TwoBusy: Twenty Five: Part 4

June 12, 2009

Twenty Five: Part 4

10. The Blue Nile: Downtown Lights
If you've never heard this song before, chances are you're going to watch/listen to the first 30 seconds and say, "Dude, WTF? Synth washes and three sad-looking Glaswegians? This makes your Top 10?" To which I answer: yes, and yes, and yes. Because nobody - repeat: nobody - ever did 3am, staring at the reflection of stars in street puddles, lost in melancholy and regret with more sublime beauty than the Blue Nile. Hearing this song for the first time back in 1990 was a legitimately life-changing moment for me, because before that moment I'd never heard music that captured that specific mood with such crystalline precision. From the vocals of Paul Buchanan - a thing of haunted wonder, then and now - to the way the song builds over the course of 6 1/2 minutes (less on the video edit) to such a sustained swell of shimmering, lovely ache and yearn... all these years later, it still makes my chest feel tight with emotion and memory and wonder at the beauty of it all.

9. Ghost of an American Airman: 1955'er
In which a young band from Belfast somehow weaves together a love story, the death of James Dean and Dodge McKay's powerhouse voice into a song for the ages. Turn this one up to 11, because when it all kicks into full gear at about the 2:20 mark... damn. That's just two dozens kinds of wonderful right there.

8. Sigur Ros: Glosoli
I have nothing to say about this song other than that the release of Takk in September, 2005 coincided with some other events in my life, and I will never be able to hear this song without flashing back to that time and thinking of how I listened to this song then, over and over and over again, and how it reduced me to rubble and inspired me to keep going, all at the same time, and how when I finally saw the video it seemed even more pertinent and appropriate and - for several years - left me weeping almost uncontrollably by the time I reached the end.

Sigur Rós - Glósóli from sigur-ros.co.uk on Vimeo.

7. Hüsker Dü: Celebrated Summer
Despite - or really, perhaps because of - its bittersweet undercurrent, this is one of the most joyous songs I know. And when Bob screams, "Is this your celebrated summer?" and then his guitar and Grant Hart's drumming click together into a groove that gets faster and sweeter and move lovely with each passing second and you imagine yourself accelerating right along with it, giddy with new freedom and ready to take flight...

I'm going to be listening to this song for the rest of my life, and feeling this way every time it plays.

6. Snow Patrol: An Olive Grove Facing The Sea
Regardless of how you feel about Snow Patrol and their tremendous success, it's hard to deny that they have produced some lovely songs over the years. This song - off one of their earlier albums, long before anyone knew or cared who they were - is several steps beyond lovely. It's beautiful in a transcendent fashion, aching to soar but infinitely heavy with the weight of emotion. "I would do anything... don't want to wake up... don't want to wake up" Gary Lightbody sings, clinging with palpable desperation to a love he feels slipping away with each passing moment. And then the dawn arrives, and it all begins to fade, and somehow even the inevitability of that loss becomes kind of beautiful, too.

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Sigur Rós - Glósóli from sigur-ros.co.uk on Vimeo.

I'm going to be listening to this song for the rest of my life, and feeling this way every time it plays.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Great Northern: Remind Me Where the Light Is
I'm baffled. Why aren't these guys massively successful? Gorgeous (mostly) female vocals, huge, sweeping melodies, a real sense of atmosphere and dynamics... how is it possible that a profoundly dull band like Paramore is raking in bizillions of dollars while Great Northern is still toiling in obscurity? Answer: there is no rational explanation. Other answer: because you didn't realize you need to seek this album out and make it part of your life. Go ahead — click on the link, listen to the samples, and then buy/download the whole thing. It really is that good.
Constants: The Foundation, the Machine, the Ascension
It frustrates me to no end that Amazon doesn't offer a photo link to the new release by Boston's own Constants, but that shouldn't dissuade you from checking out what may be the best album I've heard this year (it's neck-and-neck with Mono right now, for the record). This is just an astonishing blend of atmosphere and aggression that recalls nothing so much as the Deftones at their most emotive, echo-drenched and effective (think "Change in the House of Flies") -- or, even more appropriately, Jesu's colossal "Conqueror." The album, as constructed, is something of a triptych (hence the 3-part title), and to be completely honest I have very little sense of what the whole thing is about -- but what's really remarkable is the fact that this has virtually no negative effect on the cumulative sonic impact and emotional weight of the music. The vocals serve as an instrument of great passion and nuance, and while as a listener you only really pull out a phrase here and there, it's more than enough to keep you anchored as the music rages and soars in all kinds of fascinating directions. I loved this album the first time I heard it, and it's been on constant rotation in my iTunes and car stereo ever since. HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Aereogramme: My Heart Has a Wish That You Would Not Go
I never would have expected that my son would start demanding that I intersperse repeated playings of Ra Ra Riot's debut with a song called "A Conscious Life for Coma Boy," but that's what Aerogramme has brought to my life: a realization that my kid loves intricately layered, thematically complex music as much as I do. Or, at least, that he loves singing "I don't know how to get there... I don't know how to get there" right along with me. In any case, Aerogramme is a terrific Scots band who I only recently discovered - despite the fact they broke up several years ago - and this album, their finale, is as solid a summary of their appeal as you'll find: drama-saturated musicianship with arresting lyrics and gorgeous vocals that comes thisclose to going over the top... but ends up being just spectacular instead.
Sunn O))): Black One
I'm not sure how to describe this other than to say that it is, quite simply, the most nightmarish soundscape I've ever encountered, or want to encounter. In the most tremendously dark, disturbing and unhealthy sense possible, this is a remarkable accomplishment.
Mono: Hymn to the Immortal Wind
I know it's only May, but I have no doubt that this is a strong contender for the best album of 2009: a staggeringly emotional and powerful work that fuses the epic guitar spiral of Explosions in the Sky at their best with great symphonic washes and impeccable sense of drama of Sigur Ros. Yes, it's Japanese post-rock. Yes, there are no vocals. Yes, it's probably outside of most people's comfort zone. And yes: it really is so good that none of that matters in the least.

Reading is Fundamental

Kate Atkinson: When Will There be Good News?
If Kate Atkinson isn't the best novelist in the English language today, I don't know who is. Honestly. This is the third novel in what is (to this point) something of a loose trilogy, following the terrific One Good Turn and the simply astonishing Case Histories (perhaps the best book I've read in the past 5 years). The newest addition follows suit, with multiple plotlines gently/violently swerving in and out of orbit with one another, intertwined by shared themes of lost children and lost childhood, the futility of the search for love and the awkward, desperate comedy it creates. In many ways it's terribly dire, but Atkinson's wonderful eye for detail and fantastically dry humor keep you plunging forward, page after page, until suddenly the book is done... and you wish there were more still ahead.
Neil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book
I actually got this as a gift last Christmas, but then it was swiped from me by a number of avaricious relatives... following a chase that lasted more than 6 months and spanned the upper half of the American eastern seaboard, I finally got my hands on it. And you know what? It was worth the effort. Closer in tone to Neverwhere than his other works, this is a lovely and quick-reading piece of gentle fantasy genius, with just enough unnerving darkness to keep adults intrigued and younger readers entranced throughout. It starts with a murder - or several, actually - then spends most of its progress in and around a graveyard, surrounded by the kindly spirits of the dead, the indifferent spirits of the living, and the ambivalant and/or hostile spirits of those who fall into the category of "other." Gaiman has yet to write any full-length novel that's less than entirely wonderful, and this is a rich and charming addition to his canon.
Randall Rothenberg: Where the Suckers Moon: The Life and Death of an Advertising Campaign
This was simultaneously fascinating and awful. Fascinating, in the sense that it offered an often-intriguing behind-the-scenes perspective on the evolution of advertising and - specifically - the evolution of an unsuccessful Subaru campaign from the early 90s. Awful, in the sense that it offered an uncomfortably close, super slow-mo perspective on a business relationship born of hope and big dreams that fell apart on almost every imaginable level over the course of a year and a half. It's like watching a romantic comedy where the romance goes horribly awry and everyone ends up heartbroken, disappointed and unwilling to believe in the possibility of true love — only with such precise detail that you end up suffering right along with them. On the one hand, you had a brilliant agency with boatloads of good ideas (and a tragic lack of perspective and industry experience)... on the other, you had a client beholden to too many masters, incapable of making (or sticking to) a decision, altogether too willing to blame their creative new partners for everything and anything that went wrong. In the end, an interesting read — although I'm glad to be done with it.
Nick Cave: The Death of Bunny Munro: A Novel
Check out MamaPop.com (9/9/09) for my full review.
Michael Crichton: State of Fear
I went on vacation, and I decided to read a Michael Crichton book. So shoot me. This one's ostensibly about global warming, nefarious industry and ecoterrorism, but to tell the truth I'm about 200pgs into it and all I'm seeing are scientists and lawyers running around, being nerdy and boring me to death. If dinosaurs don't show up soon and start eating everyone, I have the feeling I'm going to walk away from this feeling pretty disappointed. (Note: no dinosaurs ever showed up. By the end, I actively hated it. This isn't a novel; it's a bad term paper on global warming disguised as fiction. In summary... I want to kick this book in the balls.)