Not too long ago I made a comment about a song vs. composed music and someone said they didn’t know what I meant between the difference of them. Well, here’s a good example of what I was meaning with River Guerguerian’s album Grooves for Odd Times. On this album, River Guerguerian has composed all his songs where it’s just music without any lyrics being sung. It’s one of those splitting hairs deal where with lyrics or without are both songs, both are composed, and both are music, but when I would tell someone to listen to River Guerguerian I would say listen to this music, not listen to this song.

At any rate, Grooves for Odd Times is composed music that features sounds that I wasn’t expecting to be hearing. In fact I had no idea who this guy was so had no expectations going into the album, which I think allowed me to enjoy it a little bit more than if I had. With not knowing what I was going to get into or having heard his music before I was going into each song with this new experience. The sounds being used on this album are ones that I wouldn’t at times think would work together but they do here. I was particularly fond of the drums that are used though the odd sounds being put in did give for a fresh sound to be listening to. In fact this is one reason I liked this album so much, it has a fresh sound to it, one that changes with each song and doesn’t get stale.

One of the sounds that I wasn’t expecting is this deep vibrating sound that would go up and down in pitch but continuing to stay in the low tenure. Not sure what makes the sound but it’s got that wild, out in the dessert dancing around a huge fire, type sound to it. It’s simple, rhythmic sound with the drums don’t have the intense energy as it actually gives out. This whole album is that way, music that is being played with this low key sound and beat yet it has so much energy in it. I actually listened to this album right at 5 times in a row yesterday and another 3 times today and didn’t get tired of listening to it all. It made good music for when all I was doing was sitting down to listen to the music while a few times I had it playing while I played a game, both times I enjoyed what I was hearing. The songs are well composed making them good for listening to when wanting to listen to something or when just needing some background noise.