Performed by Gang Gang Dance Rated 4.0/5.0, based on 13 reviews. Buy from Amazon: New price: $8.00 Used price: $7.25

Very un-American
Rating: 4/5
I'm coming a little late to the party here......but I just got "God's Money". For the first 15 years of my listening to experimental/electro, music like this was almost always from Europe, most likely Belgium or more recently, Japan. So it's good to see us Yanks catching up a bit.
At times the decidely avant garde vocals get a bit much for me and it occasionaly sounds like they're trying a bit too hard, but overall the music is gorgeous and simple/complex at the same time. I'd give it 5 stars but I'm feeling a bit niggardly. Overall a beautiful audio experience.

Ineffable
Rating: 5/5
On God's Money, Gang Gang Dance manage to channel their diverse and seemingly contradictory influences (ranging from Kate Bush to dub, from Yoko Ono to ambient drone) into a seamless and organic whole. With a few exceptions the tracks flow one into the other almost imperceptibly. One could conceive this album as a single extended track - and with the way it breathes and pulsates and occasionally chokes and writhes - even as a living 'thing'. There is no 'noise' here that doesn't serve some purpose - in my own view, all of it invokes a subtle tension between immanence and transcendence, between order and chaos. And if I've used somewhat religious language here to describe what they've accomplished that's not an accident. It's that good.

One of my All-Time Favorites
Rating: 5/5
Alright, listen. I am a pretty critical person, especially when it comes to music. The fact of the matter is, if you listen to a LOT of music, you will have a harder and harder time finding albums you really love, because the bar keeps getting raised in your mind. God's Money is probably my favorite album of the past year because it defies everything I expect music to be, but I can certainly still call it music without any hesitation, and beautiful music at that.

Anyone who is trying to put this in some stupid genre like freak folk or whatever is doing a huge disservice to the album. Firstly, it really doesn't sound anything like Animal Collective, or whatever else you are trying to compare it to. Any sonic similarites are coincidental - the intent of the two groups is completely different. Secondly, this music is best appreciated without any context, just on the merits of its composition, instrumentation and production. Don't even think about Brooklyn or stupid stuff like that. It really has nothing to do with the music.

If you are reading any of these reviews, and listening to the music, wondering why anyone would rate God's Money highly, you truly haven't understood the album yet. Yes, there is something there, you just need to discover it, and once you do you'll be amazed you ever lived without it. I really mean it - look how many reviews I've ever written for anything after using Amazon for like 6 years. It's that important to me to share this album with others.

Deftly Spun Chaos
Rating: 4/5
An admitted novice to avant-garde rock, I hesitantly stepped foot into this world with the purchase of Gang Gang Dance's "God's Money." At first, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this genre, and I was a bit afraid of what I would find. I had read reviews of GGD and others, and was hard-pressed to find a consistent feeling for what I would find upon a first listen.

No more than 15 minutes into this album, I was a believer, and I would even go as far as to say a fan. I have since discovered the likes of Excetper and Can, and am thoroughly fascinated by this emerging genre. Whatever you call it, be that Freak Folk, or New Weird Americana, whatever; its dang intriguing stuff. Enough of that, on to the music.

The album begins innocuously enough, with tribal drumming ushering in a pseudo-African chant by vocalist Lizzi Bougatsos. It is Bougatsos' voice that emerges as the centerpiece of this entire work, and it will probably be your appreciation of her vocal stylings (or lack thereof) that will ultimately determine your enjoyment of this record. There are echos of Kate Bush in her musings, with all sorts of tribal influences. Her voice is still used instrumentally in several tracks, but others allow her to take on a more traditional lead-singer role ("Glory in Itself").

The music itself, recorded over a one year period at New York's Junkyard Audio Salvage, is the musical equivalent of fractal geometry. There are no regular sides, no hooks to really hold on to, but every tiny piece is magnificent in its own right. Each instrument and vocal feels like a tiny piece of string, but they are all masterfully woven together by near-flawless production into a cohesive whole. It almost feels as if the producer took every piece this quartet recorded that year, smashed it all into tiny pieces, chose the best, and put them together in a new way.

And then there is Tim Dewitt's drumming. It has been quite some time since I've heard percussion as solid, inventive, and just plain cool. I found myself simply focusing on the percussion so much that I had to relisten to several tracks (i.e. "God's Money V") just to hear the other parts of the music. From deep steel drums to traditional kits, Dewitt has created a drumming masterpiece in God's Money.

All that being said, this is certainly not a record for everyone. As stated previously, an immediate detraction to Bougatsos' voice will almost certainly taint the entire record for some. For others, the "out there" nature of the more experimental tracks will steer them another direction. But for those who can shrug off everything else and sit inside this record, there is a marvelous world to discover in God's Money.