01 August 2006

El Jezel

Simply by chance, I found myself listening (last night) to El Jezel's album Elements Of Being Put Together while watching Winged Migration. You're being told this because it was a real Dark Side of Oz moment. Each beat seemingly synchronized perfectly with every flap of wings that appeared on screen. Right when the song "Sleep" came on, birds were sleeping! A few separate moments when predators attacked there were appropriately matching swells in the music and when the song "Michigan" was playing, I swear the birds were flying over some Great Lakes state.

I could tell you how their songs are rooted in early '90s indie music and are reminiscent of Mogwai, and of Frente!/Mazzy Star (vocally I mean) at the same time, but I actually like this Winged Migration thing. The real kicker was how perfectly the music of El Jezel seemed to match the tone of the film. The variety of scenes and settings...of high speed action and slow-motion, of soaring and gliding and beauty, horror, pain, and joy...there is such variety and goodness within El Jezel's album Elements Of Being Put Together just as there is in Winged Migration. Now fly. Fly little birdy...fly far far away and buy their album or see them live. At least listen to the tracks below.

Listen:
“Oleta”
“Sleep”

Visit El Jezel on MySpace.

Come out and see them tonight at Beg Yr Pardon #5 @ The Delancey or buy Elements Of Being Put Together by going HERE.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

gorgeous!

jess said...

Matt, we want to thank you for the great review and are very excited for the show tonight...we'll see you there! Marta, loves ya. Taylor, thanks! Do we know ya? We live out in Queens too, I hope you come out to a show so we can hang!

Anonymous said...

holy shit! this band was fantastic last nice! that cure song at the end - brilliant.