"Throughout the Dark Months of April and May" by Cocteau Twins

It's May...

Here is "Throughout the Dark Months of April and May" by Cocteau Twins (previously here).

https://cocteautwins.com/

What flower expresses...

From "Home Of The Brave," a 1986 film by Laurie Anderson

http://www.laurieanderson.com/home.shtml

deary

Cocteau Twins have returned to us via a duo (Ben Easton and Rebecca Cockram) who call themselves deary. Their lovely, ethereal, shoe gaze sound is hypnotizing...here are three tracks to enjoy: "Sleepsong," "The Moth," and "Beauty in all Blue Satin.",

https://www.instagram.com/dearyband

"Keep Going" by Guster

A lovely positive song, "Keep Going" by Guster, from their new release "Ooh La La" out May 17, 2024...when things don't work out quite right, keep going, you will be alright.

I bought a ticket but the train didn’t stop
Ended up walking all the way singing “Ooh La La”
I made it home and put the radio loud
Was just static but still turned me on

Well the world brought us here
If we let it now, all good things reappear

It’s ok I’m alright
It’s ok I’m alright

Keep going
Keep going
To the light

It’s ok I’m alright
It’s ok I’m alright

Slow motion on a video tape
We had magic, it still turns me on
And at the end of this dark night
Which way to go
I may just take a walk to the bright side, the bright side

Well the world brought us here
If we let it now, all good things reappear

It’s ok I’m alright
It’s ok I’m alright

Keep going
Keep going
To the light
It’s ok I’m alright
It’s ok I’m alright

Keep going
To the light

Keep going
Keep going
To the light

It’s ok I’m alright
It’s ok I’m alright
It’s ok I’m alright
It’s ok I’m alright

https://www.guster.com/

Currently listening to...

..."Milking The Cow" by Scottish group Mouth Music, fronted by Martin Swan. I wrote about this song here on Oh, By The Way ten years ago and the song just popped up on my playlist. I am still so hypnotized by it and it certainly deserves a re-post.

"Milking The Cow" is a stunning anthropological study, from Mouth Music's second release, 1993's "Mo-Di" (a phonetic spelling of the French word "maudit" which means "cursed"). It is one of the most profound pop songs ever recorded; it reminds me a lot of Peter Gabriel's work on "Security" in which he examined the lives of African tribesmen through the lens of Carl Jung. Here, Mouth Music, in a phenomenal blend of Scottish and African sounds, sing about the most fundamental relationship: that of human being to animal and earth. Indigenous people have always drawn their mythology and cosmology from the environment around them and this is a beautiful, breathtaking expression of that. If a tribe comes from the jungle, they will have a pantheon of plant-based gods and jungle animal spirits in their cosmology. If a people come from an island or a seaside area, you can bet that their cosmology will include the sea, as well as sea creatures, as a spiritual force. If a tribe comes from an arid savannah with not much vegetation and only a handful of animals, then their cosmology centers on what sustains them and gives them life, much like the relationship between the Plains Indians of the United States and the buffalo. Take a listen to this powerful, moving song that abandons itself to the idea of the exhilarating, painful cycle of life, including death in all of its mess:

Spirit moving, living, breathing
Healing motion, feeling devotion

Under the desert sun
Two hearts beat as one
Rhythm of the living drum
Milking the cow
Pray for the rain to come
Blessings from the one
Milking the cow

Behold the shifting sand
The riches of our land
Life flows through our hands
Milking the cow
Beneath the darkened sky
Hear the spirit cry

To feed the cow is to praise the hand of God that moves before us
To milk the cow is to worship the spirit that breathes within us
To kill the cow is to accept the darkness deep within us
To spurn the cow is to spurn the gift of God that gives us life
Milk the cow and feel the rhythm that beats inside us
Touch the cow and feel the spirit that moves within us
Kill the cow and feel the sorrow that lies before us
In blood we are born, blood of the cow redeems us

Spirit moving, living, breathing
Healing motion, feeling devotion
Spirit moving, living, breathing
Healing motion, feeling devotion
Milking the cow

http://www.mouthmusic.co.uk/

"50 Words For Snow" by Kate Bush

In a holiday spirit, I have broken out my CD copy (!) of a very different kind of Christmas album, Kate Bush's "50 Words For Snow" and am as enchanted with it as when it was first released. It has become a classic holiday album for me, up there with Ella Fitzgerald and Vince Guaraldi. Here, below, is my review from November 21, 2011 when it was released...if you don't own a copy yet, read on for inspiration. And then get one... quickly... it's starting to snow!

Above: The CD comes in a beautiful glossy, hard-bound book.

It has been a six year wait for a new Kate album, since her last release, “Aerial.” And just like “Aerial,” "50 Words For Snow" is a concept album, a song cycle, much like the second half of “Aerial,” a song cycle Kate called “A Sky of Honey.” There is a wonderful sense of symmetry and completeness when one contemplates both releases: where “A Sky of Honey” explored the sky, the sun, a sensuous warmth, birds and air, and took place during the twenty four hour period of a midsummer day and night—the longest day of the year—“50 Words For Snow” explores its polar opposite, pun intended. This is no coincidence. And it has been released purposefully by Kate in time for winter, to be enjoyed on the longest night of the year. Kate calls her new release “seven songs set against a backdrop of falling snow.”

What struck me first is that she is no longer a “song writer” but a composer. She has moved away from a pop structure and the pieces on “50 Words For Snow” are much more aligned with orchestral and jazz music. This was explored somewhat on “A Sky of Honey” with some longer, expansive songs. But on “50 Words” she is truly taking time and space, using it, letting her ideas, stories, and characters spread out. None of the songs come in at less than seven minutes, with one clocking in at thirteen and change. She is in no hurry. I believe this is a function of age. I find that as I get older, I am more willing to engage in art that requires an investment. The songs on “50 Words” whisper like falling snow and require one to be still and listen. So it makes sense that as Kate ages (she is 53), she is more willing to create music that requires an investment. The vocal lines too have less and less to do with pop and are more akin to opera, with an unfolding musical line instead of a tighter, traditional pop structure. This could have something to do with Kate’s increasingly prose-like lyrics.

Musically, Kate’s piano is the central core (in a review for “50 Words,” Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune says that Kate is “a fine pianist who never overplays, sending out little ripples of notes that act like reassuring beacons…”) but the icy texture for this homage to cold comes from the orchestral arrangements by the legendary and prolific Jonathan Tunick (Stephen Sondheim’s arranger and conductor). The orchestral arrangements are minimal, chilly, and austere with space and cool air around the notes, as though the air itself is frozen and the notes must travel through crystals to get to our ears. The sound is perfectly suited to a set of songs revolving around winter, snow, and the objects, places, and things associated with cold and blizzards. The space around the notes gives us time to hear the softly falling snow.

But the real magic, imagination, and rich emotions come in Kate’s stories and characters. True to form, she uses the natural world and mysticism as springboards. She anthropomorphizes, imbuing unexpected things with life force. Or she fearlessly examines already living things from a different, surprising angle, setting something familiar on its head while our minds reel from this new and precious view. I constantly marvel at the way she comes at things. No one’s mind works the way Kate’s does and we are lucky that she continues to share her vision with the world.

“Snowflake” opens the suite of songs with a lovely, aching tale of a snowflake’s descent to earth. But as I just mentioned, Kate manages to isolate this inanimate object, give it a personality, and make us care about it, a marvelous feat when you consider the sheer number of snowflakes wafting down at any given moment. But as we have always heard, each one is unique: no two snowflakes are alike. Sung in a beautiful choir-boy falsetto by her thirteen year old son, credited in the liner notes as Albert McIntosh, the snowflake is revealed to be an innocent newborn, created in a cloud, but now falling helplessly, perilously. It sees below itself forests, snowdrifts, horses… and the one person who will catch it. Its lifetime unfolds before us as Kate sings a promise in a simple chorus: “The world is so loud. Keep falling. I’ll find you.” The lonely snowflake sings of its yearning, its need to connect: “I can hear people. I think you are near me now…I think I can see you, there’s your long white neck…look up and you’ll see me…in a moment or two I’ll be with you.” This naïve singular vision, this need to be saved, this pining, this unconditional love, this destiny… it is pure, agonizing, bittersweet beauty. What will happen to the snowflake when it lands? I must say that I wept—WEPT—through this opening number, listening to this trembling, hypnotic story from such an intimate and mournful point of view. It is sparse, and delicate like a crystalline snowflake, but so rich and effective.

The mood carries on with “Lake Tahoe,” a tale of a legendary ghost in the frigid waters of this Sierran feature. We discover that the ghost is a woman in Victorian dress who rises up from the waters to call her dog Snowflake. With this, we understand this is how she died: out in the snow, looking for her dog… but then accidentally plunging into the half frozen water of the lake. But Snowflake lived on after his mistress. Kate then tells us of a time when the dog is old and frail, and how he drifts off to sleep to dream of running on a long beach. This is clearly the dog’s death as we are now present for the reunion of woman and dog—“Did you miss me?” she sings to him over high shimmering strings—as she shows him around their new house. “Here’s the kitchen—there’s your basket. Here’s the hall—that’s where you wait for me. Here’s my lap—that’s where you rest your head.” And my weeping continued.
The musical aspect of this song features male sopranos in tight, operatic harmony along with Kate’s now-slightly lower voice. She sings out though, when giving voice to the woman calling out for her dog, in that casual, sing-song way of calling for someone. It so reminds me of the moment in “Under Ice” from “The Ninth Wave” where a far-off voice calls out for our heroine just before she sees herself under the ice. It speaks again of enduring unconditional love, of pining, of trying to connect, of saving someone in peril. The woman is trying to save her dog but ends up being the one in peril. The music shifts and swells within this piece, ghost story, love story—the woman does end up saving her dog as Kate closes the song with a stylized dog vocalization, small and heartbreaking.


Only Kate would think of a love story between a woman and a snowman. In “Misty,” she builds a snowman during the day, accidentally cutting her hand and bleeding on him…and that night, he enters her bedroom through the window amid whorls and swirls of snow to lay down beside her. His breath is misty as she watches him lying in her bed, and he and the song are so christened. She describes the snowman’s body: his ice cream lips, his creamy skin, his snowy white arms. But this is far from being an erotic adventure. The feeling of inevitable destiny between them goes beyond anything physical. We are again looking at a yearning, a pining for some kind of connection. Something mystical, metaphysical reaches out to touch the human world, invited by the human world through Kate's blood and out of her loneliness. It is also a fascinating meditation on the natural world and elemental objects, things that Kate has traditionally, in her own version of an animistic belief system like Shintoism, associated with a sense of magic and spirit. She spends a lot of time describing all the dead leaves, twigs, grasses, and branches in his mouth, and rolled into his body. She sings a tableau of nature suspended in the body of her cold lover. A subtle wobbly, woozy guitar enters the mix when she sings of this. Legendary jazz musician Steve Gadd’s firm but unobtrusive drumming anchors this piece, the first so far to feature an up tempo, relatively speaking, while Kate’s piano is reminiscent of an even more melancholy version of Vince Guaraldi. After the snowman melts, soaking her bed and leaving behind only dead leaves, twigs, grasses, and branches Kate sings of searching for him the next day. Knowing that he was melting, he sacrificed himself to be with her. She cries out his name, “Misty!” while a tense, screeching guitar slips softly into the song. She implores us to help her find him until she realizes that it is still snowing. He must still be out there.

Of course I cannot help but think of THE SNOWMAN, Raymond Briggs’ charming but cosmically sad children’s book and subsequent animated film in which a young boy builds a snowman who comes alive at night. The snowman takes the boy on a flying adventure—in the film, they fly to the North Pole to visit Father Christmas. But in the morning, just like Kate, the boy is utterly grief-stricken to discover that his friend the snowman has melted in the yard.


In the exotic “Wild Man,” Kate takes us on a trek through the Himalayan Mountains in Tibet. Lashing, punishing winds are heard before the song gets underway with a curious, ethnic-sounding instrument (a keyboard effect, I am sure, since I can’t find any mention of a foreign instrument in the credits). This sitar-like sound is a perfect way to suggest a picturesque, far-flung, Asian location. But she speak-sings a troubling story about the hunt for the mythical Yeti (better known as the Abominable Snowman). On an expedition by the Lhakpa-La, she and her fellow climbers find footprints in the snow, and that night while lying in her tent, she can hear the Yeti cry… and she says it sounds lonely. Reports of Yeti sightings trickle down from Darjeeling where the Yeti was seen playing in snow, banging on doors, and pulling up rhododendrons, to the Rongbuk Glacier where the Yeti was reportedly drowned. But Kate finds the humanity in this creature, insisting that the Yeti “is not an animal” to be hunted and slaughtered. Knowing full well that should the Yeti ever be caught, he would surely be killed, Kate and her climbing mates brush away the footprints they come across in the snow, to keep the Yeti hidden and safe. Only Kate could take something like the Yeti, turning him from something “abominable” into something lonely, misunderstood, and noble, worthy of protection like a pure, untouched natural element. Indeed, much like most of the natural elements on our planet, the Yeti is in peril, in need of rescue, connection. He is lonely but can’t connect for fear of being hunted and destroyed. Part of what makes this song so powerful and alluring is the travelogue of hearing all the intriguing Tibetan names of places and people like the Garo Hills or the Ringpoche of Qinghai, all of which Kate delivers with a knowing, confident murmur.

This song is being treated as “the single” from “50 Words” because it comes closest to what could be considered “pop music,” but guest vocalist Andy Fairweather Low’s unique turn on the startling, bursting chorus (sounding like a native Tibetan monk) coupled with the remote, exotic sound will keep it off most of the public’s radar.

Below: stills and a gorgeous, atmospheric animated segment for "Wild Man."

A haunting ostinato synth line starts the highly romantic, bittersweet “Snowed In At Wheeler Street.” The anxious, cello-like sound (indeed, the entire song is steeped in a sort of anxiety and dread) carries this weighty, dark, jazz-infused tune as Kate begins the song by approaching a seeming stranger, asking him, “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but don’t I know you?” This triggers a duet with Elton John (who, despite reports to the contrary, does not dominate the song) in which a kaleidoscope of scenes and images unfold, showing us that this couple have indeed known each other before: from Rome burning, and World War II, to 9/11 in New York, they have lived through it all, over and over, yet somehow cannot stay together—doomed to part again and again. Kate cries out, “I don’t want to lose you, no, not again!” They both pine for a time when they were snowed in at Wheeler Street, trapped by the weather, the world frozen in place, while they stoked the fire to keep warm. If only that moment could be suspended in time, could be set to “repeat” to be lived indefinitely. But Kate sadly observes that the world won’t stop turning. So again, we are presented with the motif of yearning to connect, of being rescued, but being unable to do so.

The title track “50 Words For Snow” plays like a lost Peter Greenaway film, listing, literally, fifty words for snow. Greenaway has a nearly obsessive-compulsive encyclopedic need to catalog, list, record…and by the same token, let’s not forget that Kate did sing, on “Aerial,” the transcendental number pi to the one hundred and sixteenth decimal place! Here, she riffs on the legend that Eskimos have fifty words for snow (she has acknowledged in interviews for this release that the idea of fifty words for snow in the Eskimo language is a myth). If there are, let’s pretend, fifty words in the Eskimo tongue for snow, how many can be found in other languages? She lets one Dr. Joseph Yupik, voiced here by the marvelous Stephen Fry, answer that question by listing out an alternative fifty words for snow over a breathlessly urgent and intoxicating rhythm while Kate keeps count in an ominous, modulated voice. At intervals she chimes in, encouraging, cheering, “Come on Joe, you’ve got 32 to go. Don’t you know it’s not just the Eskimo. Let me hear your fifty words for snow.” This blizzard of words rises over the churning, pulsing music like a snowstorm, turning into a whiteout. Kate’s long love affair with language is evident here as she plays with not only the concept of linguistics (some words are real, some are fabricated) but with onomatopoeia, the sound of a word imitating what it represents. Some of the words are quite humorous (phlegm de neige, whirlissimo, anklebreaker, bad for trains), some are faux-foreign as if spoken by Jim Henson’s Swedish Chef (Santanyeroofdikov, icyskidski, sleetspoot’n), and some sound like actual foreign words (faloop’njoompoola, hironocrashka). Some require thought (sorbetdeluge, terrablizza, eiderfalls), and some are breathtaking in their poetry (vanilla swarm, hunter’s dream, mountainsob, mistraldespair). Kate’s humor is sly in this one: the character of Dr. Joseph Yupik is a nod to the Eskimo. Yupik is the word for the aboriginal people of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and eastern Siberia… and their language.

Our journey through snow and winter ends with “Among Angels,” a song one might assume, given the theme of the CD, would be about making snow angels. But this is Kate and the song is a pensive moment sounding much like “A Coral Room” from “Aerial” with Kate at the piano as she sings to a friend in need, someone in doubt, in trouble. She says she can see angels around her friend shimmering like mirrors in summer (our only mention of a warmer time on the entire CD). With references to how angels “will carry you o’er the walls” and “there’s someone who’s loved you forever but you just don’t know it…you might feel it and just not show it,” this simple piece must have been inspired by Wim Wenders’ immortal film “Wings of Desire.” In that film set in the divided city of Berlin, angels can pass over The Wall as they choose, and watch humans live their short, messy lives. But sometimes, an angel falls in love with a human and the human might feel it, might feel some kind of yearning, might pine for something they don’t even know exists.

All of the songs on “50 Words For Snow” are about yearning, pining, trying to be rescued from a cosmic loneliness, from isolation, from exile, by reaching out, reaching across, trying to connect—connecting across time, across space, across life and death—connecting from the sky to the earth, from the natural world to the human realm, from mind to mind, heart to heart. “50 Words” is a devastatingly beautiful and emotional experience that only Kate could have created.

Kate Bush wears only synthetic fur.

All images are from Kate's website:
http://www.katebush.com/
All videos are from Kate's Youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/KateBushMusic

If you liked this, read my other essays on Kate's "The Ninth Wave" and "Aerial."

Kate Bush is magic. Kate Bush taught me how to fly.

"Don't Have To Be So Sad" by Yo La Tengo

I have been haunted by this gentle, whispering, longing song, "Don't Have To Be So Sad" by Yo La Tengo since it came out on their "Summer Sun" release nearly 20 years ago. Sometimes it just pops into my mind and I have to put it on repeat for an hour or so...

You and me
We're at some goldfish pond
And I, I was tagging along for the ride
All the big-mouthed fish really made us laugh

And while I stood still
I felt a chill
I thought that maybe you did too
I wanted to feel that way forever

And that's why
If you're looking at me, I'll try
To be what you want to see and if I
If I'm ever that lucky
You won't have to be so
You won't have to be so sad
You won't have to be so sad

Last night
I was trying to read in bed
I got to watching you sleep instead
Even when I got tired
I couldn't stop

Because I love you so
And I pray you know
But I'm not much for praying
(Ya knew I couldn't say that without making a joke)

And that's why
If you're looking at me, I'll try
To be what you want to see and if I
If I'm ever that lucky
You won't have to be so
You won't have to be so sad
You won't have to be so sad

Yeah, that's why
If you're looking at me, I'll try
To be what you want to see and if I
If I'm ever that lucky
You won't have to be so
You won't have to be so sad
You won't have to be so sad
You won't have to be so sad

https://yolatengo.com/

"New Jade" by Caribou

I love the music of Caribou (the nom de musique of musician and singer-songwriter--and Doctor of Mathematics!--Dan Snaith), previously here. And this song features a compelling sample (something Snaith is known for in his music) with a gripping melody and some very touching lyrics.

Now you’re gone for good,
Been through more than anyone should,
And in time you’ll see,
How much better off you will be,
And don’t you believe what he said,
Locked up inside of his head,
You’ve got your children with you,
To give you the strength to get through.

It’s like a new first kiss,
Yeah you can start feeling glad,
‘Cause you’re not going to miss,
Something that you’ve never had,
Don’t you believe what he says,
It’s always lies anyways,
You’ve been waiting for so long,
And now he’s finally gone.

https://www.caribou.fm/

Happy Birthday, Iva Davies of Icehouse!

A very happy birthday to Mr. Iva Davies, founder, lead singer, multi-instrumentalist, and immensely talented songwriter of the Australian band Icehouse.

I am feeling great love and nostalgia for this 1980 song from their debut album. Not only is Icehouse the name of the group, having changed it from their original name Flowers, but the song itself is also titled "Icehouse." Although Icehouse was never truly seen as a New Romantic band (yet they were tagged with the catch-all New Wave title by some), I sure felt they belonged with other fantastic New Romantic groups like Ultravox. The "Icehouse" song and their debut album (as well as their sophomore album "Primitive Man") was an atmospheric, synth-heavy affair with a marvelous use of texture. The accompanying video resembles New Romantic classics like Ultravox's "The Thin Wall" and "The Voice," and even Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes" and "Draw Of The Cards," all directed by Australian film director Russell Mulcahy. Follow this haunting, touching narrative that beautifully supports the chilling, profound lyrics and aching, moving melody.

It's always cold inside the icehouse
Though the rivers never freeze
There's a girl outside the icehouse
I can see her clearly though the trees

Now she's dreaming of a new love
And she hopes he'll be there soon
She's got so long to wait for him
Because he needs another year to get there

She'll wait another lifetime out there

There's no love inside the icehouse

The devil lives inside the icehouse
At least that's what the old ones say
They say He came along time ago
He came here in the winter snow
Now it's colder every day

But she's still dreaming through the summer
And she's hoping through the spring
She says she's got no time for winter nights
She doesn't notice as the days grow darker
She can't remember getting any older

There's no love inside the icehouse

 
Now she's dreaming of a new love
And she hopes he'll be there soon
She says she's got no time for winter nights
She doesn't notice as the days grow darker
She can't remember getting any older

There's no love inside the icehouse
There's no love inside the icehouse
The icehouse

Happy Birthday, Iva! Thanks for sharing decades of your music with us.

https://icehouse-ivadavies.com/

"Throughout the Dark Months of April and May" by Cocteau Twins

It's May...

Here is "Throughout the Dark Months of April and May" by Cocteau Twins (previously here).

https://cocteautwins.com/

The Alternative Christmas Tree 2021

"Weaving A Basket" by Sea Oleena

I last posted music from Montreal-based Sea Oleena (the nom de musique of Charlotte Loseth) way back in 2013 here...it doesn't seem that long ago but it is. So I am very pleased to find her 2020 release "Weaving A Basket"...listen to it in its entirety below.

These echoing, dream folk songs are ethereal, ambient, penetrating, unsettling. The sounds of waves or faraway children lend an eerie touch of nostalgia. The mood created is one of gentle, collapsing beauty. It is a truly stunning achievement.

 

http://seaoleena.bandcamp.com

Now It's Time For You To Meet Yves Tumor

Now it's time for you to meet experimental pop performer Yves Tumor (the nom de musique of Sean Bowie). I am quite impressed by their sensibility, and entranced by their arrangement of sound and presentation.

This first song "Jackie" is a new release as of June 2021.

"Noid" and its video are spot on for our times.

Sister mother, brother father
Have you, have you looked outside?
I'm scared for my life
They don't trust us
I'm not part of the killing spree
A symptom, born loser, statistic

And "Lifetime" is...well, amazing. Phillip Sherburne, music journalist for Pitchfork had this to say about the track:

"Yves Tumor’s music has often resembled musique concrète as it massages rhythmic loops, samples, and scraps of found sound into suggestive forms, foggy as nightmares, with a distinctively narrative undercurrent. But on a new string of singles including 'Noid,' 'Licking an Orchid,' and now 'Lifetime,' what was previously lo-fi snaps vividly into focus.

The percussion is crisper, the vocals pushed prominently to the fore. At its murkiest, Tumor’s work always had a vaguely gothic cast, heavy as cobwebs sagging in the humidity, but on 'Lifetime,' Tumor’s suddenly channeling the hi-def stadium goth of the Cure’s 'Disintegration,' layering close-harmonized vocals over bright streaks of synth, piano, and drums. Those rolling drum fills are a lot of what gives the song its force: The ethereal background voices of the chorus, bruised by nostalgia—'I miss the good old days back in Biscayne/And I miss my brothers'—sound like they want to disappear into pure atmosphere, but the drums keep things grounded and immediate, relentless as heavy blows. There’s real anger here, real desire, real desperation—a surfeit of emotion that spills over the edges of Tumor’s tightly controlled arrangements and carries the music to a place it’s never taken us before. It’s a thrilling development from an artist who seems to be rapidly evolving, on a song-to-song basis, before our very ears."

https://yves-tumor.com/

"Throughout the Dark Months of April and May" by Cocteau Twins

It's May...

Here is "Throughout the Dark Months of April and May" by Cocteau Twins (previously here).

https://cocteautwins.com/

"Life's What You Make It" by Talk Talk

Today is the first anniversary of the death of musical genius Mark Hollis, lead singer and songwriter of the post-rock band Talk Talk. And I am listening to the phenomenal "Life's What You Make It," released in 1986 on their "The Colour of Spring" album...and this song sounds as powerful and fresh today. The tumbling, abrupt drums, the otherworldly organ, the blisteringly grave guitar, and the unchained earnest vocals singing such unadorned yet crucial lyrics all meld to make this a timeless--and genreless--song. While I have posted this gem before, the band's Youtube channel recently posted this official video from the time which features a slightly different version: Hollis' vocals sound like they might be a different take and the animal sounds at the top and end are unique to the video.

Baby, life's what you make it
Can't escape it
Baby, yesterday's favourite
Don't you hate it?

(Everything's all right)
Life's what you make it
(Everything's all right)

Baby, life's what you make it
Don't backdate it
Baby, don't try to shade it
Beauty's naked

(Everything's all right)
Life's what you make it
(Everything's all right)
What you make it

Baby, life's what you make it
Celebrate it, anticipate it
Yesterday's faded, nothing can change it
Life's what you make it

(Everything's all right)
Life's what you make it

If you are unfamiliar with their catalog, aside from this and their other hit "It's My LIfe," I urge you to do yourself a huge favor and listen to not only "The Colour of Spring" but also the incredible sonic masterpieces "Spirit of Eden" and "Laughing Stock."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_Talk

Currently listening to...

...the phenomenal "Life's What You Make It" by post-rock band Talk Talk. Although released in 1986 on their "The Colour of Spring" album, this song sounds powerful and fresh today. The tumbling, abrupt drums, the otherworldly organ, the blisteringly grave guitar, and the unchained earnest vocals singing such unadorned yet crucial lyrics all meld to make this a timeless--and genreless--song.

Baby, life's what you make it
Can't escape it
Baby, yesterday's favourite
Don't you hate it?

(Everything's all right)
Life's what you make it
(Everything's all right)

Baby, life's what you make it
Don't backdate it
Baby, don't try to shade it
Beauty is naked

(Everything's all right)
Life's what you make it
(Everything's all right)
What you make it

Baby, life's what you make it
Celebrate it
Anticipate it
Yesterday's faded
Nothing can change it
Life's what you make it

(Everything's all right)
Life's what you make it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_Talk

"Sherman (Animals in the Jungle)" by Tom Vek

I love the dream logic of both the dizzying lyrics and the tense, fragmented editing and pacing of the video for this song, "Sherman (Animals in the Jungle)" by Tom Vek. It plays almost like a David Lynch film...especially with that ominous, non-specific rumbling in the intro...it has the texture of a scene from "Twin Peaks" or even "Mulholland Drive."

You think of death
The inevitable option
Not the thinking type
You just wanna tick some boxes
Now that you're out of calm
Now that the rubber has erased it
Oh, we're attacking now
I'm on the team, the immovable object
An exotic creature,
Wrapped around the tree of your life
Armed with little perfect teeth
Armed with long legs dancing
Armed with the type of smile
That will crack your pain
Oh, it's so ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha

We're just animals in the jungle, Sherman
In the jungle, Sherman
Animals in the jungle, Sherman
What is it on that ramp, Sherman?
On that ramp, Sherman
Animals in the jungle, Sherman

Now you realise things have got out of control
There's no thinking time
There's no multiple choice
What is the action now?
How can it all just disappear?
Why did you swallow that way?
You aren't gonna fool anybody, you know
In a court of law, your braces hanging
You better pull up your trousers
There's no belts allowed
All these people will heckle
They'll want life inside
And that's when you decided you died

We're just animals in the jungle, Sherman
In the jungle, Sherman
Animals in the jungle, Sherman
What is it on that ramp, Sherman?
On that ramp, Sherman
Animals in the jungle, Sherman

http://www.tomvek.tv/

"Silver" by Caribou

I've had this on repeat for an hour or so...
the hypnotizing "Silver" by Caribou.

http://www.caribou.fm/

"Earth" by Dream Koala

Another devastating video from Dream Koala (previously here): "Earth" from his EP entitled "Earth.Home.Destroyed."

He told website The Fader, "What I wanted to illustrate through the words and the music video is the fragility of the human race against the titanic forces of nature. Our anthropocentrism makes us forget that nature will eventually annihilate the men, but that life always will pave a path through the ages."

Have you ever seen the lights
Of a thousand exploding suns?
Kingdoms and cathedrals under the ocean
Because no god can save us from ourselves
No god can save me from myself

So I will remember the earth as it was
And let my dead body floating in space
When my time will come

We can’t escape from here
Our time has come
As we see the world collapsing so close from the end
Our time has come

Yup. That about covers it.

The video clearly shows more than just "the forces of nature" at work...the lyrics themselves say that we can't save us from ourselves. We've done it.

http://dreamkoala.com/

"Bunkerpop" by LoneLady

LoneLady (Julie Ann Campbell) performing "Bunkerpop."

I just can't let this one go... it is infectious, jittery, shifting. All the more remarkable for its blending of percussion and guitar into what would normally be some kind of synthpop moment.
Fascinating.

Her new album, "Hinterland" wil be out March 23, 2015. LoneLady says of the collection, "It’s channeling Parliament/Funkadelic, Stevie Wonder, Rufus, Prince, Arthur Russell...among others. A strange - but nonetheless real - meeting of funk and...me from Audenshaw, Manchester."

http://concrete-retreat.tumblr.com/