC – 8 / 10
On this track, Jenkees plays a lot with throwing sounds back and forth between the left and right stereo channels, which makes for a very cool effect whilst listening on headphones. Significantly more subdued, and containing a lot fewer effects than some of the previous tracks, Minimal MC adheres to its name. After the halfway mark, there are some great dramatic elements and a little bit of an Asian influence.

7. Stay Crunchy – 10 / 10
Stay Crunchy was actually the song that prompted me to buy both of his albums after I originally heard it on Pandora. I think that it is an incredible mix of funky beats and rhythm, great synth work, and some techno/club elements. This is my clear favourite on the album (though that could be related to the Serial Position Preference Effect)!

8. Inverted Mean – 8 / 10
With the intro of this track, I expected someone like Jay-Z to come in with some dramatic near-spoken-word lyrics; it just presents a very theatrical sound right from the start. This song also has a stronger hip-hop feel than many of the others, but it is a nice way to increase the dynamic nature of the album. My favourite part of the piece come in around the 3’15” mark with this great piano solo which fades out nicely.

9. Outer Space – 8 / 10
A lot stronger emphasis on synth sounds and chaotic melody than the previous track, Outer Space combines techno and dance beats with sci-fi effects. Again, tracks like these really highlight the versatility of his musical vision. Though it isn’t the most appealing track to my ears, this track showcases technical aptitude within the genre.

10. Let’s Ride (rap) – 6 / 10
As with the raps on his previous album, this one is fairly entertaining, regardless of whether or not the technical expertise is as high as his non-rap tracks. The reference to passing the DQ is fairly funny as well.

11. It’s Gettin Rowdy (rap) – 6 / 10
For some reason, this rap makes me think of Regulate by Warren G, but with a little bit of a silly element to it. Ahhh, the delusions of grandeur…

That makes for a total of 87 / 110 or ~79%. That comes out to a very strong 8 stars:

Filled starFilled starFilled starFilled starFilled starFilled starFilled starFilled starUnfilled starUnfilled star

Cheers,
Zach

Oct 22 2012

Ernesto’s Wine Bar, Saint Louis, MO

Several months back, there was a Groupon for a restaurant named Ernesto’s Wine Bar in Saint Louis, MO. This restaurant and bar is located in the Benton Park neighbourhood, which is just off of the 55 motorway near the Anheuser-Busch brewery.

Though their food menu isn’t very extensive–consisting of primarily some appetisers, flatbreads, salads, and a couple larger plates–the food was fairly tasty for the price. We started with the House Chips (which were actually crisps, not chips), and they were quite nice. They were cut from Russet potatoes, and were lightly coated in truffle oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano. As I’m highly allergic to cheese, I had to be careful, but it wasn’t all that big of a deal to avoid the cheese. For dinner, I had grilled chicken and vegetable linguine, which was nice. The sauce was a bit thick for my liking, but it was easy enough to simply use less of it. She had the fancied-up grilled cheese, which was apparently quite good (for obvious reasons, I couldn’t try it). For our wine offering, we went with a 2010 Pinot Grigio from Lagaria. Though overpriced for the vintage, it nicely complemented our entrées.

The best part, in my opinion, was neither the food nor the wine, though. Instead, the atmosphere is what made the evening fantastic. It was a lightly cool night, and we were sitting out on the back patio near the fireplace. The heat from the fire was just enough to take the chill out of the air, but not so hot as to be uncomfortable. The service was a bit slow, but that was to be expected on a Friday evening, and sitting out enjoying the light breeze made time pass quickly.

Overall, Ernesto’s is a nice change of pace from the typical dinner, but the cost seems to be out of alignment with the quality of the food and drink. That being said, it isn’t so outrageously off-balanced as to be off-putting. I would like to go back another time to try some of the flatbreads and another bottle (but this time, of a rustic red).

Cheers,
Zach

Oct 19 2012

DisneyNature – Crimson Wing review

Not all that long ago, I reviewed African Cats from DisneyNature. Around the same time that I watched that film on Blu-Ray, I also watched Crimson Wing.

DisneyNature - Crimson Wing

Crimson Wing traces that fascinating story of the life cycle of the flamingo. In particular, the documentary follows the migration surrounding Lake Natron in Tanzania, Africa. It details the courtship of adult flamingos, the birth of their offspring, and many of the struggles which the birds must endure to sustain life in a rather hostile environment.

Unlike African Cats, this film didn’t have a stunning colour palette that really came to life on Blu-Ray. Instead, the most prominent colour spread was comprised of whites, greys, and some blues (not as much crimson as I would have thought). I don’t believe that this was the fault of a bad transfer to Blu-Ray, but rather, the somewhat washed look of the environment in which the film was shot. Coupled with the slightly disappointing visuals, the narrator had very little vocal and tonal fluctuation, which made the presentation a little dull and monotonous. Also, the balance between information delivery and entertainment was skewed toward the former. Not that facts are bad in a documentary, but it seemed to lack a lot of the charisma of other DisneyNature films. To make matters worse, I didn’t come away from this one knowing much more about flamingos than I did before I started watching.

Overall, though it wasn’t awful, it was certainly not my favourite of the DisneyNature series. However, it is still worth a watch, especially if you are a nature lover.

Filled starFilled starFilled starFilled starFilled starFilled starUnfilled starUnfilled starUnfilled starUnfilled star

Cheers,
Zach