a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Over Myself

And on a personal note….

OK, so I'm just weird. Things go well around me; I'm depressed anyway. Yet, conversely, another half-dozen people got laid off here yesterday (after a similar number went down a few weeks ago -- and it sounds like there's more waves to come), and after joining in the collective ventfest (and we all kind of feel guilty about feeling bad, which frankly is just stupid), I somehow rise above the sadness for no good reason. And there's absolutely nothing cause-and-effect about either of the above statements.

Admittedly, though, there IS some cause-and-effect regarding the subject matter of the rest of this post. And it’s good cause-and-effect.

I'd seen the first four covers of Growing Out before this, but just saw the final two. And maybe there's something about finally seeing all six seasons laid out before me -- not totally unlike what God did nearly 2 1/2 years earlier, and I suddenly realized, "So that's what it would look like..." -- but suddenly I don't feel quite so much like a failure today. Which is good, because this month was really freaking tiresome like that.

Anyway, here they are for your previewing pleasure. Say what you will about them. It's not like they're going to change anymore at this point (I THINK).... they ARE going into the catalog this way, in any case...

 

And as of a few hours ago, I have six lessons left to write. That's it. 72 down, 6 to go. And another has a good chance of going down this weekend. The end seems in sight.

Although given the information that started this, "the end" could mean just about anything. But that's for another post. Or, better yet, not.

By the way, go ahead and read the post just below this, as it’s only an hour or two older than this one, and it's all musical and stuff…. 
 

Posted by: burninglight at 15:08 | link | comments

Everything I Do, I Do for Andre

Well, in this post, anyway. And frankly, it’s just an amusing title.

Anyway, this should be one of the trickier music columns to write, seeing as two of the entries are instrumental and another’s a musical created for Swedish National Radio. Like I said…

But leave us backtrack a bit…. One of the many non-secrets in this sector of cyberspace is that I’m a huge fan of Andre Salles’ music column Tuesday Morning 3 a.m. And as of late, and much through the courtesy of Facebook, our paths have been overlapping considerably more as of late. In fact, the final entry here (the one with lyrics and straightforward songs and everything!) came out of a long late-night back-and-forth with the man, in which by night’s end I finally surrendered my seven dollars and was duly rewarded. (And apparently I now have to give R.E.M. a chance to not suck for the first time in 15 years, too. We’ll just SEE about that…)

But first, let’s start with the one entry he’s absolutely going to hate….

Sparks – The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman. The Brothers Mael have become a running joke between us at this point, as I love them and, through my encouragement, Andre has come to loathe them. Still, when my Top 10 of the Decade list hits next month, the boys are gonna have a pretty prominent place in it – probably right below the next guy we’re gonna get to, in fact.

This, as you may have already guessed by the title, would be the Swedish National Radio one. Upon first hearing it, I was very tempted to quickly categorize it as a “completists’ only” thing. And to be sure, it’s not for everyone. (Like Sparks ever is?) But with repeated listens, as I began getting past the interspersed Swedish narratives and English non-singing in many spots (including the limo driver – Ron speaks! But now we know why he doesn’t sing…) and began to follow the narrative and catch the musical themes weaving in and out, I gotta say I really do like this.

And when it comes to creating a musical piece about a legendarily cranky iconoclast and his frantic fantasy escape from the seduction of Hollywood… I mean, who else WOULD you call but these guys?

You DO have to plow through the first seven minutes of this to get to the more accessible pieces, but roll with it if you can, because it’s worth it. “Listen, I am Ingmar Bergman. I de-mond to know where we’re going,” our star Jonas Malmsjö declares with just the right indignant tone in response to the small-talking Limo Driver/Ron. There are a few songs not totally outside Sparks’ considerably expansive oeuvre, such as “Mr. Bergman How Are You?”  (which also features probably the funniest couplet of the album, "Works of art can also work / For some Midwest creepy jerk"), “We Have Got to Turn Him Around,” and the closer “He Is Home.” But really, you need to follow the story to appreciate this.

So track along as the simultaneous overadulation/desire to control among the Hollywood elite contrast with Ingmar’s cantankerous trenchancy. And as the producers lie to his face, “Make the film in your own way/All the way, you’ll have your say,” then plaintively sneer a song later, “He’ll come round/They always do,” you’ll find yourself rooting for a most unlikely hero.

So, feeling lucky?

Sufjan Stevens – Run Rabbit Run and The BQE. Andre has already declared that unlike me he’s not gonna try his own Top 10 of the Decade, but in discussing the idea anyway, it seems pretty clear that there would probably be only one album that made both our lists (and both our Top 5s, for that matter), and this guy created it.  We’ve been waiting more than 4 years for the follow-up. As I like to say (and I’m right), Andre’s already said it better, but I’ll do what I can. Still, you really oughta read his version, ‘cause I’m gonna keep it short and sweet rather than attempt anything close.

Again, these are both instrumental, so that might shut you down from the get-go. Still, there’s rewards to be had from both, to varying degrees.

I’ve listened to Run Rabbit Run probably a dozen times, and it’s definitely the tougher listen. “The Year of the Boar” has in my RealPlayer for a year or so now, courtesy of an Asthmatic Kitty sampler, so I can attest for my legitimately enjoying what goes on here, but it’s also worth noting that 4-minute samples are one thing and a whole album on regular rotation is another. It’s challenging for both player and listener, and frankly kinda grating in places. Violins squeal in place of synths, or just beat the crap out of you. But it’s also got its share of more lovely, lyrical moments.

The appeal, and the disadvantage, of an album like this is that there’s not enough to keep you engaged all the way through as foreground music, and there’s too many times it cuts through and screams at you to work as background music. I could see this working on a long drive, though. :)

The BQE is the more “official” new work, being that it’s actually made up of new material. And while I miss the lyrics – a lot – I enjoy this one quite a bit more. It is, as we say in the Simmons household, art-room music. Marion’s already asked me to play it in the background for her as she creates, and I suspect it will be taking up permanent residence in her studio by month’s end. And this is one you can invite into the foreground, too, if you like.

I have to say, though, most of this must have been composed at 3 in the morning (Tuesday Morning 3 a.m.?) because I don’t recall the Bronx-Queens Expressway being this attractive.

Some of this does sound like Illinois without the lyrics – note the trilling woodwinds in “Introductory Fanfare in the Hooper Heroes” and the sheer cosmicness of the first half of “Interlude 1: Dream Sequence in Subi Circumnavigation,” as just a couple examples. Other pieces, though, take the musical envelope even beyond the last state we visited, and make you hope that one day, if those lyrics ever return, we’re all gonna be gape-mouthed at what this guy’s gonna create.

Or maybe he’s just gonna become the next Aaron Copland, via Steve Reich, we’ll never see another “Casimir Pulaski Day” or even (and even more likely) a “Chicago,” and we’ll have to accept him for what he is. Who knows?

For now, enjoy the quiet and slowly expanding grandeur of the first two movements, “The Countenance of Kings” and “Sleeping Invader”; the well-timed orchestral dissonance of the second half of “Interlude 1…,” in which you’re waiting for Paul McCartney to arrive on the scene and announce that he woke up, fell out of bed, and dragged a comb across his head; or the electronic jolt of the appropriately titled “Movement IV: Traffic Shock.” The second half, in comparison, feels a bit more conventionally classical but certainly is enjoyable enough.

Anyway, pay the guy’s bills, play it regularly in your more meditative moments, and hope for that we get more lyrics again someday.

Quiet Company – Everyone You Love Will Be Happy Soon. As previously alluded, Andre put a lot of time and effort into talking me into this one. And while I can’t rate it as high as he does -- I think it’s currently his #2 for 2009, and he reviews a LOT more albums than I do – his effort was not for nothing. And I’m thoroughly amused by the prospect of having two albums in my top 10 (by two different residents of Austin, Texas, no less) respectively named Everyone You Love Will Be Happy Soon and Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away.

As always, the better story can be found here. But one miss I feel compelled to point out – and since I know he’s a big fan, I’m rather surprised by it – is that the guy I really hear in here is Ben Folds, albeit with a major Brian Wilson syndrome. But the piano-drivenness, the witty-to-snarky lyrics, the catchy melodies… check, sometimes check, and check some more.

And I agree with Andre that Taylor Muse definitely has all the tools. The difference is, I’m waiting for some major trouble on the farm to bring the full genius out of him. Right now, and to keep the Ben Folds analogy, this is sort of like Whatever and Ever Amen without laugh-out-loud moments like “One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces” or the total heartbreak of a “Brick” or “Evaporated.” Although one could certainly do worse than a whole album’s worth of “Kate,” “Smoke,” and “The Battle of Who Could Care Less.”

OK, analogy milked, move on. This IS some seriously well-crafted stuff. And for what it’s worth – and appropriately, given the last guy reviewed, who also has a penchant for the big statement -- some great song titles, such as “My New Year’s Resolution Is to Cope With My Mortality,” “When I Am Empty, Please Dispose of Me Properly,” and not least of all the go-for-broke You-Can’t-Hurry-Love-with-a-death-wish-ish “It’s Better to Spend Money Like There’s No Tomorrow Than to Spend Tonight Like There’s No Money” (thoroughly exemplified by its lines, “When your heart’s full of dancing / You’d better dance ‘til you’re dead… You’d better stop and smell the roses / You’d better learn the life you love”).

There’re some interesting spots where Muse seems to throw some random noise just for the hell of it, but it works. And theologically speaking, YOU take a guess at the mind that would present such disparate views as “So I reached out for a savior, and I found her hand,” “Oh, there must be a God, somewhere in the universe / maybe looking after me / Yeah, He may be smiling down on me,” and, from the inimitably Foldsian “Congratulations Seth & Kara,” “You and I can read the Scriptures daily / But we’d probably never agree / You say Joshua was a mighty leader / Well, he’s still an a****** to me.”

But at its best, this is more than just catchy or a subject of whimsical theological quandary. The opener “A Nation of Two,” grows from a single piano to the revenge of Phil Spector, and features the personal-aside-to-climactic-shout, “"If you really want / Want to love somebody / it will cost you more than you have / I can guarantee you that… Nananana-nananana-nananana-na-na-na-naaaaa, I can GUAR-AN-TEE you.” Although the quieting almost-coda (before disappearing back into the aforementioned random noise)  of “There’s no-one in this life / Quite like the two of us” is just the right touch.

Or take “Our Sun In Always Rising,” which again grows from a somber piano to near-obnoxious optimism, “Just like the sun’s a’gonna rise up / Our love keep movin’, movin’.” Or the sweetly acoustic, atmospherically background-vocalled “Red & Gold.” Or the single-waiting-to-happen “Golden (Like the State).” Or the decidedly more wall-of-sound rockin’ “The Beginning of Everything at the End of the World,” which nonetheless sticks a lyrical surveyor’s stake in the land formerly occupied by Dave Bazan:

O Lord, I love you so,
But You’ve been misrepresented
Although Your flock does grow
Under these false pretenses
It leaves me feeling cold
It leaves me feeling faithless
Because our scars, both new and old,
They never seem to shame us.

Again, I think Taylor Muse still has got better still in him, especially as a lyrics guy (and I’m referring to both me AND him in that last phrase). But there’s more than enough to take in here musically, so throw down here and start taking it in. And, of course, thank Andre when you do.

Stay tuned for the next post, coming VERY soon to a blog near... well, actually right here....

Posted by: burninglight at 13:50 | link | comments