Customer Reviews:
  Reality Check March 2, 2007
Ok, Chris and Jen's close pals or stalker-types have written long-winded sword-swallowing reviews of this album but it's time for the truth. The album is not very good. I gave it 3 stars on artistic merit alone and the fact that Chris Gunst is a terrific person (I know nothing of Jen but I'm sure she's wonderful). Not a single song will slay you in the way B-Sparks songs like "Canyon Ride" or "Let it Run" may. In fact, you don't even get a song as good as Strictly Ballroom's "A Picture". I am sure some will say I am nude and don't "get it" but except for a few tunes here (Sure, Bert being the best) this is a serious disappointment for me. Then again, I doubt they had me in mind during these sessions.
 By JimiC April 4, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've tried to escape it. I've hidden my poetry books. I've tried not to talk to people who look intelligent and sensitive. I've sublimated my emotions under oceans of beer. I've turned my amp up to 11. But nothing has worked. The twee will not be denied.
I like to rock. I live to rock. I wanna rock. (Insert obvious and annoying Twisted Sister joke here.) It's getting harder to do it, though. At least bands like Mystic Chords of Memory make it easier to live with accept that fact.
It's Psychedelic. It's Twee. It's Twee-chedelic. There, I just invented a new genre for the Mystic Chords of Memory. All the requisite gentle waves of sound are here: the lovely vocal harmonies, the esoteric additional instrumentation (melodica, autoharp, harp, etc).
All the twee bases are covered, but the Chords (I call them "the Chords" because typing the Mystic Chords of Memory over and over gets really annoying...) place their own stamp on the genre by sprinkling in some classic psychedelia - going on strange instrumental flights of fancy (nice violin solo on "Golden Dome"), writing songs about lobsters ("Like a Lobster"), and mixing "broken psychedelic" vocals (think Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev) with beautiful boy/girl harmonies (I'm always a sucker for those).
They sound like a Rough Trade band (well, they are a Rough Trade band), but they also sound like they'd be very comfortable hanging with the Elephant 6 guys. Not that those worlds are a million miles removed from one another to begin with... but you get the picture. Highlights: the ascending vocal line ("...we are tuning forks...") in "Open End", the waltz-time weird sounds of "Mongo and Arky," the almost-funky drum "Soul Through the Bullet Hole."
I feel like I should say more (and lordy knows I love to hear the sound of my own, er, typing...), but I'm just going to sit here and enjoy listening to this one. You should, too.
C'mon, Take A Trip - It's Good For You September 18, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
While California's psychedelia-meets-country maestros, the Beachwood Sparks have sadly ceased to be, Chris Gunst has opened up another outlet for his music with Mystic Chords Of Memory.
Although the band name comes from a line in Abraham Lincoln's 1861 inauguration address, the trippy connotation is also appropriate, albeit in a more relaxed, organic way than the Gram Parsons/Byrds musings of the Beachwood Sparks. Based in Santa Cruz, California, Gunst and his girlfriend, Jen Cohen, (who also plays in Aisler's Set), have made the sort of album that's just begging for a mind-altering afternoon under the willow trees on a riverbank - plenty of reverb on the guitars, dreamy, drifting vocal tracks and, refecting an affection for the music of Ravi Shankar and Alice Coltrane, a scattering of delicious instrumentals. And great song titles, too: `Sure, Bert'; `Like A Lobster'; `Eyes On Sides Of Heads'; `Pi And A Bee'.
Gunst and Cohen both provide vocals and guitar work, alongside a myriad of other instrumentation, with extra input from Ben Knight, (Beachwood Sparks and the Tyde), helping out on guitar and vocals, and Scott Coffey, (the Tyde), on violin. Much of what makes this such a good album is Gunst knowing when to leave spaces within the arrangements - `Soul Through The Bullet Hole' owes as much to the listener filling, (or falling), in through the musical holes as what is coming through the speakers.
Mystic Chords Of Memory is a glorious little patch of mid-winter summery sunshine.
Kim Porter, Forte Magazine, Australia
Shhhhhhh.... it's beautiful. June 23, 2004
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Ultra-blissed out sundrop smiles from Chris Gunst and Jen Cohen. Often times beatless and formless, the songs weave a wispy truly original vision of psychedelic California cosmic stoner folk. You'll get a few verses and usually things will naturally and organically break down to reverbed out electric guitar, washes of synth and electric piano and harp, droning violin and splashes of cymbals. I'd compare this to the prettiest parts of the Beachwood Sparks "Make The Cowboy Robots Cry" EP, especially the end of Hibernation. What Sonic Youth is NYC, and Spacemen 3 were to London, Mystic Chords of Memory are to the foggy canyons around Santa Cruz. A fairytale of giant trees, cozy cabins, and girls and boys who love to love.
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