Search - Dining Rooms :: Versioni Particolari

Very rich, soothing and intricate (real music)

Allan Stewart | Brussels | 10/12/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was looking for something by the awkwardly-named "Dining Rooms" and picked this up when I couldn't find "Tre".

This album is quality, well-balanced, real lounge music (i.e. with real instruments, real voices, and tracks with genuine personality). The jazz feel to it works well.

This is the best I've listened to in a while.

I'll definitely lookup their other work.

"

'That Bell is a Signal for Me....'

Paul Ess. | Holywell, N.Wales,UK. | 10/24/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"At one time (violins play in background) pop groups played musical instruments and sang. You knew where you were, things were straightforward.

Plain.

Now we have the 'remix', which I vaguely twig the concept of - funky studio people jazzing up the work of others.

To some it's a career - they don't do anything else.



This practise is largely confined to dance music, sporadic excursions into other genre's such as rock and pop hasn't always been successful.

The thing that baffles me is; where does the original work end and the remixing begin? When does it become the work of the re-mixer and cease to be the work of the original artist? Is a remix a cover version? The lines are blurred, but does it really matter?



It only matters if you're trying to review an album like the snub-titled 'versioni particolari' by the Dining Rooms. Essentially a work of genius - but who's genius? Who's behind the majestic beauty of 'Fluxus' for instance? Said infidel Dining Rooms or someone/something called the Cinematic Orchestra World Goes Round? Is 'Flamenco Sketches' the definitive DR deal, or has it been hijacked and subverted into something called the 'Nicola Conte New Rhumba Version'? Do we need to buy them all up?



That's another worry - ferocious capitalism! Not something that would normally concern me, but when it starts sticking it's gout-red nose into the creative process, I get a bit twitchy.

Orgasm inducing as the teeming-stringed 'Cosi Ti Amo' is, do we really need umpteen versions of it? Surely only coke-snorting record producers and samplers can answer honestly in the affirmative.

Never has an album fluctuated so violently between one and five (completely irrelevant) Amazon review stars in Cyber-Castle Ess, than 'versioni paricolari'. On results it's a straight five, but the faint odour of rip-off lingers.



No, buyer's aren't interested in the politics. They just wanna know if 'vp' is any good or not, and can you get a decent deal on it?

So many questions, and me being a very conscientious reviewer who never veers from the product, compelled to obey Amazon guidelines and protocols to the letter, must answer in my usual nub, almost surgically concise fashion;

Of course..



But when you've got the Soul Patrol Afrolicious Mix of 'la Citta Nuda', or the deranged Big Bang I'm Going Jazz Soon re-arrangement of 'Prigionieri Del Deserto', does any of it mean a jot?

Dining Rooms is hopefully one of the many in my fathers house. Heavenly.

If it were not so....."