Tag: music, songs

[music, songs] April 12, 2006 at 7:13:00 PM CEST

Pharoah Sanders - Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt

Pharoah Sanders second album Tauhid was recorded in 1966, one year after John Coltrane's free-jazz apex Ascension on which Sanders and Archie Shepp played the other two tenor saxes.

Tauhid, the Islamic concept of monotheism, is Arabic for unification. Pharoah is the first name given to Farrell Sanders by Sun Ra. That's what Wikipedia says.

The longest track from the album, The Upper and Lower Egypt (edit) is what I'd call the perfect way to meld body and spirit in sound. A track with polyrhythmic percussion, Sonny Sharrock's funky guitar and Pharoah joining after the groove has set in. He overblows like a lonely elephant calling for his mates in the African savanna. And then he vocalises. Reminding me of Can when they had that black singer. The joy of life. I need some more of that kind of stuff very soon.

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[music, songs] March 24, 2006 at 8:39:00 PM CET

As artist Peter Schmidt once said: ‘In a room full of shouting people the one who is whispering becomes the most interesting.’ The only problem I’ve found with this record over the years is what to follow it with. Nothing seems appropriate except silence.

The finale of Julian Cope's excellent review of Talk Talk's Laughing Stock on his Unsung site

Ascension Day, the second piece on the album (their last) reflects this "stopping at the peak" theme on a song base. It brutally cuts off in the middle of the dissonant yet hypnotic guitar action. What seems like a glitch is intentional. The song just can't become more intense anymore. It finishes on the highest point imaginable. Listening to this abrupt end feels to me like making love to a woman and being ejected from her by some supernatural force a second before the climax. Like being catapulted from heaven back to the earth. I know one or two women who are more familiar with this sobering experience of pulling the plug. Mea culpa.

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[music, songs] March 23, 2006 at 8:32:00 PM CET

Talk Talk - New Grass

This is the song I'd play to someone just about to kill himself. No. Maybe that should say that's the song I would play to myself if I was about to leave this world on my own. The beauty of this song transcends the appeal death could have for someone who has lost all hope. It is the warmest, most caressing, most soothing song on Laughing Stock. It's a holy song, the lyrics use Christian terminology: sacrament, Christ, heaven, vow. Mark Hollis is English, if he had been from India he would sing about Vishnu or Krishna, the words and names don't matter. It's all about the music. What reaches our brain via the ears directly without the interference of the ratio. Call it truth, love or anything. I think I would call it trust.

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[music, songs] March 10, 2006 at 11:14:00 PM CET

well i'm afraid i told a lie

nick cave - the mercy seat (johnny cash version)

moistworks had an amazing song by camera obscura online recently. my current fave. a gorgeous, dreamy, sexy female voice saying-singing "~~i'd like/love to~~ you say our life will be the death of you", belle and sebastian harmonies, a killer tune. it's only two clicks away. one too many, i know but that's your problem.

God, that was some hard lyric-deciphering by listening. Instead of communication (she drops a syllable there but I think she is from Texas so that's ok) I first heard lubrication (those wet dreams always), then I thought it is lumination (that's more like it, I see a distant light when I hear this song) or maybe ubication ("the quality or state of being in a place", yeah that's where you are too every second when you are travelling).

It's the early nineties again, we are all younger, everything is possible. All beauty is foggy and hazy. This song is a fountain of youth for me. Lush, Pale Saints, My Bloody Valentine are the names which have established this kind of music. Experimental Aircraft somehow seem to be better than their predecessors. They arrive at making shoegazing sound as striking as 15 years ago.

P.S. Rachel who sings this song provided the correct lyrics in the comments. I stroke out the bits I got wrong and put the good words next.

Got hit by this song this morning in the car. Tears wanted to flow down my cheeks but they couldn't. I should have slept less last night.

I have been listening three times to that album now. First (last night on low volume) I thought it was absolute genius, so varied, like nothing I have heard since the White Album or something. A concept album with three sides. Rough psychedelic rock, mellow dreamy psychedelics and the synth beat driven part where you could dance your soul away. On the second listen this morning it felt heavy, contrived. Too much. The third listen tonight and I seem to become more objective. It's not as great as I imagined but it is worth that I write some more about it.

The song from the second side featured here is amazing as it combines the full mesmerising shoegazing sound from the early nineties with vocals which are so totally Beach Boys I still can't believe it. There has always been something missing on the Beach Boys records and here it is. On Pet Sounds the singing is dominating the instruments, here they both fit. The harmonies of men and music are on par. Full blossom, a beauty I cannot escape.

Anyone interested in a third song from the first part? Just to cover the three sides.

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