{"id":928,"date":"2009-03-17T09:06:53","date_gmt":"2009-03-17T14:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hightwo.com\/ht\/?p=928"},"modified":"2009-03-17T09:06:53","modified_gmt":"2009-03-17T14:06:53","slug":"reviews-illuminea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-illuminea\/","title":{"rendered":"Reviews – Illuminea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author: M.J. Fine<\/a>
\nSource: Philadelphia City Paper
\nLink to this article<\/a><\/p>\n

If Illumina lulled you to sleep with 2004’s Nightlight<\/em>, it’s time to wake up and pay attention. Since their dreamy, drony debut, the seven-piece Philly-New York chamber-pop collective gained an upright bass player, lost a cellist and added a syllable to their name. And just as the single extra letter complicates Illuminea’s pronunciation, their new album, Out of Our Mouths<\/em> (High Two), gains strength by stretching a bit. It’s prettier and perkier than its predecessor, and with three singers splitting 12 tracks, there’s too much going on to snooze. Guitarist Jen Appel has the most compelling voice and the best lyrics. The brooding album opener “In Retrospect” subtly turns Appel’s influences \u2014 a little country, a little Sleater-Kinney \u2014 into something completely different. (And it gives violinist Maura DiBerardinis the first of many well-deserved spotlights.) Guitarist Marc Alan Goodman’s songs corner the artiest moments; “I Waited Too Long to Tell You How I Feel” sounds a little like R.E.M. circa Automatic for the People<\/em>, while “Build Your Own” stages a brawl between Brian Wilson, B.C. Camplight and a psychotic tuba player. Keyboardist Minna Choi grabs the disc’s top tune with “Homewrecker,” which manages to sound sweet, goofy and totally slick. Wherever it takes you, it won’t send you to sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: M.J. Fine Source: Philadelphia City Paper Link to this article If Illumina lulled you to sleep with 2004’s Nightlight, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_eb_attr":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[47,83,72,50,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","category-ht013","category-illuminea","category-releases","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","acf":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4337,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/illuminea-cd-out-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":0},"title":"Illuminea CD out now","author":"admin","date":"August 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The second album from the Philadelphia-and-New York-based indie-rock mini-orchestra Illuminea is coming at you soon. The album, Out of Our Mouths, was produced by Joel Hamilton and features 12 songs,\u00a0 varyingly sung by the band's three songwriters. Illuminea, which was recently serving as the backing band for ANTI- recording artists\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Image","src":"images\/albums\/ht013.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":524,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/illuminea-tiny-little-things\/","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":1},"title":"Illuminea – Tiny Little Things","author":"admin","date":"May 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Illuminea Tiny Little Things EP 2008 CD, MP3 Download","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ht018","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/ht018-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4342,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/ht018\/","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":2},"title":"Illuminea: Tiny Little Things EP","author":"admin","date":"May 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Illuminea\u00a0 Tiny Little Things EP Build Your Own (live) Then What (live) Homewrecker (live) Recorded live in the waning days of 2007. All Songs by Illuminea. Audio recording by Marc Alan Goodman. Video recording by Demetrius Wren. Thanks to Nicholas Krill and Eric Hora. Tracks 1 and 3 appear on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Illuminea - Tiny Little Things","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/ht018-1-200x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":930,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-illuminea-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":3},"title":"Reviews – Illuminea","author":"admin","date":"March 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Author: Doug Wallen Source: Philadelphia Weekly Doug Wallen Despite a name change from the already-taken Illumina, this Brooklyn\/Philly troupe hasn\u2019t altered its charismatic strain of super-sized orchestral pop. The new Out of Our Mouths, following 2004\u2019s Nightlight, soars to thrilling altitudes where grandiose indie rock collides with copious amounts of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1860,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/illumineas-minna-choi-collabs-with-john-vanderslice\/","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":4},"title":"Illuminea’s Minna Choi collabs with John Vanderslice","author":"Daniel Piotrowski","date":"February 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Minna Choi, of the late, great Illuminea, has been residing in San Francisco and leading an pop-music orchestra, Magik*Magik Orchestra. The orchestra is featured in full on John Vanderslice's new album White Wilderness. The album is featured now at NPR Music, where you can stream \"The Piano\" from the album.","rel":"","context":"In "Headlines"","block_context":{"text":"Headlines","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/headlines\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2011\/01\/24\/vanderslice.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":510,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/illuminea-out-of-our-mouths\/","url_meta":{"origin":928,"position":5},"title":"Illuminea – Out of Our Mouths","author":"admin","date":"August 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Illuminea Out of Our Mouths 2007 CD, Mp3 Download","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ht013","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/ht013-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}