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This music is like poetry for the soul! I personally love the obscurity of the artist because it makes everything more mysterious, but the music is so enticing I'm sure he'll be all over the pop-tart magazines by this time next year.
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Into early '80s wave? This is THE must-have album! I bought this album last October 2001 and still I keep on playing the CD. It's just so cool and soothing listening to the songs. My favorites include "Deep", "Never", "Don't Say Goodbye, Say Goodnight", "You Are The One" and "Everything Turns".
...unfortunately (or fortunately?), "Deep" got MASSIVE AIRPLAY here in the Philippines...but MTV Asia don't have it in their playlist... well, it's their loss!
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I'm from the Philippines, and in our part of the world, Binocular is quite popular, believe it or not. The first song that came out was "Deep" and it was an almost-instant hit! The song came out here around September 2001. The next release was "Everything Turns" but it wasn't as popular as the first. Their latest release here was "Don't Say Goodbye, Say Goodnight", released early 2002, and this one was better received than "Everything Turns".
Stand-outs in the album include the three formentioned songs, plus "You", "Never", "You Were The One" and "Fire Burns Bright".
This is A DEFINITE MUST-BUY for those into alternative, or for those who enjoyed the "New Wave" songs of the '80s.
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.... The entire album flows together so well, as if it were a hand crafted Ferrari. The last song on the CD is by far the best song written of the year in my book. Binocular is NOT a boy band. He's an extremely talented individual who can weave music like silk. Truly an amazing disk. Try it out, you won't be disappointed.
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I somewhat unintentionally stumbled across this cd. I gave it a listen, and I was hooked. To be honest, it sort of scared me that I was hooked so swiftly. I hadn't heard of Binocular before, and I didn't really know what market it was that he was/is after. SO, the boy-band-hating side of me sort of said, "do you really want this, not knowing where it's headed?" A piece of me feared that this cd would be bought by someone who would also buy Backstreet Boys or Spice Girls.
Then, I continued listening to it, and it was/is simply too dam* good to pass up. The songs are absolutely beautiful. Some are forlorn/melancholic type songs, others are totally uplifting. Musically, he sounds a little like Savage Garden, or, if anyone remembers them, When In Rome (of "The Promise" fame). However, this guy writes and records all his own music, and he plays all the instruments. This is truly a one-man show.
Given the fact that he has chosen to go with the enigmatic name "Binocular," I'm suspecting he isn't after the mass-market, teeny-bopper, boy-band-crazed world of sugar-coated, MTV thrill of the week garbage. Otherwise, I'm sure he would have opted for the name Nick G. (or Justin, Blake, Mikey, Johnny, etc), and I know he wouldn't have written, recorded, played and produced the ENTIRE album himself in his NYC apartment. So, I feel pretty dam* secure owning this cd and having it my collection years from now.
Whatever your tastes, this is truly beautifully crafted, well written and well played music. It is a cd that, very unusually, can be played in its entirety, without having to skip certain tracks. Every song on this cd is awesome.
To give you a little more about the gist of it, he's on the Maverick label, which is what Madonna has been putting her stuff out on in recent years. Given that, if you know Madonna's recent sound (the techno-ey/synthed stuff underlying her music by the likes of William Orbit and Mirwais productions), expect that here too. Also, the cd was mixed by Mark Saunders who, for years now, has been doing stuff with Erasure and Depeche Mode. So there too, expect that highly-synthed keyboard sound underlying the rest of the music. But, having said all that, please understand that this isn't a techno-ey cd. Note I stated UNDERLYING. The most prominent feature of the cd is beautiful acoustic guitar and amazing vocals.
You will not regret getting this cd. Come what may for this guy's future (huge super-star sellout, or 102nd avenue street bum), the music (and that's really what it's all about, not image), is amazing, beautiful, and touching from start to finish. Period.
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