Search - Yoko Ono, Ima :: Rising Mixed

Yoko By Numbers

yokoboy@hotmail.com | Northern California, USA | 07/26/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In all honesty, I think the reason I don't particularly care for this one is due to the fact that is isn't a TRUE Yoko Ono album, but a representation of Yoko's music as seen through the eyes of other artists. For the most part, the tracks from 'Rising' seem to have lost the playfulness featured in their original forms.The one exception is in the Ween remix of "Ask The Dragon" which adds somewhat of a comedic twist portraying Yoko as sort of a minister preaching about asking the members of the animal kingdom why they do what they do (don't know, I'm just doing it), while her congregation mutters "I understand, I understand".The Cibo Matto remix of "Talking To The Universe" is a cheap attempt at trying to pass Yoko off as the Japanese Dr. Dre, possibly. This doesn't work at all! If the girls had covered the song, maybe it would have been easier to pull it off as sort of a bubblegum hip hop, but really, the song was fine as it appeared in it's original form. That in mind, don't even get me started on Tricky's "Where Do We Go From Here" or Thurston Moore's "Rising". The new track, "Franklin Summer" showcases Yoko in more of a free-form style similar to her early Plastic Ono Band Days.The most impressive of the cuts on this compilation has to be the ABA Allstars "The Source", a musical collage featuring snippets of Yoko's music, mostly from her 'Fly' era recordings. Now THIS is a true tribute to the artist, and shows that Adam Yausch and Co. have really done their homework in Onoism 101.The real noteworthy material on this disc lies in the enhanced portion. This features a mini-bio of the artist and her work, and also features many installations from 'Grapefruit', Yoko's book of instruction originally released in the early 60's and updated for publishing in the early 70's. Along with all of this is the video for the song "New York Woman" taken from the 'Rising' album as well as the soundtrack of the movie "Somewhere In The City"."

Who said that Yoko Ono doesn't know music?

yokoboy@hotmail.com | 08/16/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"this album surprised me. I didnt like Yoko's music at all, but this album completely changed my mind. Whether her other albums are too weird or not, or they are not your taste, you can listen to this one. maybe her music is not for majority, but it's worth trying. you should find out Yoko can do music or not yourself. and I garantee you will be surprised like me. she can. * I love her pictures and poems in her CD, enjoy!"

Confuse yr. Idols: A Review of Rising Mixes

Slanted and Recanted | Plainsboro, New Jersey | 08/02/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"You might think that the reason to buy this CD is if you really love Yoko or you had a special fondness for Rising. Personally, Rising was worth all of the four dollars I got it for, and Rising Mixes was worth all of the three dollars that I got that for. That being said, this is neither a CD for fans of Rising or Yoko. This is primarily a CD for people who like remixes. Personally, unless the remixer is doing their own thing (like Fatboy Slim does in my opinion) then the track comes off as a sad copy of the original. This is obviously better than a standard remix album because I bought it and I would not buy a standard remix album. Of course I was feeling flush and it was only three dollars used here.

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Out of the six tracks here, four are remixes and they are all bad. Talking to the Universe (Cibo Matto Remix) sounds like CM felt that they wanted to do something "difficult" and so they went on board. Ask the Dragon (Ween Remix) is like a standard remix (the instrumentals are a little more repetitive and dull) but with the standard Ween weirdness...any band that has a 25 minute song called "Poopyship Destroyer" can't be that dull. Where do we go from Here (Tricky Remix) is the worst of the bad remixes (none of these are particularly enlightening), Tricky seems to be over his head here. He just ends up being obsessed with the really weird chorus of the song, which probably has too much profanity to rewrite here, making some convoluted play on words where he's the killer and not the cats. Since Yoko gives Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth) a freaking orgasm, we would expect it to be really highbrow and pretentious and it is. He brings in literally the entire noise community in to create fill for this sparse remix. The odd effect it has though is that since he puts the harsh noise right before one of her patented yelps, it comes across as that Thurston is torturing Yoko.

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I don't know what The Source (ABA Allstars) is supposed to be, but I know one thing it's not: entertaining. For a track with so much talent (half of the Beastie Boys, Yuka Honda, Sean Lennon, and Yoko Ono, this is stupid. Oh well.

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The last track is Franklin Summer which is exactly a half hour long. With sparse bongos and acoustic guitar and soft moaning, it is a classic ambient track and like all ambient music, it's kinda dull. The only reason I would listen to this is if I was in an epic song kind-of mood. Half Japanese's "Heaven Sent" (an hour) and Morton Feldman's "String Quartet II" (five to six hours) are good examples of this. It's not something that I'll probably listen to again, but I'm glad I got to hear it, because there are a lot of names on this record."