Track Listing

1. Family Portrait
2. Egon & Gertie
3. First Self-Portrait Series
4. Mime Van Osen
5. Second Self-Portrait Series
6. Wally, Egon, & Models in the Studio
7. Promenade
8. Third Self-Portrait Series
9. Egon, Edith & Wally Meet
10. Egon & Wally Embrace & Say Fareewell
11. Egon & Edith
12. Second Family Portrait

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23364 in Music
• Released on: 2005-06-15
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .11 pounds

From Amazon.com
Originally performed as a live accompaniment for a 1995 theater-dance production about the life of painter Egon Schiele, this is the both the exception to the Rachel's rule and their defining moment. Though they are normally a three-headed, multiperson new-music and classical ensemble centered around Jason Noble (ex-Rodan), Christian Frederickson, and Rachel Grimes, this suite was written entirely by Grimes and performed by Grimes (on piano), Frederickson (viola), and cellist Wendy Doyle. As always, the music (not to mention the letter-pressed packaging) is spellbinding; the fact that this is classical music by--and for--people who grew up on indie rock in no way diminishes it, nor does it make the music too low-brow for those with a classical background. For a more complete picture of what the entire Rachel's ensemble is capable of, both Handwriting and The Sea and the Bells are recommended. --Randy Silver

Customer Reviews

Very,very fine!
It just has nothing to do with post-rock or the groups like EXPLOSION IN THE SKY,MOGWAI or GODSPEED YOUR BLACK EMPEROR.I would recommend to Amazon.com to put it together with THE PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA,which is stylistically similar to RACHEL'S music.Great music!

austrian malcontents in border regions
I went to the Egon Shiele Museum in Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic recently and they had this video monitor constantly showing a small biographical film of him produced in the early eighties and the music was terrible. It was like video-synth-production-type music. I kept wishing it was the Rachel's music playing instead.

chamber music
A very, very "traditional" album from the Rachel's. On the upside, the tempered pace and quiet arrangements make for an album that plays like the slow parts of a Brahms. There is an (almost self-conscious) filter on this album that keeps things at a rather "ambient" pace, although there are a few flashes.

On the downside, the ambient pacing is probably the most "experimental" aspect of this album. There is not much electronica or sampling that the Rachel's have proved themselves so good at in their other albums. If you're not in the right mood, the rather minimal tonal range -- mostly same-key, mostly returning -- might annoy.

Probably the album diametrically opposite to Systems/Layers.