A couple of these matchups were just brutal. In particular, I flip-flopped back and forth between Los Jaivas and T2. In the end, I decided that I liked the style of music just a little better for Los Jaivas, so that's how I voted.
The second matchup featured two LPs that I hadn't heard before. I found that while there were passages here and there that spoke to me, I really didn't like the McLuhan LP. There were too many elements that sounded comedic. I didn't love the Landberk either, but the parts of it I didn't like were more boring than strident. So in the end, I voted for the Landberk.
I love the Carmen LP, and I considered the first song on it, "Bullerias", to possibly be the best individual song in the whole tournament. But I found the LP to be slightly inconsistent. The Universal Totem Orchestra, album, on the other hand, thrilled me from beginning to end. And I love their operatic female vocalist. So this was a relatively easy vote on my part for UTO.
The last matchup was another fairly difficult one for me. I found that the Wobbler and Regal Worms had fairly similar strengths and weaknesses, with both of them being well-structured and well-thought-out, but maybe a little cold emotionally. In the end, The Wobbler album spoke to me more on this set of listens, and that was the way I voted.
Anyway, after three weeks, the voting results are all in. All four contests were won by identical scores of 8 votes to 6. And the winners were: T2 over Los Jaivas, Landberk over McLuhan, Universal Totem Orchestra over Carmen and Wobbler over Regal Worm.
On to the semi-finals!
