Stereo Love

Starting off Violin Diva is a personal favorite mines from Sarina, Our Love (You Drive Me Crazy). It’s the perfect introduction to the album as it really shows of her jazzy sound. The piece is chaotic, with crazy piano and who knows what the hell that stuff is in the background is. However, Sarina’s violin playing is excellent. She plays very quickly with precision, and I quite like the tone of her violin that sound more like that of a sax (or some other brass instrument). Plus, it’s pure genius when she plays those amazing EXTREMELY high notes without making it so ear piercing that no one wants to listen to it. @_@ Oh, by the way, aside from this song being catchy (although a bit repetitive) I never knew a black man (or a hip hop Asian, which is really awkward) could think of so many adjectives to describe her. “From Boston to Tokyo. Not just classical, as this funkadelic jazzmatic jslk;dfjslk;jflksjdlfk”. It’s genius. XD

At first, I was getting ready to give up on Groove Addiction because I just found it too painfully boring after the energetic Our Love. However, because everyone by now knows how freakishly awkward I am, this song has definitely grown on me. This piece has more a hip hop feel to it thanks to all the disc scratching in the background. As always, I quite like the sound of her violin, as it really works with her style. While the playing does get really repetitive, it’s insanely catchy and simple. Plus, there was this really nice segement about 3 minutes into the song, where she apparently travels the entire range of the violin going from her lowest notes all the way to her signature “seizure” on the high notes.

Now this is where I start to wonder what kind of electric violin Sarina is actually playing. The intro of Incognito is every intense, and very hot sexy Arabian. However, I don’t know if it’s just me and my lack of experience playing with my G string, but her violin sound lower than mines. It sounds like she’s going into the cello or viola range. O_o. But whatever, it’s still excellent, and the low notes are quite nice. Luckily though, the song gets much more interesting as other beats are added and the song becomes more danceable, like a cross between R&B and Arabian. The playing here is repetitive again, however, while it has a “classical” feel to it, it gets boring until around 3 minutes into it where things get much more interesting catchy. I quite like it when she plays on the lower octave.

And now we come to the longest track on the album. Love Potion clocks in at around 6:38 and I can’t help but feel that this track is just an extension of Incognito. In fact, I’m pretty damn sure the introduction is the exact same thing from it, and in fact, the first 2 and a half minutes are extremely painful because of how repetitive it is. And even then, the song is still painfully dull, as the only actual interesting thing in this piece is the background piece. Luckily though, around 3 and a half minutes, the piece definitely starts to shine as it becomes a full blown Arabian sound. I never a knew a violin could actually sound as sexy as this. Love Potion immediately becomes a hot dance track from then on, but did we really need 2 and a half minutes of painful drag to get to this?

After a rather painful listening experience, I’m glad to say that the second to the last track, Dirty Margartia is a highlight of this album. It actually starts of with some weird thing talking in the background. In fact, the piece actually sounds like something Capsule would actually do. Overall, Dirty Margarita is extremely catchy, and very interesting to listen to. It seems to be a much more Spanish influenced piece compared to her jazz and Arabian stuff. But I think the thing that makes this track really shine is Sarina’s playing. In the previous tracks, she sounded very robotic and dull, but here, she does still sound a bit robotic, but she definitely is having a lot more fun here.

The final track on the album is actually what it is called, an Intermission. In the beginning, we hear a crowd cheering her with what I’m assuming is Sarina saying “Thank you everybody, I’ll see you guys soon!” I really can’t make out much of this other than it actually sounds like a bunch of cool hip hop and disc scratching sounds. The interesting thing though is that it sounds like it was recorded live and not in a studio. It sounds very cool, and it’s an interesting way to end the album and transition to “part 2” of the album (which I will review later), even though there is no actual violin playing.

At first, I was getting ready to automatically put down this album, but after giving this small album a full listen, my opinion has slightly change. I have to admit, I never actually heard of such a thing called “jazz violin” so when I had my first taste of it from this album, I automatically fell in love. It was fun, and I was also quite pleased with her use of Arabian and R&B/Hip hop styles that made her very different from other violinsts I have listened to before. However, the big issue with this album is that at times, it sounds like Sarina isn’t interested in her music at all. She sounds extremely robotic at times, and some of the tracks eventually become very repetitive and dull. I’ll give her credit though. She sticks out from other violinsts I’ve listened to, and if you want to try and take a listen at some other form of violin playing other than regular classical and pop stuff, I really suggest you guys take a look at this album from Sarina.

Overall Rating:

4 out of 5