Search - Uncle Bonsai :: The Inessential Uncle Bonsai

Most of the best of Bonsai

Bradford Daniels | Redmond, WA | 10/25/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD includes most of the songs from "Boys Want Sex in the Morning", which was my absolute favorite album for many years. There are also some songs from "Lonely Grain of Corn", and I believe these represent the only live recordings of those songs available. It is good to find these songs finally available live, since the original "Lonely Grain of Corn" was really overproduced, with extraneous French horns and the like.
The renditions of the songs from "Boys Want Sex in the Morning" are almost-but-not-quite as good as the originals. There are a few places where the lyrics are not the same as in the original (niggling things like the wrong pronoun or verb tense - yes, I know I'm way too picky) which detracted somewhat from otherwise flawless performances. It's easy to look past that, though, because the music and the voices are just so beautiful.
Songs like "Isaac's Lament" manage to be extremely funny while retaining a poignant quality that is rare in modern music. The shatteringly beautiful "Silent Night", (the story of a woman going home after her father died), never fails to bring tears to my eyes (and both my parents are still alive). Both the lyrics and the simple melodies of Uncle Bonsai's music always manage to touch me on a deep level I rarely experience in music.
Apart from the outstanding songwriting, one of the key elements to Uncle Bonsai's sound is the voice of Andrew Ratshin. For a while, I thought the group consisted of 3 women (and wondered why there was a picture of a man and two women on the cover of "Boys"). Then I realized that the guitar player (Ratshin) was a man with a very high voice (he goes beyond tenor and into the soprano range). Once you realize that fact, their sound becomes even more remarkable.
The best solo example of Ratshin's voice on this album (or perhaps on any of their albums) is the song "Heartache", which is a wonderful Blues solo that just couldn't be sung as well by anyone else."

The best of "groups that never made it big but should have"

Bradford Daniels | 02/13/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD doesn't do them justice...to really appreciate Uncle Bonsai, you would need to get the vinyl of "A Lonely Grain of Corn", but this is better than nothing. Great melodies/harmonies and incredibly clever lyrics make their music stand out...a cross between They Might Have Been Giants and The Roches with a little bit of a twist. A very unique group."

Great fun, forgotten gem of the past

Bradford Daniels | 10/26/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It is amazing that so few people have heard of U.B. Terrific stuff, and I've been sharing this cd with friends. Ranging from LOL funny ("Penis Envy") to super sad ("Silent Night"), this cd is bizzare, but a long-time personal favorite of mine."