The kid and I recently finished reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader a tale of sea adventures that lead to the very end of the world. It's a surprising tale of courage, especially surprising when the most courageous of all is a tenacious and volatile mouse who will do whatever necessary to uphold his vows of honor.
In this song, Kristian Matsson of The Tallest Man on Earth walks to the end of the world in Sagres, looks across the ocean, and upon hearing harrowing tales, decides to walk away from the beckoning adventure. Reepicheep would be disappointed. But then again, so is Matsson.
The first time I heard it, I labeled the song as bland and uninspired, but it has only continued to grow on me since then. In a progression of just six chords Matsson sets up a profound wistfulness and restlessness, a tension that seems to be lurking under the surface in many of us. It's not that it's uninspired, but rather that the songs evenness serves to communicate a persistent malaise, a pervading numbness. What is left of us? he asks. The song doesn't exactly build, but it does lead to a definitive climax where the music stops and he mutters the tired answer into the microphone: it's just all this doubt.
In Dawn Treader Aslan reminds Lucy of a lesson she's already been taught: nobody is ever told what would have happened. But, he reassures her, anyone can find out what will happen.
This is a song for those who lament not knowing what would have happened, those who regret knowing what could have happened, and those reluctant to find out what will happen.
And the unknowns of the ocean just keep calling us all the same: there's only one thing left to do.
What's brilliantly paradoxical about the progression is that it could also just as easily serve as a soundtrack for sailing across the open waters, holding out a hope of freedom for those still stuck wrestling with doubt.
"Your way was through the sea." Psalm 77:19
Showing posts with label mix tape. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mix tape. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Friday, November 07, 2014
Mix Tape: More Than Meets the Eye
There was a time when music meant something. When it came from somewhere deep down inside. Where we sang it with everything we had, because for the duration of that song it was in fact all we had.
In our emo phase, for example, that's what it was all about. Duh, it was emotional. That's how it was meant to be. Melodramatic? Sure, to some onlookers maybe, but never to the guy singing his heart out, be it the frontman on stage or the fanboy in the crowd.
This is how music is meant to be, after all. I'm convinced it's the purpose music serves. No, I'm not talking about emo, thrashing around on stage, screams, forcing tears, black hair dye and black nail polish. I mean that music is for encompassing and expressing a full range of emotions that can't quite be articulated otherwise. And a good song does exactly that not just through instrumentation or performance, but primarily through a melody, through a chord progression, through rhythm and syncopation. Through its bare bones. Like a good folk song at its core, dress it up however you like and it will almost always produce the same results. A tug on the heart, a nudge in the soul.
In enters Scottish electro-pop act CHVRCHES. Now, I know that surely there is more to electronic music than meets the eye. And while I admire the craft, I never quite get the live show: a couple of nerds standing behind the glow of their laptops, pressing play on things they've copied and pasted, and pretending they're doing something more. Surely it's more than that, but I don't yet entirely get it. Now imagine taking that underwhelming set up and putting it in a 9 to 5 office setting, next to the cubicles and under the fluorescent lights. What could be more boring? Yet for some reason, I find this Tiny Desk Concert to be one of the most powerful I've seen. And it's because the songs -- the melodies, the chords, the rhythm -- are just that good. In the end it's not really at all about synths and beats and loops and bloops. It's about whatever's lying deep within that produces these pieces of music meant to be felt. We don't expect such a small, sweet, and vulnerable voice to produce as much as it does. More than meets the eye, indeed.
The Bones of What You Believe is an album that's been finding its way into our home slowly and surely. Like I've mentioned, even the kids like it. There's a lot of great stand out tracks, but for the mix tape, I choose "Recover."
In our emo phase, for example, that's what it was all about. Duh, it was emotional. That's how it was meant to be. Melodramatic? Sure, to some onlookers maybe, but never to the guy singing his heart out, be it the frontman on stage or the fanboy in the crowd.
This is how music is meant to be, after all. I'm convinced it's the purpose music serves. No, I'm not talking about emo, thrashing around on stage, screams, forcing tears, black hair dye and black nail polish. I mean that music is for encompassing and expressing a full range of emotions that can't quite be articulated otherwise. And a good song does exactly that not just through instrumentation or performance, but primarily through a melody, through a chord progression, through rhythm and syncopation. Through its bare bones. Like a good folk song at its core, dress it up however you like and it will almost always produce the same results. A tug on the heart, a nudge in the soul.
In enters Scottish electro-pop act CHVRCHES. Now, I know that surely there is more to electronic music than meets the eye. And while I admire the craft, I never quite get the live show: a couple of nerds standing behind the glow of their laptops, pressing play on things they've copied and pasted, and pretending they're doing something more. Surely it's more than that, but I don't yet entirely get it. Now imagine taking that underwhelming set up and putting it in a 9 to 5 office setting, next to the cubicles and under the fluorescent lights. What could be more boring? Yet for some reason, I find this Tiny Desk Concert to be one of the most powerful I've seen. And it's because the songs -- the melodies, the chords, the rhythm -- are just that good. In the end it's not really at all about synths and beats and loops and bloops. It's about whatever's lying deep within that produces these pieces of music meant to be felt. We don't expect such a small, sweet, and vulnerable voice to produce as much as it does. More than meets the eye, indeed.
The Bones of What You Believe is an album that's been finding its way into our home slowly and surely. Like I've mentioned, even the kids like it. There's a lot of great stand out tracks, but for the mix tape, I choose "Recover."
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Mix Tape: Being made for one another
Every once in a while a group comes along and it's clear they were made for another. Whatever their respective backgrounds, they were meant to find one another, make music together.
That's the case with Lucius. It's most observable, of course, in their two frontwomen who might as well be sisters, or twins, or siamese twins even, joined at the vocal chords or something, because their voices function as one in an unbelievable and enchanting way. But just as admirable is the way the men join seamlessly in the singing, subtly and discretely, always adding and never detracting, or the way all five of them pulse with the same rhythm, the way each one of them brings something to the table and it all just somehow fits.
They were made for one another, and that's just the way their debut disc Wildewoman listens. There are moments, bursting with enthusiasm in having found their musical soul mates, that are overzealous to their detriment. They will only improve as they learn to edit and refine their craft, as at times there is simply too much going on to the point it's hard to digest or tell one song from another. They're excited, and you can't blame them.
But there are indeed other times where they reveal what that future could hold, where they prove that less is more. Because when you're meant to be together, you can be content to let moments pass in silence. You are comfortable, confident, secure, not needing to be heard, letting the other speak up or just simply enjoying the moment. That rhythm that pulses between you, it keeps churning even when no one's explicitly keeping time. These are the moments that shine most among their songs, the moments that prove most clearly they're made for one another.
That space between notes is most evident in Lucius's strongest song, "Go Home." Here's a live version for you.
That's the song that goes on the mix tape, but all this was just as evident in the song they chose for their encore last night in Paris: "Two of us on the run"
That's the case with Lucius. It's most observable, of course, in their two frontwomen who might as well be sisters, or twins, or siamese twins even, joined at the vocal chords or something, because their voices function as one in an unbelievable and enchanting way. But just as admirable is the way the men join seamlessly in the singing, subtly and discretely, always adding and never detracting, or the way all five of them pulse with the same rhythm, the way each one of them brings something to the table and it all just somehow fits.
They were made for one another, and that's just the way their debut disc Wildewoman listens. There are moments, bursting with enthusiasm in having found their musical soul mates, that are overzealous to their detriment. They will only improve as they learn to edit and refine their craft, as at times there is simply too much going on to the point it's hard to digest or tell one song from another. They're excited, and you can't blame them.
But there are indeed other times where they reveal what that future could hold, where they prove that less is more. Because when you're meant to be together, you can be content to let moments pass in silence. You are comfortable, confident, secure, not needing to be heard, letting the other speak up or just simply enjoying the moment. That rhythm that pulses between you, it keeps churning even when no one's explicitly keeping time. These are the moments that shine most among their songs, the moments that prove most clearly they're made for one another.
That space between notes is most evident in Lucius's strongest song, "Go Home." Here's a live version for you.
That's the song that goes on the mix tape, but all this was just as evident in the song they chose for their encore last night in Paris: "Two of us on the run"
Wednesday, May 07, 2014
Mix Tape: Love caging, fickle and failing
I told Travis very little music has inspired me lately. He gave me a disc of his 40 or so favorite songs from 2013. I listened on the drive back from Indiana. This was the next to last song and it grabbed me more than any of the others. I know admittedly absolutely nothing about Phosphorescent or his music, and I am late, and it's okay, because it seems this song is all that needs to be known.
It's dressed up a bit differently, in what's almost early 90's easy-listening synth pop, or not far from Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia." But it's a folk song at its core in every way, with its repetitive churning built on a simple soul-plucking chord progression, its strong melody offered by a wavering worse for wear voice.
"Love never fails," Paul boldly asserts. Taken at his word he sounds like a hopeless romantic with his heart on his sleeve. Like he believes in destiny and soul mates and walks on the beach and growing old together. It's a phrase fit for a wedding day, but we roll our eyes through the daily grind that follows.
He's got his work cut out for him, because the majority of the canon of modern pop music says just the opposite. Love always fails, it never lasts. In the words of this song, it is fading, fickle, a disfiguring, caging killer. Love is a prison. Love is a murderer. Love takes, hurts, breaks, destroys.
Is he exaggerating? Typical depressed folk artist? I'm afraid not. This is the human experience, whether it's sung by Phosphorescent or Miley Cyrus. Oddly enough the lyrics from last year's hit song don't sound much different: clawing, chaining, warring, wrecking and breaking.
If our artists speak for us, we've not much optimism left for love. It's take what you can get when you can get it, enjoy it while it lasts, but overall we're self-protecting cynics, afraid to commit, knowing we'll only one day be disappointed, eventually chewed up and spit out.
Paul and his unfailing love are left to walk the beach alone, taking pauses to write Hallmark cards and happy endings, none of which we actually believe. He's at best an innocent dreamer, at worst a pitiful lunatic.
Or maybe the problem is our notion of love.
Maybe the definition is wrong.
Maybe the object is misguided.
Maybe the source is insufficient.
Maybe all the disappointment is our problem, not love's. Maybe what we call love is hardly love at all, and all its painful failure only serves to point us towards what we're really so desperately looking for. Maybe there exists a love that never fails after all.
Phosphorescent, "Song for Zula" from Muchacho
It's dressed up a bit differently, in what's almost early 90's easy-listening synth pop, or not far from Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia." But it's a folk song at its core in every way, with its repetitive churning built on a simple soul-plucking chord progression, its strong melody offered by a wavering worse for wear voice.
"Love never fails," Paul boldly asserts. Taken at his word he sounds like a hopeless romantic with his heart on his sleeve. Like he believes in destiny and soul mates and walks on the beach and growing old together. It's a phrase fit for a wedding day, but we roll our eyes through the daily grind that follows.
He's got his work cut out for him, because the majority of the canon of modern pop music says just the opposite. Love always fails, it never lasts. In the words of this song, it is fading, fickle, a disfiguring, caging killer. Love is a prison. Love is a murderer. Love takes, hurts, breaks, destroys.
Is he exaggerating? Typical depressed folk artist? I'm afraid not. This is the human experience, whether it's sung by Phosphorescent or Miley Cyrus. Oddly enough the lyrics from last year's hit song don't sound much different: clawing, chaining, warring, wrecking and breaking.
If our artists speak for us, we've not much optimism left for love. It's take what you can get when you can get it, enjoy it while it lasts, but overall we're self-protecting cynics, afraid to commit, knowing we'll only one day be disappointed, eventually chewed up and spit out.
Paul and his unfailing love are left to walk the beach alone, taking pauses to write Hallmark cards and happy endings, none of which we actually believe. He's at best an innocent dreamer, at worst a pitiful lunatic.
Or maybe the problem is our notion of love.
Maybe the definition is wrong.
Maybe the object is misguided.
Maybe the source is insufficient.
Maybe all the disappointment is our problem, not love's. Maybe what we call love is hardly love at all, and all its painful failure only serves to point us towards what we're really so desperately looking for. Maybe there exists a love that never fails after all.
Phosphorescent, "Song for Zula" from Muchacho
Monday, January 06, 2014
Mix Tape: News Year's Eve
According to my ongoing mix tape, it's been nearly a full year since a song has truly captivated me. For the record, that's primarily what this mix tape thing is supposed to be: songs that go on repeat.
I made a New Year's Eve playlist for our party with the help of my brothers-in-law. It was a pretty nice collection of songs, commendable for being such a last-minute affair, but I would have been OK if we had just put Arcade Fire's "Afterlife" on repeat the whole night.
I'm close to saying it's the only song that captivated me all year, so it makes sense to listen to it at the year's end. And it makes for a great year-end party song; like Coldplay on that closing night in 2011, it's the song that's become the dance-the-year-away hit.
But more than that, it feels like New Year's Eve.
Another year gone. Was it a good one, one you want to celebrate? Or a bad one, one you want to forget? Most likely it was a mix of both. Most likely it left you wanting more. Because isn't life just that? A strange mix of celebrations and regrets that leave you hoping for more?
It makes you wonder why we celebrate a new year anyway. Is it to celebrate all that happened or to celebrate that it's all finally over? Aren't we just yearning for another fresh start? But the fact that we do it all over again 365 years later, doesn't that show us we're really longing for a much bigger Fresh Start?
After all the bad advice
Had nothing at all to do with life
In the end, isn't life just a lot of screaming, shouting, and working it all out? Can't year after year of the human existence be summed up in shouting, "I gotta know!"? Because what's the point? And what's next? And will it all be worth it?
What we will be has not yet been made known.
Like most songs that captivate me, there's a melancholic regret and a tired hope mixed up in every aspect of this song. That sounds like New Year's Eve, and that sounds like life, because both are waiting for the Fresh Start. Might as well dance.
This is Arcade Fire's "Afterlife" from Reflektor
I made a New Year's Eve playlist for our party with the help of my brothers-in-law. It was a pretty nice collection of songs, commendable for being such a last-minute affair, but I would have been OK if we had just put Arcade Fire's "Afterlife" on repeat the whole night.
I'm close to saying it's the only song that captivated me all year, so it makes sense to listen to it at the year's end. And it makes for a great year-end party song; like Coldplay on that closing night in 2011, it's the song that's become the dance-the-year-away hit.
But more than that, it feels like New Year's Eve.
Another year gone. Was it a good one, one you want to celebrate? Or a bad one, one you want to forget? Most likely it was a mix of both. Most likely it left you wanting more. Because isn't life just that? A strange mix of celebrations and regrets that leave you hoping for more?
It makes you wonder why we celebrate a new year anyway. Is it to celebrate all that happened or to celebrate that it's all finally over? Aren't we just yearning for another fresh start? But the fact that we do it all over again 365 years later, doesn't that show us we're really longing for a much bigger Fresh Start?
After all the bad advice
Had nothing at all to do with life
In the end, isn't life just a lot of screaming, shouting, and working it all out? Can't year after year of the human existence be summed up in shouting, "I gotta know!"? Because what's the point? And what's next? And will it all be worth it?
What we will be has not yet been made known.
Like most songs that captivate me, there's a melancholic regret and a tired hope mixed up in every aspect of this song. That sounds like New Year's Eve, and that sounds like life, because both are waiting for the Fresh Start. Might as well dance.
This is Arcade Fire's "Afterlife" from Reflektor
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Mix Tape: Rhythm Trumps All
My favorite moment in elementary music class was when the teacher would pass out percussion instruments--wooden sticks, sandpaper blocks, finger cymbals, triangles--and give each one of us a certain rhythm to play. I could count to 4 easily enough and knew when to hit my instrument. If the others could do the same, it was always an exciting result. Relatively simple, but always exciting.
It wasn't until my junior year of high school that it went any further. The band director was looking for recruits for the percussion section. Seeing as how most of my friends were the ones goofing around the drums in the back of the room, I was quick to volunteer. They put me on the simple instruments, and it seemed easy enough.
But when I first took those crash cymbals, shoved them into my gut and clapped them together to create a backbeat for the entire band to follow, something special happened. This was a whole new experience. It was something liberating, something powerful, something to be felt.
On the saxophone, I was banished to play the harmonies that were originally intended for the more sophisticated French horns. I liked harmony well enough to not mind if I was a handwritten transposition of an afterthought. But that backbeat. I liked harmony, I loved rhythm.
I didn't understand the depth of it in 11th grade. But I'm growing convinced that our bodies are knit together in rhythm. The heart's constant eighth note lub-dub, blood pulsing in quarter notes to every extremity, the lungs keeping a steady half note lull, the accents of firing synapses, the resulting tempo we keep when we have some place to walk. It's in our very fiber.
So when we hear the right rhythm, we instantly connect. Even if we don't recognize it, our foot does. At the very least, our fingers tap, our heads bob. It's as if the piece of music already knows us and we already know it. That rhythm is already there, it's the fabric and story of our lives, but to tap into it, to find it, to tell it, to translate it, to communicate it, that takes work and talent and luck.
And this is the essay that was written in my head this morning while listening to Anathallo's "All the First Pages." It's been a favorite for a long time and has already found it's way on to plenty of mix tapes. But this morning, especially around the 2:20 mark, all I heard was rhythm.
There's a lot that could characterize the music of Anathallo. But through many years and many albums, they went through a long and careful refining process. In the end the songs and their titles were shorter, but one thing remained unchanged and at the forefront: rhythm. You can hit your notes perfectly, but if you can't hit them rhythmically, you have no place in this band. Every element right down to the poetry of the lyrics serves the rhythm of the music before it serves anything else.
I guess it probably sounds weird, but in listening to a song like this my heart seems to beat a little faster, as though it's trying to catch up and match a rhythm it's already known.
See also: When a kindergartner's stutter about Valentine's Day becomes the perfect syncopated foundation for a surf-jazz song, by Charles Spearin's Happiness Project.
It wasn't until my junior year of high school that it went any further. The band director was looking for recruits for the percussion section. Seeing as how most of my friends were the ones goofing around the drums in the back of the room, I was quick to volunteer. They put me on the simple instruments, and it seemed easy enough.
But when I first took those crash cymbals, shoved them into my gut and clapped them together to create a backbeat for the entire band to follow, something special happened. This was a whole new experience. It was something liberating, something powerful, something to be felt.
On the saxophone, I was banished to play the harmonies that were originally intended for the more sophisticated French horns. I liked harmony well enough to not mind if I was a handwritten transposition of an afterthought. But that backbeat. I liked harmony, I loved rhythm.
I didn't understand the depth of it in 11th grade. But I'm growing convinced that our bodies are knit together in rhythm. The heart's constant eighth note lub-dub, blood pulsing in quarter notes to every extremity, the lungs keeping a steady half note lull, the accents of firing synapses, the resulting tempo we keep when we have some place to walk. It's in our very fiber.
So when we hear the right rhythm, we instantly connect. Even if we don't recognize it, our foot does. At the very least, our fingers tap, our heads bob. It's as if the piece of music already knows us and we already know it. That rhythm is already there, it's the fabric and story of our lives, but to tap into it, to find it, to tell it, to translate it, to communicate it, that takes work and talent and luck.
And this is the essay that was written in my head this morning while listening to Anathallo's "All the First Pages." It's been a favorite for a long time and has already found it's way on to plenty of mix tapes. But this morning, especially around the 2:20 mark, all I heard was rhythm.
There's a lot that could characterize the music of Anathallo. But through many years and many albums, they went through a long and careful refining process. In the end the songs and their titles were shorter, but one thing remained unchanged and at the forefront: rhythm. You can hit your notes perfectly, but if you can't hit them rhythmically, you have no place in this band. Every element right down to the poetry of the lyrics serves the rhythm of the music before it serves anything else.
I guess it probably sounds weird, but in listening to a song like this my heart seems to beat a little faster, as though it's trying to catch up and match a rhythm it's already known.
See also: When a kindergartner's stutter about Valentine's Day becomes the perfect syncopated foundation for a surf-jazz song, by Charles Spearin's Happiness Project.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Mix Tape: Reliable and Prolific
I own more Damien Jurado albums than any other artist. Not because he's necessarily my favorite. More simply because all of his albums are worth owning and he's incredibly prolific.
The year was 1997. The first Jurado song I ever heard was "Frustrated" on a Tooth and Nail rock sampler which remains one of my favorite compilations to this day. I love how it captures the strange almost-Christian mostly-Seattle budding indie-rock scene of the day. And with me at 14 years of age, it opened my world to the music that would end up defining, well, pretty much the rest of my life. I latched on to very few of the artists on that disc, but it was the sound that I loved. From there, it was a hop-skip-and-a-jump to punk, to ska, to emo, to post-rock, to whatever word describes the collection I listen to today.
Fast-forward to April 29, 2002, the first time since 1997 I hear a new Damien Jurado song. I pile in a giant car that I remember being a Cadillac with a few other guys from college. We drive to the Metro in Chicago to see Pedro the Lion with TW Walsh and Damien Jurado & Gathered in Song. We hear Jurado playing an electric guitar, songs from his rock-pop self-described "radio-friendly" album. David Bazan plays drums. Jonathon Ford plays bass. "Never-Ending Tide" sweeps me away and convinces me. We get a flat tire leaving the show on one of Chicago's busiest highways. I purchase the album shortly thereafter, "Like Titanic" becomes Erica and my favorite song to listen to in the car throughout our dating years. (It still is.)
From there, Damien Jurado albums come from two places: CDs from parents and family members for Christmas and Vinyl records in shipments from Jared and Village Green records. The collection steadily grows. I play a role in getting him to Taylor, do a side-walk chalk campaign, run sound for him at the concert. I graduate from college and get a turntable from my in-laws. His Four Songs record gets me to collect all the other one-sided LPs from Burnt Toast Vinyl. And Now That I'm In Your Shadow puts me to sleep on the couch and helps me, in part, get through one of the toughest years of my life.
What more to say about the man than that he is reliable and prolific? As I write this I realize he has subtly, quietly, without me really even knowing it, been writing the soundtrack of my life from his upper-Northwest corner of the United States. Tastes have changed from grunge to punk to ska to emo to post-rock to indie to whatever, but Jurado has always been there, the steady presence, the common thread, the reference point.
There are two songs that strike me from last year's album. I offer you the one that I find myself humming in the morning. It's a slice of world-worn slinky adult pop. Its video includes scenes from Europe...what was I saying about him writing the soundtrack to my life?
Damien Jurado - "Museum of Flight" from Maraqopa
But because the man is best enjoyed live, alone, guitar and microphone, and because this song doesn't really get ever get old:
The year was 1997. The first Jurado song I ever heard was "Frustrated" on a Tooth and Nail rock sampler which remains one of my favorite compilations to this day. I love how it captures the strange almost-Christian mostly-Seattle budding indie-rock scene of the day. And with me at 14 years of age, it opened my world to the music that would end up defining, well, pretty much the rest of my life. I latched on to very few of the artists on that disc, but it was the sound that I loved. From there, it was a hop-skip-and-a-jump to punk, to ska, to emo, to post-rock, to whatever word describes the collection I listen to today.
Fast-forward to April 29, 2002, the first time since 1997 I hear a new Damien Jurado song. I pile in a giant car that I remember being a Cadillac with a few other guys from college. We drive to the Metro in Chicago to see Pedro the Lion with TW Walsh and Damien Jurado & Gathered in Song. We hear Jurado playing an electric guitar, songs from his rock-pop self-described "radio-friendly" album. David Bazan plays drums. Jonathon Ford plays bass. "Never-Ending Tide" sweeps me away and convinces me. We get a flat tire leaving the show on one of Chicago's busiest highways. I purchase the album shortly thereafter, "Like Titanic" becomes Erica and my favorite song to listen to in the car throughout our dating years. (It still is.)
From there, Damien Jurado albums come from two places: CDs from parents and family members for Christmas and Vinyl records in shipments from Jared and Village Green records. The collection steadily grows. I play a role in getting him to Taylor, do a side-walk chalk campaign, run sound for him at the concert. I graduate from college and get a turntable from my in-laws. His Four Songs record gets me to collect all the other one-sided LPs from Burnt Toast Vinyl. And Now That I'm In Your Shadow puts me to sleep on the couch and helps me, in part, get through one of the toughest years of my life.
What more to say about the man than that he is reliable and prolific? As I write this I realize he has subtly, quietly, without me really even knowing it, been writing the soundtrack of my life from his upper-Northwest corner of the United States. Tastes have changed from grunge to punk to ska to emo to post-rock to indie to whatever, but Jurado has always been there, the steady presence, the common thread, the reference point.
There are two songs that strike me from last year's album. I offer you the one that I find myself humming in the morning. It's a slice of world-worn slinky adult pop. Its video includes scenes from Europe...what was I saying about him writing the soundtrack to my life?
Damien Jurado - "Museum of Flight" from Maraqopa
But because the man is best enjoyed live, alone, guitar and microphone, and because this song doesn't really get ever get old:
Sunday, November 11, 2012
(mix tape:) sleepy time
I made a bedtime mix for a little boy named Jacob. It was something I had meant to do for my own sons, but the kind of thing you only get around to doing when you want to celebrate someone else's son. So, despite it technically being for Jacob, I have a feeling we've benefited from it even more in our household, and probably me more than my sons. I consider it kind of wonderful having a collection of songs that have always calmed me, all together in one place. If you're bored on Spotify, you might want to consider compiling it...
Amiina - sexfaldur
Do Make Say Think - a tender history in rust
Six Parts Seven - sleeping diagonally
Sigur Ros - vaka
Page France - the belly in the fish
Iron & Wine - upward over the mountain
Sufjan Stevens - romulus
Jose Gonzalez - heartbeats
Bon Iver - re: stacks
Damien Jurado - ohio daytrotter session
Pedro the Lion - be thou my vision
Joshua Stamper - how thy desires e'er have been
Sufjan Stevens - redford (for yia-yia and pappou)
Amiina - kolapot
Sigur Ros - heysatan
The Album Leaf - streamside
My Brightest Diamond - i have never loved someone
But since making it, I've discovered some missing songs. Take note, Jacob! All three happen to have nature themes, and what more perfect way to fall asleep?
Fleet Foxes - blue spotted tail
So peaceful and dreamy!
Welcome Wagon - nature's goodnight
I've never been able to make a chord organ sound this soothing!
Feist - cicadas and gulls
Is there a better lullaby voice in all of show business?
Amiina - sexfaldur
Do Make Say Think - a tender history in rust
Six Parts Seven - sleeping diagonally
Sigur Ros - vaka
Page France - the belly in the fish
Iron & Wine - upward over the mountain
Sufjan Stevens - romulus
Jose Gonzalez - heartbeats
Bon Iver - re: stacks
Damien Jurado - ohio daytrotter session
Pedro the Lion - be thou my vision
Joshua Stamper - how thy desires e'er have been
Sufjan Stevens - redford (for yia-yia and pappou)
Amiina - kolapot
Sigur Ros - heysatan
The Album Leaf - streamside
My Brightest Diamond - i have never loved someone
But since making it, I've discovered some missing songs. Take note, Jacob! All three happen to have nature themes, and what more perfect way to fall asleep?
Fleet Foxes - blue spotted tail
So peaceful and dreamy!
Welcome Wagon - nature's goodnight
I've never been able to make a chord organ sound this soothing!
Feist - cicadas and gulls
Is there a better lullaby voice in all of show business?
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Mix Tape: Blue Ridge Parkway in Autumn
I got into Fleet Foxes reluctantly. I wasn't convinced at first. I heard the hype, and it eventually convinced me to pick up the record, and I grew to really enjoy them. But it wasn't love at first sight.
One of their older songs says something about the Blue Ridge Parkway. I forget the line, really, I just know they sing it a few times. And so when my little family spent an autumn in North Carolina, and we drove quite a few miles on that very Blue Ridge Parkway, this was the song I sang over and over. It didn't matter that we did not have the CD nor the iPod on the car, the song in my head was enough. And it was perfect.
If Bon Iver sounds like an isolated winter cabin, and Andrew Bird sounds like sky and ocean, then Fleet Foxes sound like the Blue Ridge Parkway in Autumn. And that's exactly why I pulled their disc off the shelf again the other day when we went to go apple picking.
What's strange is that they don't sound just like the Appalachian mountains. They sound like Simon and Garfunkel singing as medieval minstrels in a walled and moated city located in the Appalachian mountains. And to pull off that sound, to sell records with that sound, that takes some talent.
With that in mind and autumn at hand, here's my favorite moment "Someone You'd Admire" on their most recent record Helplessness Blues.
One of their older songs says something about the Blue Ridge Parkway. I forget the line, really, I just know they sing it a few times. And so when my little family spent an autumn in North Carolina, and we drove quite a few miles on that very Blue Ridge Parkway, this was the song I sang over and over. It didn't matter that we did not have the CD nor the iPod on the car, the song in my head was enough. And it was perfect.
If Bon Iver sounds like an isolated winter cabin, and Andrew Bird sounds like sky and ocean, then Fleet Foxes sound like the Blue Ridge Parkway in Autumn. And that's exactly why I pulled their disc off the shelf again the other day when we went to go apple picking.
What's strange is that they don't sound just like the Appalachian mountains. They sound like Simon and Garfunkel singing as medieval minstrels in a walled and moated city located in the Appalachian mountains. And to pull off that sound, to sell records with that sound, that takes some talent.
With that in mind and autumn at hand, here's my favorite moment "Someone You'd Admire" on their most recent record Helplessness Blues.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Mix Tape: Good Winter
This post is long overdue. First, I waited a long time to
pick up the album, until I could find the time and space to give it a proper
listening. Then, I delayed writing this, not feeling I could do it all justice.
But listening to the other kid fall asleep to his music just now made me
realize now’s the time.
I won’t blame you if you don’t like Bon Iver. As much as I like him, I continue to be puzzled as to why he’s so popular. Start by taking a bunch of lumberjack guys and make them sing unison in falsetto, already you have what seems to be a recipe of disaster. Make them play synthesizers with tones we haven’t heard since the early 90s: that should only make matters worse, not better.
In one TV appearance, Jimmy Fallon compares Justin Vernon to Bruce Hornsby, to which Vernon more or less agrees. There’s an email sitting in my inbox in which a friend likened him to Steve Winwood. Watching him play backed by a saxophonist reminds me of Michael Bolton and Kenny G. These are not good comparisons. Nobody wants to relive these guys. (OK, I’m sure there are some middle-aged women out there who wouldn’t mind…only further proving my point.)
This is white-man’s R&B. This is music-nerd’s Easy Listening.
But judging by his success, I’m not the only one who agrees that, somehow, oddly enough, it just works, and works well.
How does a hairy, white, indie-music-nerd go from recording an album by himself in a cabin to singing backup for one of the biggest rap stars of our day just a few years later? How does a no-name experimental musician go from playing shows in living rooms to winning Grammys? Besides a whole lot of luck, I’d say the authenticity and a love for the craft help out quite a bit.
But there was something else that helped too, and that’s the legend surrounding the creation of his first album. You couldn’t hear anything about For Emma Forever Ago without hearing the story: broke up with girlfriend, went to cabin, alone, dead of winter, recorded this. It seemed to spin out of control like a giant game of whisper-down-the-alley. The story became bigger than the album, bigger than the man. It was indie legend. It sold the record.
But the main reason that legend worked was simply because of this often overlooked fact: that album sounded like a winter cabin. If he went to that cabin and recorded bubblegum pop songs, no one would have cared. But to create songs that sound so clearly and perfectly like their context, that’s when you’ve done something remarkable.
And in the end, that’s what gets me about Bon Iver. Lately I’ve been enjoying music that communicates a mood and an image. I don’t like your everyday rock band because their songs just sound like an everyday rock song. I like music that sounds like contentment, or hope, or melancholy, or a breezy summer day. When a song takes on texture, takes on atmosphere, takes on something much bigger than lyrics and a melody and a four-chord progression and a verse-chorus structure, that’s when I start noticing. And I guess that’s ultimately why I’ve noticed Bon Iver.
While the song “Holocene” deserves every single bit of attention it has gotten (listen to that rolling snare drum through headphones, would you?!), I’m choosing the album opener as a favorite.
“Perth” from Bon Iver, Bon Iver.
I won’t blame you if you don’t like Bon Iver. As much as I like him, I continue to be puzzled as to why he’s so popular. Start by taking a bunch of lumberjack guys and make them sing unison in falsetto, already you have what seems to be a recipe of disaster. Make them play synthesizers with tones we haven’t heard since the early 90s: that should only make matters worse, not better.
In one TV appearance, Jimmy Fallon compares Justin Vernon to Bruce Hornsby, to which Vernon more or less agrees. There’s an email sitting in my inbox in which a friend likened him to Steve Winwood. Watching him play backed by a saxophonist reminds me of Michael Bolton and Kenny G. These are not good comparisons. Nobody wants to relive these guys. (OK, I’m sure there are some middle-aged women out there who wouldn’t mind…only further proving my point.)
This is white-man’s R&B. This is music-nerd’s Easy Listening.
But judging by his success, I’m not the only one who agrees that, somehow, oddly enough, it just works, and works well.
How does a hairy, white, indie-music-nerd go from recording an album by himself in a cabin to singing backup for one of the biggest rap stars of our day just a few years later? How does a no-name experimental musician go from playing shows in living rooms to winning Grammys? Besides a whole lot of luck, I’d say the authenticity and a love for the craft help out quite a bit.
But there was something else that helped too, and that’s the legend surrounding the creation of his first album. You couldn’t hear anything about For Emma Forever Ago without hearing the story: broke up with girlfriend, went to cabin, alone, dead of winter, recorded this. It seemed to spin out of control like a giant game of whisper-down-the-alley. The story became bigger than the album, bigger than the man. It was indie legend. It sold the record.
But the main reason that legend worked was simply because of this often overlooked fact: that album sounded like a winter cabin. If he went to that cabin and recorded bubblegum pop songs, no one would have cared. But to create songs that sound so clearly and perfectly like their context, that’s when you’ve done something remarkable.
And in the end, that’s what gets me about Bon Iver. Lately I’ve been enjoying music that communicates a mood and an image. I don’t like your everyday rock band because their songs just sound like an everyday rock song. I like music that sounds like contentment, or hope, or melancholy, or a breezy summer day. When a song takes on texture, takes on atmosphere, takes on something much bigger than lyrics and a melody and a four-chord progression and a verse-chorus structure, that’s when I start noticing. And I guess that’s ultimately why I’ve noticed Bon Iver.
While the song “Holocene” deserves every single bit of attention it has gotten (listen to that rolling snare drum through headphones, would you?!), I’m choosing the album opener as a favorite.
“Perth” from Bon Iver, Bon Iver.
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Mix Tape: Difficult Choice
I keep coming back to two places on Andrew Bird's latest.
And I'm excited to find that both songs from the concert we recently attended are online, from pretty much the exact place we were standing.
My favorite song from the album has to be Hole in the Ocean Floor.
album:
live in Paris, how he chose to open the show:
But if I have to choose a song for a mix tape to give you, it would be "Orpheo Looks Back." That simple descending rhythmic riff sticks in my head all, day, long and keeps my head incessantly bopping back and forth. The weird interlude appearing for the first time at 1:10 is kind of distracting and takes away from the song, in my opinion, kinda neat but doesn't quite fit. But the rest is just so sweetly catchy that I can easily overlook it.
album:
live in Paris:
Don't look back, it'll drive you mad, and if it drives you mad, it'll probably pass.
And watch the best example of his pizzicato violin looping skills here.
And I'm excited to find that both songs from the concert we recently attended are online, from pretty much the exact place we were standing.
My favorite song from the album has to be Hole in the Ocean Floor.
album:
live in Paris, how he chose to open the show:
But if I have to choose a song for a mix tape to give you, it would be "Orpheo Looks Back." That simple descending rhythmic riff sticks in my head all, day, long and keeps my head incessantly bopping back and forth. The weird interlude appearing for the first time at 1:10 is kind of distracting and takes away from the song, in my opinion, kinda neat but doesn't quite fit. But the rest is just so sweetly catchy that I can easily overlook it.
album:
live in Paris:
Don't look back, it'll drive you mad, and if it drives you mad, it'll probably pass.
And watch the best example of his pizzicato violin looping skills here.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Mix Tape: More Insight on Love
I've had all sorts of music-related posts brewing in my mind, but haven't attempted because most days I don't feel I can do justice to the ideas and feelings swirling around. So, I'll keep this one rather simple.
Since seeing this video and finding her disc at the local library, I've come to really appreciate My Brightest Diamond. In the past she's been someone I know I'm supposed to like and I probably would if I'd give her the time, but for some reason that hasn't happened until now. Next week we'll be going on our second concert date in a month, seeing her with a chamber ensemble...yes!
One of the things I love most are her insights on love, somehow pulling it off without sounding too grand or too trite, too preachy or too fluffy. On "We Added it Up" she sings of cosmic love: "Oh I hear a quieter voice, it says, 'love binds the world for ever and ever and ever...'" And here on "Escape Routes," she brings it down to the day to day, singing of the hard work that goes into upholding promises of love. "It takes a lifetime to learn how to love...Let's close off all our escape routes, let's not put it off...These promises we have saved, they hold us..."
Hard work never sounded so good. But I'm tempted to say it sounds so good because it's true love. The hard work pays off...and inspires music like this.
My Brightest Diamond, "Escape Routes" from All Things Will Unwind
Since seeing this video and finding her disc at the local library, I've come to really appreciate My Brightest Diamond. In the past she's been someone I know I'm supposed to like and I probably would if I'd give her the time, but for some reason that hasn't happened until now. Next week we'll be going on our second concert date in a month, seeing her with a chamber ensemble...yes!
One of the things I love most are her insights on love, somehow pulling it off without sounding too grand or too trite, too preachy or too fluffy. On "We Added it Up" she sings of cosmic love: "Oh I hear a quieter voice, it says, 'love binds the world for ever and ever and ever...'" And here on "Escape Routes," she brings it down to the day to day, singing of the hard work that goes into upholding promises of love. "It takes a lifetime to learn how to love...Let's close off all our escape routes, let's not put it off...These promises we have saved, they hold us..."
Hard work never sounded so good. But I'm tempted to say it sounds so good because it's true love. The hard work pays off...and inspires music like this.
My Brightest Diamond, "Escape Routes" from All Things Will Unwind
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Mix Tape: Big Enough for the World To Love
Find me a person who can't like Coldplay. If you need me to explain why I like a Coldplay song like I need to explain why I like some obscure indie-instrumental-act-from-Iceland, well then, you're just weird. Is there a band bigger than Coldplay? U2, maybe. But I still have the hunch Coldplay is bigger.
It started with the single "Yellow" on the radio. This is really good. Who is this? Something about this song sounds oddly like Dave Matthews Band, but way cooler.
Parachutes was introduced by my roommate Kyle. I think his brother gave it to him for Christmas after I confirmed he didn't have it already. He once said, "If Coldplay were a wanton woman, I would be led astray."
Rush of Blood to the Head was Travis. I can still picture him pounding the steering wheel of the Ford Probe and singing along, probably on the spring break trip from Indiana to Pennsylvania. We'd all pretend to cry while singing falsetto at the top of our lungs with "The Scientist." And then just when you thought the single "Clocks" could get old and overplayed, it didn't. We all just kept on loving it.
X&Y all sort of blended together and went unappreciated for a while, but I came around to it. It helped to watch old people sing "Fix You." It helped to sing "Fix You" at our Fete de la Musique, too.
Viva La Vida started by seeing posters all over Paris. Favorite songs would switch after every listen. This album is pretty much perfect, no? Man oh man.
Mylo Xyloto will now always be New Year's Eve 2011, celebrating a year in a new land with brothers and sisters, especially because that opener is such a dance-the-year-away-with-reckless-abandon sort of hit.
And this song is emerging as a favorite. But how can Coldplay be against the world when the whole world is for Coldplay?
Coldplay, "Us Against the World" from Mylo Xyloto
It started with the single "Yellow" on the radio. This is really good. Who is this? Something about this song sounds oddly like Dave Matthews Band, but way cooler.
Parachutes was introduced by my roommate Kyle. I think his brother gave it to him for Christmas after I confirmed he didn't have it already. He once said, "If Coldplay were a wanton woman, I would be led astray."
Rush of Blood to the Head was Travis. I can still picture him pounding the steering wheel of the Ford Probe and singing along, probably on the spring break trip from Indiana to Pennsylvania. We'd all pretend to cry while singing falsetto at the top of our lungs with "The Scientist." And then just when you thought the single "Clocks" could get old and overplayed, it didn't. We all just kept on loving it.
X&Y all sort of blended together and went unappreciated for a while, but I came around to it. It helped to watch old people sing "Fix You." It helped to sing "Fix You" at our Fete de la Musique, too.
Viva La Vida started by seeing posters all over Paris. Favorite songs would switch after every listen. This album is pretty much perfect, no? Man oh man.
Mylo Xyloto will now always be New Year's Eve 2011, celebrating a year in a new land with brothers and sisters, especially because that opener is such a dance-the-year-away-with-reckless-abandon sort of hit.
And this song is emerging as a favorite. But how can Coldplay be against the world when the whole world is for Coldplay?
Coldplay, "Us Against the World" from Mylo Xyloto
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Mix Tape: Enchantment
There's a pretty hip little alternative-music-culture center down the street from us. Feels a little unusual for a town like ours, but it seems to enjoy some success. I've wanted to visit for a good 11 months or so, but have always had a reason not to: not quite my genre certain nights, or another obligation, or otherwise exhausted.
But when the new season launched in September, I read about bands doing shows for kids and of course I was immediately interested. I think it only happens four times this year. I listened to one long enough to realize it wouldn't be a waste of money, and one day the kid and I walked over to buy our tickets.
Turns out this band, Moriarty, is actually quite popular around here. Popular enough to have two gold records in France and to play all the largest clubs in Paris with some amount of regularity. Turns out the show later that night was sold out pretty quickly. Turns out this 4PM kids show also ended up being sold out. Not a bad gig to get in on, then.
Now, don't be confused, this isn't kids music. It's your average folk-rock-alt-country-(in-all-the-good-ways)-with-some-strong-grooves-telling-you-they-probably-listen-to-some-funk-and-soul-in-their-spare-time that would normally be listened to by adults. The only trick is that it's super easy to listen to, even if you're a kid, and so why not share it with them too?
And if this were to be done in the States, we'd introduce each of the band members, they'd say some goofy stuff, we'd introduce the instruments, throw around some music jargon, and take advantage of the teaching moment. Most times I believe it'd be a sort of very open, transparent, sometimes silly learning environment. That's not bad, but that's not France.
We've heard from quite a few sources that "seduction" is a key element to the French culture. We Americans instantly get nervous with the word, but it really doesn't have an implicit sexual meaning like it does for us. So try and erase that definition for the moment. Instead it's simply making things aesthetically pleasing in an attractive sort of way that captures and keeps the attention. Perhaps "enchanting" is a better word for our American minds.
And that's exactly what this production was.
An actress came out first, a sort of prop for holding attention spans when the music would inevitably begin to fail. She was named Isabella. When she had discovered the band was late, she tucked herself in and went to sleep on the front of the stage. The band tiptoed out, took their places, and whispered, "Let's try not to wake her." And with that, they slyly slipped into their first song "Isabella."
From then on, never once did any of them break character or interrupt the show, with enough curious visual elements and instrument changes (and a few animal masks, balloons, and bubbles along the way) to keep things interesting. The kid had been insisting that afternoon that he didn't want to go, and he spent 15 minutes of waiting before the show with his hands over his ears insisting it was too loud. But as soon as the music started, the hands dropped and his eyes were fixed. I caught him tapping his feet, and toward the end he joined in clapping when each song finished. I think he was enchanted, too.
To introduce my favorite song of the afternoon, the singer explained, "This is a song about a friendship between a mermaid and a tiger. You know what a mermaid is?" Ouiiiiiiiii. "And a tiger?" Ouiiiiiiiiiiii. "Where does a mermaid live?" l'océan! "And where does a tiger live?" la jungle! "And so everybody might say that a friendship between a mermaid and a tiger is impossible. But, it is possible."
This is Moriarty, "Beasty Jane" from The Missing Room
But when the new season launched in September, I read about bands doing shows for kids and of course I was immediately interested. I think it only happens four times this year. I listened to one long enough to realize it wouldn't be a waste of money, and one day the kid and I walked over to buy our tickets.
Turns out this band, Moriarty, is actually quite popular around here. Popular enough to have two gold records in France and to play all the largest clubs in Paris with some amount of regularity. Turns out the show later that night was sold out pretty quickly. Turns out this 4PM kids show also ended up being sold out. Not a bad gig to get in on, then.
Now, don't be confused, this isn't kids music. It's your average folk-rock-alt-country-(in-all-the-good-ways)-with-some-strong-grooves-telling-you-they-probably-listen-to-some-funk-and-soul-in-their-spare-time that would normally be listened to by adults. The only trick is that it's super easy to listen to, even if you're a kid, and so why not share it with them too?
And if this were to be done in the States, we'd introduce each of the band members, they'd say some goofy stuff, we'd introduce the instruments, throw around some music jargon, and take advantage of the teaching moment. Most times I believe it'd be a sort of very open, transparent, sometimes silly learning environment. That's not bad, but that's not France.
We've heard from quite a few sources that "seduction" is a key element to the French culture. We Americans instantly get nervous with the word, but it really doesn't have an implicit sexual meaning like it does for us. So try and erase that definition for the moment. Instead it's simply making things aesthetically pleasing in an attractive sort of way that captures and keeps the attention. Perhaps "enchanting" is a better word for our American minds.
And that's exactly what this production was.
An actress came out first, a sort of prop for holding attention spans when the music would inevitably begin to fail. She was named Isabella. When she had discovered the band was late, she tucked herself in and went to sleep on the front of the stage. The band tiptoed out, took their places, and whispered, "Let's try not to wake her." And with that, they slyly slipped into their first song "Isabella."
From then on, never once did any of them break character or interrupt the show, with enough curious visual elements and instrument changes (and a few animal masks, balloons, and bubbles along the way) to keep things interesting. The kid had been insisting that afternoon that he didn't want to go, and he spent 15 minutes of waiting before the show with his hands over his ears insisting it was too loud. But as soon as the music started, the hands dropped and his eyes were fixed. I caught him tapping his feet, and toward the end he joined in clapping when each song finished. I think he was enchanted, too.
To introduce my favorite song of the afternoon, the singer explained, "This is a song about a friendship between a mermaid and a tiger. You know what a mermaid is?" Ouiiiiiiiii. "And a tiger?" Ouiiiiiiiiiiii. "Where does a mermaid live?" l'océan! "And where does a tiger live?" la jungle! "And so everybody might say that a friendship between a mermaid and a tiger is impossible. But, it is possible."
This is Moriarty, "Beasty Jane" from The Missing Room
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Mix Tape: Honest Songwriting
If I'm picking a song off this new Josh Garrels album, it's 'Farther Along,' only because something about it grabs me and draws me in from the opening chord progression on the organ.
But it's almost embarrassing, because at certain points it sounds a bit like the CCM I listened to in middle school. I don't listen to much of that 'Jesus-y' music anymore these days, and I suppose in the end I distanced myself from that arena of music mainly because it lacked one thing: authenticity.
While I want to be careful not to lump it all into one bag deserving of the garbage can, it often sounded like certain artists were singing about Jesus for one of two reasons: A) success was easier in the Christian market or B) an executive paid them to do so. In the end, that doesn't seem too much different than the other artists singing about sex just to sell records in their arena.
What makes Garrels different, besides some extra poetic prowess and a comparatively larger vocabulary, is that we can very easily discern there's only one reason he's singing about Jesus. It's simply because he wants to. Because he can't begin to imagine singing about anything else. It's as though his life depends on it, and it does. Sure, maybe he'd have a wider audience if he could tone things down a bit, be a bit more vague or esoteric, or find other things to sing about. But if you were to get rid of the focus of his music, there simply would be no music left to be made. No reason to sing. No desire to create. The Creator has put a song in his heart, and the song must be given back to Him.
This authenticity is only further proven when you take a peek at how he creates his records: involving friends, handcrafting the packaging, leaps of faith for financing, never signing to a label, and then giving it all away for free.
There is an integrity here. And it sounds good.
Josh Garrels, "Farther Along" from Love and War and the Sea in Between
But it's almost embarrassing, because at certain points it sounds a bit like the CCM I listened to in middle school. I don't listen to much of that 'Jesus-y' music anymore these days, and I suppose in the end I distanced myself from that arena of music mainly because it lacked one thing: authenticity.
While I want to be careful not to lump it all into one bag deserving of the garbage can, it often sounded like certain artists were singing about Jesus for one of two reasons: A) success was easier in the Christian market or B) an executive paid them to do so. In the end, that doesn't seem too much different than the other artists singing about sex just to sell records in their arena.
What makes Garrels different, besides some extra poetic prowess and a comparatively larger vocabulary, is that we can very easily discern there's only one reason he's singing about Jesus. It's simply because he wants to. Because he can't begin to imagine singing about anything else. It's as though his life depends on it, and it does. Sure, maybe he'd have a wider audience if he could tone things down a bit, be a bit more vague or esoteric, or find other things to sing about. But if you were to get rid of the focus of his music, there simply would be no music left to be made. No reason to sing. No desire to create. The Creator has put a song in his heart, and the song must be given back to Him.
This authenticity is only further proven when you take a peek at how he creates his records: involving friends, handcrafting the packaging, leaps of faith for financing, never signing to a label, and then giving it all away for free.
There is an integrity here. And it sounds good.
Josh Garrels, "Farther Along" from Love and War and the Sea in Between
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Mix Tape: On Real Love
By now just about everyone has heard of Mumford and Sons. Sold out shows all over the world and Grammy nominations to say the very least. Who knows, by now maybe everyone is over Mumford and Sons.
Not me. It was about this time last year that I finally gave up on streaming their album from their Myspace page and the CD was delivered to my door. You know a band doesn't owe their success to gimmicks when the CD is still probably the most played disc in the house and the car still a year later. It's all here. The music, the lyrics, the harmonies, the mood, the energy, the brotherhood. Everyone seems to connect. And as I type I'm realizing just how hard it is to articulate what it is about this band and their music that is so downright powerful.
How many times have I tried to pick a favorite song? There is not a bad song on the disc. The favorites seem to come in waves. I find one and stick to it until another captures my attention. So many beautiful and strong lyrics, for different reasons, for different days.
But I seem to always come back to the opener. Probably not the best, but my favorite, the one I can't get past.
Because it's here, as their smash-hit album begins, that they set the tone for what kind of band they want to be and what their music is all about, setting the record straight right from the start. While they are no less popular than every other act in pop music in the past half-century, they seem to be sending a message that is adamantly and defiantly opposite of the one that sells.
"Love will not betray you, dismay or enslave you! It will set you free! Be more like the man you were made to be!"
For all these years we've heard the pop stars sing about love. It's all we need, of course, and yet it's a dead end street that never ends well. It betrays and dismays, with stabbed backs and broken hearts. We're enslaved by the quest for it, or if we have something that appears to be love, it's probably just slavery dressed up nicely on the exterior, fakery left over from the fifties.
Here come Mumford and Sons boldly saying, "No! That's not it at all! Just the opposite! Love will set you free! It will give you the liberty to be as you were originally designed! And if it doesn't do that, than it isn't love at all!"
"There is a design, an alignment, a cry of my heart to see the beauty of love as it was made to be."
That's what we've been singing about all these years, that's why we're singing about love. But in our search to find it as it was made to be, we've settled for counterfeits and are always left disappointed.
So what's the difference between this real love and the love of pop music? I have no idea the spiritual leanings of the band, and while I don't want to put words in their mouths, they seem to give some pretty strong clues as to where this love is found. In admitting that "my heart was never pure," confessing that "man is a giddy thing," saying "I'm sorry," and going on to "serve God," realizing that this life "is not the end."
Could it be that Mumford and Sons is so popular because of this transcendent nature of their music? It's resonating in hearts of image-bearers, confessing Christians or not.
Pop music has always revealed the image of God. Even when the message is warped and misguided, it serves as a mirror showing us our search for love. We know there's something out there, it's written in our hearts, and though it's a messy story of stumbling and fumbling, it's all a part of our search. And that's exactly why pop music is popular.
Mumford and Sons is equally as popular because they're singing about this same search, but instead of complaining about the cheating girlfriend, bragging about the illicit sex, avoiding a stifling marriage, or hoping for some fluffy version of us all just getting along, they're pointing to something much more transcendent. We thought we wanted the girlfriend, the sex, the bachelorhood, but with it comes betrayal, distress, and enslavement. Here comes something real. Something good and true and beautiful and liberating. And that's what we want. And it's as exhilarating as the music to which the message is set.
It all sounds like something else I've recently read:
"Nobody can give anyone else the kind or amount of love they're starved for. In the end we're all alike, groping for true love and incapable of fully giving it. What we need is someone to love us who doesn't need us at all. Someone who loves us radically, unconditionally, vulnerably, just for our sake. If we received that kind of love, that would so assure us of our value, it would so fill us up, that maybe we could start to give love like that too...when you begin to get [this love], when you begin to experience it, the fakery and manipulativeness of your own love starts to wash away, and you've got the patience and security to reach out and start giving a truer love to other people." -Timothy Keller, King's Cross
Mumford and Sons, "Sigh No More" from Sigh No More
Not me. It was about this time last year that I finally gave up on streaming their album from their Myspace page and the CD was delivered to my door. You know a band doesn't owe their success to gimmicks when the CD is still probably the most played disc in the house and the car still a year later. It's all here. The music, the lyrics, the harmonies, the mood, the energy, the brotherhood. Everyone seems to connect. And as I type I'm realizing just how hard it is to articulate what it is about this band and their music that is so downright powerful.
How many times have I tried to pick a favorite song? There is not a bad song on the disc. The favorites seem to come in waves. I find one and stick to it until another captures my attention. So many beautiful and strong lyrics, for different reasons, for different days.
But I seem to always come back to the opener. Probably not the best, but my favorite, the one I can't get past.
Because it's here, as their smash-hit album begins, that they set the tone for what kind of band they want to be and what their music is all about, setting the record straight right from the start. While they are no less popular than every other act in pop music in the past half-century, they seem to be sending a message that is adamantly and defiantly opposite of the one that sells.
"Love will not betray you, dismay or enslave you! It will set you free! Be more like the man you were made to be!"
For all these years we've heard the pop stars sing about love. It's all we need, of course, and yet it's a dead end street that never ends well. It betrays and dismays, with stabbed backs and broken hearts. We're enslaved by the quest for it, or if we have something that appears to be love, it's probably just slavery dressed up nicely on the exterior, fakery left over from the fifties.
Here come Mumford and Sons boldly saying, "No! That's not it at all! Just the opposite! Love will set you free! It will give you the liberty to be as you were originally designed! And if it doesn't do that, than it isn't love at all!"
"There is a design, an alignment, a cry of my heart to see the beauty of love as it was made to be."
That's what we've been singing about all these years, that's why we're singing about love. But in our search to find it as it was made to be, we've settled for counterfeits and are always left disappointed.
So what's the difference between this real love and the love of pop music? I have no idea the spiritual leanings of the band, and while I don't want to put words in their mouths, they seem to give some pretty strong clues as to where this love is found. In admitting that "my heart was never pure," confessing that "man is a giddy thing," saying "I'm sorry," and going on to "serve God," realizing that this life "is not the end."
Could it be that Mumford and Sons is so popular because of this transcendent nature of their music? It's resonating in hearts of image-bearers, confessing Christians or not.
Pop music has always revealed the image of God. Even when the message is warped and misguided, it serves as a mirror showing us our search for love. We know there's something out there, it's written in our hearts, and though it's a messy story of stumbling and fumbling, it's all a part of our search. And that's exactly why pop music is popular.
Mumford and Sons is equally as popular because they're singing about this same search, but instead of complaining about the cheating girlfriend, bragging about the illicit sex, avoiding a stifling marriage, or hoping for some fluffy version of us all just getting along, they're pointing to something much more transcendent. We thought we wanted the girlfriend, the sex, the bachelorhood, but with it comes betrayal, distress, and enslavement. Here comes something real. Something good and true and beautiful and liberating. And that's what we want. And it's as exhilarating as the music to which the message is set.
It all sounds like something else I've recently read:
"Nobody can give anyone else the kind or amount of love they're starved for. In the end we're all alike, groping for true love and incapable of fully giving it. What we need is someone to love us who doesn't need us at all. Someone who loves us radically, unconditionally, vulnerably, just for our sake. If we received that kind of love, that would so assure us of our value, it would so fill us up, that maybe we could start to give love like that too...when you begin to get [this love], when you begin to experience it, the fakery and manipulativeness of your own love starts to wash away, and you've got the patience and security to reach out and start giving a truer love to other people." -Timothy Keller, King's Cross
Mumford and Sons, "Sigh No More" from Sigh No More
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Mix Tape: Puzzles, Teamwork
Plenty of thoughts swirling these days, some more tumultuous than others, so again I turn to music to get at least some of this expressive urgency off my chest.
It was February 2006, I ran away from my miserable job one night with my friend Nate to Atlantic City to see Sigur Ros play in a casino. Four women took the stage, but I thought for sure Sigur Ros was four men. With no announcement, they started quietly playing their odd array of instruments and toys. I don't want to use the word "chemistry" but I'm not sure how else to describe the way they worked together. Professional, like they knew what they were doing, and not a single one fighting for the spotlight, but graciously letting each one take their turn as they shifted from one instrument to the next. It was more like a gracious conversation, an even-handed dialogue, a dance of sorts. A decrescendo led to the final note and they left the stage, again with no announcement, and all of us were left wondering who they were and where they were from and where they went and why they had to leave so soon. To call them "mesmerizing" or "enchanting" would be fitting.
I fell in love that night with the musical saw and the desk bells, both of which I now own (thanks to my wife and Nate, respectively).
Some internet research after the fact confirmed they were known as Amiina, aka the girls who play the stringed instruments for Sigur Ros. From Iceland also, with only one hard-to-find EP to their name at that point in time, with shortly after a new album called Kurr.
I was excited to recently discover a new album, and smiled at the thought of it being called Puzzle. I can think of no better way to describe their music. Not because it's puzzling, but because of the magical way a puzzle unfolds when we agree to work together. So many of their songs begin with each one tinkering their way into a theme in their own corner. As pieces connect, those individual themes take shape. Look across the table and see how one theme relate to another, how they come together, how they fit. The song comes alive, and all in one moment, a burst of energy, each one connects and the full picture becomes visible as we race to end with excitement.
Personally, puzzles drive me crazy, but I've always found them easier and more fun when others are helping. And that, with the air these ladies have about them, seems to be exactly what Amiina is about. It's a lovely ode to community, teamwork, unity, inclusiveness, or whatever you want to call it. "You've got a bizarre instrument to play? Then join in. You can make this song even better. Just take some time to find your place and see where you fit. Come on in when the moment's clear."
And of course, that which seems to be the common theme in most of what I listen to is often here too. If I have to try and describe it, it's the tension between melancholy and joy, wistfulness and hope, a beautiful and precarious balance that seems to reflect this life we're living in.
As I type this, I realize this is all the stuff I want to start a church with.
To my ears, this song "Mambo" is the highlight of this new album. I love the little melody, a reworking of this previous boisterous song with a much different feel but equally as fun. Listen for the moment the puzzle comes together at 3:00.
Amiina, "Mambo" from Puzzle
It was February 2006, I ran away from my miserable job one night with my friend Nate to Atlantic City to see Sigur Ros play in a casino. Four women took the stage, but I thought for sure Sigur Ros was four men. With no announcement, they started quietly playing their odd array of instruments and toys. I don't want to use the word "chemistry" but I'm not sure how else to describe the way they worked together. Professional, like they knew what they were doing, and not a single one fighting for the spotlight, but graciously letting each one take their turn as they shifted from one instrument to the next. It was more like a gracious conversation, an even-handed dialogue, a dance of sorts. A decrescendo led to the final note and they left the stage, again with no announcement, and all of us were left wondering who they were and where they were from and where they went and why they had to leave so soon. To call them "mesmerizing" or "enchanting" would be fitting.
I fell in love that night with the musical saw and the desk bells, both of which I now own (thanks to my wife and Nate, respectively).
Some internet research after the fact confirmed they were known as Amiina, aka the girls who play the stringed instruments for Sigur Ros. From Iceland also, with only one hard-to-find EP to their name at that point in time, with shortly after a new album called Kurr.
I was excited to recently discover a new album, and smiled at the thought of it being called Puzzle. I can think of no better way to describe their music. Not because it's puzzling, but because of the magical way a puzzle unfolds when we agree to work together. So many of their songs begin with each one tinkering their way into a theme in their own corner. As pieces connect, those individual themes take shape. Look across the table and see how one theme relate to another, how they come together, how they fit. The song comes alive, and all in one moment, a burst of energy, each one connects and the full picture becomes visible as we race to end with excitement.
Personally, puzzles drive me crazy, but I've always found them easier and more fun when others are helping. And that, with the air these ladies have about them, seems to be exactly what Amiina is about. It's a lovely ode to community, teamwork, unity, inclusiveness, or whatever you want to call it. "You've got a bizarre instrument to play? Then join in. You can make this song even better. Just take some time to find your place and see where you fit. Come on in when the moment's clear."
And of course, that which seems to be the common theme in most of what I listen to is often here too. If I have to try and describe it, it's the tension between melancholy and joy, wistfulness and hope, a beautiful and precarious balance that seems to reflect this life we're living in.
As I type this, I realize this is all the stuff I want to start a church with.
To my ears, this song "Mambo" is the highlight of this new album. I love the little melody, a reworking of this previous boisterous song with a much different feel but equally as fun. Listen for the moment the puzzle comes together at 3:00.
Amiina, "Mambo" from Puzzle
Friday, August 19, 2011
Mix Tape: The Sound of Trading Dreams for Cubicles
I was walking through the old part of town towards the train station when this song came on. The sun shone brighter, a bounce in my step. I sent it to my sister when I got home just in time to amp her up for her half marathon run.
2010 was the year of albums that had to grow on me. The National's High Violet was one. It took me a while to like these fellows, even before this album, but it helps to know what they're about. They're about rich texture, layers, building thick walls of sound, fuzzy and forceful soundscapes, long crescendos founded on an impeccable sense of rhythm. They are about taking your feelings of melancholy, regret, and wistfulness and giving them a definitive soundtrack. Some days it's not what I'm looking for, other days it's exactly what I'm looking for.
But I've often wondered why they are as wildly popular as they are. Not that they don't deserve the recognition they're getting, they mostly do, but to be selling out huge theaters and taking over the blogosphere and being praised by people outside the usual indie-hipster circle just generally surprises me. They are a long shot from Dave Matthews Band, after all.
I wonder if it's music for the working man. Take, for instance, the singer's everyday-joe personality, a deep-voiced and bearded commoner persona. Especially with the suit he's usually wearing, he's the guy you spent 9 to 5 around the water cooler with, and then after a few beers at happy hour he saunters onto stage. Something about this strikes a chord with grown up emo kids who have traded dreams of their band finally hitting big for the reality of being stuck in a dead-end cubicle. It's a sort of vicarious release for all of us.
So, thanks, The National, for giving us something to mope to during work and something to run to after work. We know life is tough for you guys too with the daily grind and all, the boss on your case, another year without a raise. But hang in there, we're all rooting for you.
This is The National, "Bloodbuzz Ohio," a song for walking or running or driving home from work on the first sunny day of vacation or just starting your long-awaited weekend.
2010 was the year of albums that had to grow on me. The National's High Violet was one. It took me a while to like these fellows, even before this album, but it helps to know what they're about. They're about rich texture, layers, building thick walls of sound, fuzzy and forceful soundscapes, long crescendos founded on an impeccable sense of rhythm. They are about taking your feelings of melancholy, regret, and wistfulness and giving them a definitive soundtrack. Some days it's not what I'm looking for, other days it's exactly what I'm looking for.
But I've often wondered why they are as wildly popular as they are. Not that they don't deserve the recognition they're getting, they mostly do, but to be selling out huge theaters and taking over the blogosphere and being praised by people outside the usual indie-hipster circle just generally surprises me. They are a long shot from Dave Matthews Band, after all.
I wonder if it's music for the working man. Take, for instance, the singer's everyday-joe personality, a deep-voiced and bearded commoner persona. Especially with the suit he's usually wearing, he's the guy you spent 9 to 5 around the water cooler with, and then after a few beers at happy hour he saunters onto stage. Something about this strikes a chord with grown up emo kids who have traded dreams of their band finally hitting big for the reality of being stuck in a dead-end cubicle. It's a sort of vicarious release for all of us.
So, thanks, The National, for giving us something to mope to during work and something to run to after work. We know life is tough for you guys too with the daily grind and all, the boss on your case, another year without a raise. But hang in there, we're all rooting for you.
This is The National, "Bloodbuzz Ohio," a song for walking or running or driving home from work on the first sunny day of vacation or just starting your long-awaited weekend.
Monday, August 08, 2011
Mix Tape: Balkan and Neo-Balkan
The four of us were making our way through the main metro station in the center of Paris, catching a transfer to head home. We turned into the tunnel we needed, but heard some amazing music from the other direction. We froze, all together, and almost without having to say anything to each other, turned around and followed what we heard.
There we found two guitars, two accordions, a bass, a violin, a trumpet, and a hammered dulcimer: 8 men. All of them singing at some moments as if their lives depended on it. Maybe it does. The first song made us smile and dance. The second song took our breath away, literally giving me chills. Now I regret only taking 58 seconds of video, and yet I can still sing the melodies without it, they were that memorable.
What struck me funny is this: I instantly recognized the sound. That’s because the band Beirut has been described as “Neo-Balkan.” I’ve always thought that’s a ridiculous label for a genre of music at all, let alone indie music manufactured in Brooklyn, especially because 9 people who are using it out of 10, including me, don’t know where “the Balkans” are nor do they know what Balkan music sounds like. But I immediately knew this subway music was Balkan. It sounded like the grandfather of Beirut. Neo-Balkan isn’t so preposterous after all. And it's no wonder it's so painfully beautiful; it resembles its grandfather.
Sure enough, this band is from this Eastern European region. And the entire experience made me like these gentlemen more, made me like Beirut more.
With that, I leave you with this song, “The Penalty” from Beirut (live in Paris). Maybe not the best example of Neo-Balkan, but still my favorite of his. If you’ve received a mix tape from me in the past, there’s a good chance this song was on it. I’ve been rehearsing it on my ukulele to play in the metro someday. Maybe I’ve found my backing band now.
But if you're more taken with the original, authentic version of Balkan music, as I think I may be, I've found a bit more about them here.
(And incidentally, Beirut has a new album coming, currently streamable here.)
There we found two guitars, two accordions, a bass, a violin, a trumpet, and a hammered dulcimer: 8 men. All of them singing at some moments as if their lives depended on it. Maybe it does. The first song made us smile and dance. The second song took our breath away, literally giving me chills. Now I regret only taking 58 seconds of video, and yet I can still sing the melodies without it, they were that memorable.
What struck me funny is this: I instantly recognized the sound. That’s because the band Beirut has been described as “Neo-Balkan.” I’ve always thought that’s a ridiculous label for a genre of music at all, let alone indie music manufactured in Brooklyn, especially because 9 people who are using it out of 10, including me, don’t know where “the Balkans” are nor do they know what Balkan music sounds like. But I immediately knew this subway music was Balkan. It sounded like the grandfather of Beirut. Neo-Balkan isn’t so preposterous after all. And it's no wonder it's so painfully beautiful; it resembles its grandfather.
Sure enough, this band is from this Eastern European region. And the entire experience made me like these gentlemen more, made me like Beirut more.
With that, I leave you with this song, “The Penalty” from Beirut (live in Paris). Maybe not the best example of Neo-Balkan, but still my favorite of his. If you’ve received a mix tape from me in the past, there’s a good chance this song was on it. I’ve been rehearsing it on my ukulele to play in the metro someday. Maybe I’ve found my backing band now.
But if you're more taken with the original, authentic version of Balkan music, as I think I may be, I've found a bit more about them here.
(And incidentally, Beirut has a new album coming, currently streamable here.)
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Mix Tape: Chanson
I first heard of Thomas Fersen from a hip language school teacher in 2007, who used his song Zaza in a lesson one day. E and I were instantly hooked, for good reason. Found out after, that he is also one of our friend's favorite French artists, who gave us some of his stuff to listen to.
Fast forward to 2011. I ask the librarian in the music section for recommendations of French artists. I told her I liked rock, and that I enjoy Thomas Fersen. "Well, he's not Rock," she informed me, "that's Chanson."
I thought Rock was a pretty large and generous umbrella term for anything that wasn't rap, classical, or polka. Apparently it's not the same in France. Chanson is the word for 'song,' but apparently a genre all its own as well. I'm not exactly sure what it includes other than the little bit Wikipedia is giving me, but my early estimations tell me the emphasis is on, first and foremost and if not completely, the lyrics. Each song, in some way, is an ode to the French language itself. It's one reason the French are known for taking so much pride in the beauty of their language.
I like this, even if it is sort of the extreme opposite of the majority of my musical tastes. Above all, I like instrumental music with no lyrics whatsoever. When there are lyrics, I rarely listen to them, at least never at first, and I typically tend to treat the voice as just one more instrument in the mix. The music I like depends mostly on unusual instrumentation, soaring harmonies, gimmicky dynamics (slow builds and dramatic stops), and the like. To make a song rest entirely on its lyrics and then melody? This comes closer to just plain poetry. And doing it well takes some serious skill, more skill than it takes to make a good crescendo.
There's a line of songwriters falling into this cherished tradition, and relatively speaking, Fersen is a newcomer. But I've heard him already called a master and one of the best, and I'm only just beginning to fully appreciate why.
I'm choosing this song "Monsieur" for how easily it gets stuck in my head. It's actually a bit morbid, about a murderer or assassin, but you can't understand French and I can't really either, so that doesn't matter, right? You can still enjoy the flawless rhythm of the words and pleasant sound of the rhymes. It's a little tale told by "un peu jardinier qui fait la cuisine," the lowly gardener who cooks.
But as I was saying, it gets stuck in your head. One day the kid and I were walking through Giverny--Claude Monet's little village--he on my shoulders, and I was whistling this song loudly (a habit I haven't yet kicked). He kept hitting my head and told me not to whistle, that we were busy walking and I couldn't whistle here, but I couldn't help it, I kept going. I whistled in the train. He told me no whistling. I whistled in the kitchen. He told me no whistling.
And so, I dare you to listen to this song just once and not whistle for the rest of the day. And when you and I can finally speak French fluently, we can get together and talk with even more appreciation about how wonderful this fellow is at what he does. Because it's not about that melody you'll be whistling, it's about the lyrics. Ironic, I guess.
Thomas Fersen - "Monsieur"
Fast forward to 2011. I ask the librarian in the music section for recommendations of French artists. I told her I liked rock, and that I enjoy Thomas Fersen. "Well, he's not Rock," she informed me, "that's Chanson."
I thought Rock was a pretty large and generous umbrella term for anything that wasn't rap, classical, or polka. Apparently it's not the same in France. Chanson is the word for 'song,' but apparently a genre all its own as well. I'm not exactly sure what it includes other than the little bit Wikipedia is giving me, but my early estimations tell me the emphasis is on, first and foremost and if not completely, the lyrics. Each song, in some way, is an ode to the French language itself. It's one reason the French are known for taking so much pride in the beauty of their language.
I like this, even if it is sort of the extreme opposite of the majority of my musical tastes. Above all, I like instrumental music with no lyrics whatsoever. When there are lyrics, I rarely listen to them, at least never at first, and I typically tend to treat the voice as just one more instrument in the mix. The music I like depends mostly on unusual instrumentation, soaring harmonies, gimmicky dynamics (slow builds and dramatic stops), and the like. To make a song rest entirely on its lyrics and then melody? This comes closer to just plain poetry. And doing it well takes some serious skill, more skill than it takes to make a good crescendo.
There's a line of songwriters falling into this cherished tradition, and relatively speaking, Fersen is a newcomer. But I've heard him already called a master and one of the best, and I'm only just beginning to fully appreciate why.
I'm choosing this song "Monsieur" for how easily it gets stuck in my head. It's actually a bit morbid, about a murderer or assassin, but you can't understand French and I can't really either, so that doesn't matter, right? You can still enjoy the flawless rhythm of the words and pleasant sound of the rhymes. It's a little tale told by "un peu jardinier qui fait la cuisine," the lowly gardener who cooks.
But as I was saying, it gets stuck in your head. One day the kid and I were walking through Giverny--Claude Monet's little village--he on my shoulders, and I was whistling this song loudly (a habit I haven't yet kicked). He kept hitting my head and told me not to whistle, that we were busy walking and I couldn't whistle here, but I couldn't help it, I kept going. I whistled in the train. He told me no whistling. I whistled in the kitchen. He told me no whistling.
And so, I dare you to listen to this song just once and not whistle for the rest of the day. And when you and I can finally speak French fluently, we can get together and talk with even more appreciation about how wonderful this fellow is at what he does. Because it's not about that melody you'll be whistling, it's about the lyrics. Ironic, I guess.
Thomas Fersen - "Monsieur"
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