As I can't afford this 6 CD set at the moment, I wonder if any of you would be willing to write an unbiased review as possible about what I am currently missing?
Is it a must have, or one for completists only.?
My Bill Nelson tastes are inclined towards, Fancy Planets, Dynamos and Tremolos, A New Northern Dream, Adventures of Sailor Bill...more melodic song based stuff and shorter almost surf twangy tunes I guess.
I must ask you to say if you feel that the sampled voices are annoying! That is one aspect that does spoil some perfectly nice instrumentals for me.
Could you also give me pointers about Mixed Up Kid too, if you have time.
Thanks.
Itโs all new music. Lots of great songs and many special moments. A must have.
The above poster is confused about this opus, it is definitely not 'mostly instrumentals'. Discs 1,2,3 and 5 are roughly 2-1 ratio of songs over instrumentals. That ratio increase to 3-2 for disc 4 and disc 6 is roughly 1-1. He may be confused but the long intro's to some of the songs, the long outro's to others and also long musical interludes between the lyrics on others.
It is a Bill Nelson opus and to my mind is better than Noise Candy. There are lots of interesting guitars, keyboards, drumming, percussive sounds and even some bass in there. The lyrics, as usual, are interesting as well, but then they usually are where Bill is involved. A lot of the lyrics are reflective of Bill's past.
As far as found sounds are involved there is only the one track, "The Infernal Machine", a particularly enjoyable instrumental, that exhibits that particular trait of Bill's. I have had the set for about three months now and listened to all of the discs a lot. I consider it a valuable part of my Bill collection but then again I have most of what he has put out and have only found one CD not to my taste's.
Objective observations: The recent 2020s material made on the Cubase software rather than the Mackie hardware recorder all has a particular sound. It also has certain sonic tricks and effects that weren't there before. Guitar-wise, the tones still have some of the audio fingerprints of the Fractal Audio Axe-FX 2 heard on albums on the latter half of the 2010s. Vocal samples are not evident.
Subjective observations: It's worth it. Musically, it's still Bill. The quality of the performance and production is ace. The pieces are mostly instrumentals. In the entire set, there are only about two or three songs that have a lyric that isn't quite up to parโa big jump compared to certain vocal albums from the 2010s. Start with Mixed-Up Kid or even New Vibrato Wonderland to get a feel for the sound world he's operating in right now. If you like either one, you must get the box set. If you're indifferent to the music, maybe it's not for you.
Melodic hooks and riffs galore, but not really that kind of album - or rather that seems the tip of the iceberg. More a long-term appreciation masterwork. Quality of songs off-the-scale, for me. Guitar, too - just unbelievably good the way it all organically fits the songs, so it seems there aren't any "solos" (but if you extracted them from the context of the songs, they'd be the world's greatest solos!). The details/vocals/atmospheres - so much to appreciate here. Some of the instrumentals I think are Bill's best ever pieces. I have several new albums on hand from different & diverse artists, but I keep returning to My Private Cosmos (and Mixed Up Kid). Hugely enjoying making my way through these discs...
Looks like I missed the word "unbiased" in your request, Major! ๐๐ Seriously, though, I think you're unlikely to get a review of a 6-CD set that's worth a damn from someone who fits that criterion.
For what it's worth, there is no preponderance of sampled voices that I've noticed on this CD set. Have you tried listening to the samples? There's a good long selection available.