Hot Summer And Good Winter

Back from a field where I cast of the shackles of technology to give myself more freely to the worship of the sun and the start of a new season in the turning of the world, or to put it more plainly back from solstice celebrations sans new phone remembering that high-tech is not for me and that beating drums and swilling port in fields most definitely is. Then watched other people in fields as the self torture of televised Glasto footage enters my living room, but maybe Radiohead, Pulp, Eels, Elbow and QOTSA would have been too much for this little muso’s head to take in so I will just wish a hearty congratulations to my dear brother who proposed to his lovely girlfriend while at the festival and wish them all the best in their sun filled lives together. Meanwhile I will soak in glorious music as always and re-tell stories of my love with a big long rant about the brilliance of ‘Bon Iver’ and their self titled new offering‘Bon Iver’.

A highly anticipate release in my eyes, this is an artist who forms a beautiful soundtrack to the equally beautiful love affair I am still very much involved in. When I was worrying about the commitment I was forming with someone in a period of my life when commitment making was supposed to be very low on the priority agenda, I hesitated before booking tickets to a show four months in advance and all the connotations that might infer but was richly rewarded when we saw Justin and Co perform a show on December the 7^th 2008 at the Victoria Apollo that immediately entered my top 10 Live performances of all time (this list would be shared if interest was shown).

 Sam and I quibble over if it was during, ‘Blindsided’ or ‘Skinny Love’ that I first whispered those three special words in her ear. I can’t believe I would have been so clichéd to pick the single and after all ‘I’m not really like this, I’m probably plightless’. From then it was a single bed in a student house where we were prone to annoying the neighbours that the early morning slumbers were made the more glorious by the sounds of ‘re:stacks’ and the rest of the blissful album ‘For Emma And Ever Ago’, never a truer indication that misery doesn’t always have to breed misery and that heartbreak can nurture new love. Don’t worry it’s not the girl I’m going to talk about here it’s the music, besides I always read these ramblings to Sam out loud before posting them on that there T’internet so that has been quite enough soppiness to induce a blush on even my usually unflappable cheeks.

Justin Vernon soon became the man who went up a mountain and came down a musician, a mantle and mystery he can’t be too irritated by as the cover of the new eponymous release vaguely features  the abstract image of a red shack nestled in opaque surroundings, but I don’t feel that this is a release that could have been penned and planned alone in a cabin. There is a musical cohesion here that is born out of a group working on the same page and a rhythmic dynamacism that would be difficult to beat out alone, pardon the pretentious punnery.

The album reflects the interesting and diverse musical journey that Justin Vernon has been on since we first heard his heartbroken and weather-beaten voice three years ago. Encompassing the somewhat spooky atmospheric styling’s practiced in his side project ‘Volcano Choir’ to the vo-coded musings that have seen his work popping up in such places as Kanye West’s albums, but at the core is still the genius and honesty of a true warrior poet. This album is more an act of musical exploration than emotional desperation but it still manages to create the same mystical sense of belonging and all the depth of a perfect balance of bitter and sweet that ‘For Emma’ ever did. From a totally different place in their lives Justin and Bon Iver have created something truly magnificent, maybe that mysterious barn is inside of him to draw on that deep loneliness and no matter how far we all come we still carry the weight.  

There is subtle lairing in this music that is understated and hypnotic, the saxophone stylings of Mike Lewis give a haunting holy quality to some pieces that resonates so well with the coarse folk vocal. Each song is named after places, some real and some fictional that delivers the music from a landscape straight out of another place and gives the music a landscape all of its own, this is not a sing-along lyrical album its built upon a deeply personal poetry that bends round music that ranges from the depths of pitch bended folk to pure 80’s power ballad. Justin basks so brilliantly in the bitter but with the personally empowered vision that without this depth of misery we could never experience any joy. This is a love album with more reality and honesty than many people will ever be able to deal with, it addresses feelings of abandoning yourself and giving totally and freely to something that you are fully aware can throw you to the ground mercilessly, it talks of hiding in intoxication and learning from your mistakes by being able to criticise yourself and distract from your own self as a being of ego and become something more pure more holy. These messages are not thrown in your face they are subtlety woven into wording and music that will intoxicate and cure.

I will not be hesitating or feeling concerned at the four months I will have to book in advance to see this group play live in the UK again and will be very happy to be standing there with someone who has taught me so much and forced me to look at myself with a clearer view in an ever complicated world.

“Still alive for you, love”

                                                  Bon Iver – Perth

Plenty more good music been released of late and some long overdue reviews of some albums that have been on heavy rotation in my ears recently and obviously a whole host of ranting warbling amassing in my brain waiting to make it to my fingers before they surely cause an embolism in my brain. Listen to good music, eat good food and love your lives.

In Search Of The Infathomabale

Many of my late night drunkard rants and rampant belligerent scribbling over the years are related to the process of evolution to the point of being accused of racism and fascist barbaric views as I spout selectionism and the survival of the fittest notion that I see segregating a population. I have never been one to bear in mind the possible inferred connotations of a statement before throwing it out there, much more a fan of throwing things up flag poles and seeing who salutes (the nationalist sentiment rearing its head?), I have always been prepared to re-evaluate the notions I hold dear so as to be as bold to say things and then controlled and humble enough to dismiss them and am always aware of new levels of understanding along a path making previous beliefs unfounded yet no less relevant in the process of an idea evolving through this point.

As a species I see that we have reached the point of middle age spread in our evolutionary process we are no longer pushing ourselves forward with the view of survival but are sprawling ever sideward’s with the pursuit of comfort and happiness as our primary goals. What I can’t get my head around is the two dimensional and dumbed down methods we are implementing to try and achieve something while we don’t really understand or appreciate the goal, there is no long term thinking to our acceleration only an immediate quench for our never ending thirst. The Joy doesn’t lie in the knowing all and having all it lies in the yearning, in the beautiful journey. When we are striving we are at our best and as a species we have reached a plateau of complacency in a melodramatic slump.

The alternative, in my humble opinion is a retreat from the material and an evolution of our emotional states to become individually empowered people who measure our success purely on merit not against any tide mark set by others, to become a people who are vital and energetic constantly living the best days of their lives and who are so settled inside the limits and glories of their lives they feel no need to blow their own trumpets. Not adding to the cacophony of desperate needy choruses of self adoration but quietly sitting in the wonder of the whisper of other peoples open love. We would soon learn the deeper meanings in emotion’s that striving towards a notion of bright coloured saccharine happiness is not as rewarding as a path through a kaleidoscope of emotion feeling every one with no exception or exemption will lead to a true appreciation of joy with no need to have it validated or even noticed.

Feeling my emotions like great constellations across the sky, connecting the dots in grand and abstract patterns to create the monument of the heavens. Happy things won’t always make you happy and sad things don’t have to make you sad, the connection between things is never as simple as it seems and cannot be written in stone, it’s as whimsical as clouds and as easy to disconnect as grains of sand falling through our fingers. We have to give up on ourselves to be saved and find ourselves by getting lost.

Well clearly Solstice is coming up and my desire to sing the beauties of the world over the human dominion create this voice inside me that needs to beat drums and celebrate the few pure things we have left, so I’m sure I will get rained on at 4am as a bleak sun rises over a misty skyline and once again I can be refreshed in the knowledge that there are quiet places of being where we can look inside ourselves undisturbed by the trumpet blowing cacophony of the needy masses and we can evaluate ourselves against ancient stone and the life giving power of the sun and see our lives as they are, little more than dust on the wind.

And what better musician to soundtrack this world weary nostalgic melodrama than the new offering ‘Codes & Keys’ by Death Cab For Cutie The me some 5 years ago would have snubbed this music as introspective and wank but like I said we have to re-evaluate the power of emotion and what they can add to the depth of art. This is a very rhythmic album and far less guitar based than previous offerings with the repeated thumping’s of deep piano filling the space with the odd natty little hook that really are quite catchy, I guess that is the love hate appeal of ‘Death Cab’ the large sprawling soundscapes with the repetitiveness that are held together with the crunch of good riffs and some very sound turns of phrase, even if they do come across as a little twee. ‘You Are A Tourist’ is a standout track with a feel good cruising the coast feeling that really captured that feeling in my mind of feeling the happiness in sorrow. The album is a definite entire piece of work with an effortless flow through the pieces making it an enjoyable experience to be immersed in.

Also this week a new offering from the not so young no more scamps ‘Suck It And See’ by The Arctic Monkeys When this band first rose to fame from the depths of the internet to the front page of the NME I was at the centre of the retail industry that pushed them to having the fastest selling debut album to date and was quite taken by their cheeky turn of phrase and hooky riffs that nobody seemed to be able to ignore, 4 albums on and wanting so much to break the American market how can you manage to keep it new and vital without spouting cliché and becoming that little bit too cool for school, how do you escalate yourself to the higher echelons of the rock hierarchy without picking up doubters along the way. This album may have been recorded in the same studio as Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ but by people who were only 5 at the time of its release this is a group with younger influences doing all they can to take it all in and make a style of their own. The Northern charm and rough round the edges charm does endear the album to me but the relaxed swagger seems a long way from the jerky snatchyness that first pushed them towards the mainstream. The track ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’ is much heavier than anything the group has done before and much more like Turners side project Last Shadow Puppets and while the riff will have you head banging for more, lyrically it pushes the boundaries of cringe worthy almost to breaking point. Is this relaxed or is it coolness boarding on lazy, well like the band prompt you too its worth sucking and seeing.

Without lyrical constraints and with an endless soundscape at their disposal is the second release ‘Gloss Drop’ by Battles this band have a sandbox world where they can play with what they will without fear of reprisal and they use this freedom to create edgy infectious and deeply engaging interesting music. Somehow the chaos of all the noise manages to be reined in and kept consistent by an upbeat swagger and some genuine musical genius, layers of sound placed carefully to compliment and create something much bigger than the sum of its parts. The sounds on this album are much less aggressive and jarring than on ‘Mirrored’ that makes the album much more accessible which seems like a strange thing to say for such an unclassifiable maelstrom of musical movements from gritty gothic industrial sounds to an almost carnival feel of steel drums and samba drums. This is a real collage of an album that is a gripping listen with a surprisingly party atmosphere.

More pleasing electric plinkyness with some nice beats on another second outing by self produced self made man ‘Leisure Seizure’ by Tom Vek I will admit to being a little biased in my review here because I have met Tom and had a jolly good drink with him which instantly endears anyone too me but despite that this is once again a very original sound that is unabashed and compelling. The tight drums really form a solid base for the trill keyboards to spike around and Tom to use his lyrical styling’s to tell a down to earth and realistic story, I am drawn in by his honesty and forced to move by the underpinning groove of this high voltage stylish release. Maybe Tom’s first release was ahead of its time and seen as odd but this style has certainly com in vogue and deserves to be filling the floors at Indie disco’s across the land.

So I’m off for now to ponder the meaning of it all some more sitting in a field under the mysterious monoliths surrounded by the best kind of stinking hippies. So look forward to more new age thinking and a new album from the truly brilliant ‘Bon Iver’. Look after yourselves and each other