8/15/14

"Don't ask me where I've been
Cause you don't want to know. 
Don't ask me who I'm seeing, 
No, you don't want to know.
Don't come around here 
When I need you the most.
Leave it alone, 
Leave a little room for the holy ghost. 

Now your pretty horses run wild and free,
You can go and find a lover, baby, better than me.
Talking snow for days with your friends in La, 
Have mercy.

Now your pretty horses run wild and free,
You can go and find a lover baby, better than me.
Talking snow for days with your friends in La ,
Have mercy."

I like it when songs devastate me.

No, I love it. In the way I love strong coffee and long drives, in the way that makes me feel OK being alive and feeling feelings, which for me, like most humans, is a complicated endeavor. So I find songs that devastate me, that speak to whatever hurt I harbor and exacerbate it,like needles in the wound. Sometimes, those songs find me.

The new Gaslight record offers much to discuss in term's of growth, reputation and catalog. But why talk about that right now, when the best moments are those of supreme heartbreak, perfectly channeled bedroom poetry accompanied by muted guitars and ghostly, dark vocals? I see all this when I am transfixed by the final bonus track on the iTunes release, one of the saddest songs Brian Fallon has ever written, one that is cloaked in the despair of loss and yet accepting of its own loneliness. I played it far too many times this week. It is an instant favorite, the kind of song I won't forget, the kind of song I would send like as a message in a bottle, that I would rather wrap myself up in all day than go out and put on whatever face and front is needed to get through the day.

8/9/14

"And when our voices fail us we will find new ways to sing.
When our bodies fail we’ll find joy in the peace that it brings. 

The world is a beautiful place but we have to make it that way.
Whenever you find home we’ll make it more than just a shelter.
And if everyone belongs there it will hold us all together.
If you’re afraid to die, then so am I."

~Getting Sodas
The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, Whenever,If Ever

Lately I've been getting lost in the atmosphere, a conscious decision but a natural one. This morning I am hard pressed to find a band with a better grip on what it means to do this than The World Is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die. The post-rock swells and elaborate guitar parts build and decorate emotional weight. While their sound captures many tropes and styles of emo indie rock spanning decades, TWIABP feels larger than that label implies. They are as dramatic and grand as their name promises. 

Instrumentally, they work in textures light and dark, floating as often as they come crashing down. I love the rhythm section's work on their 2013 debut LP "Whenever, If Ever," playing with beat-focused intros as much as they sit back and let the guitar carry the climax. I love how Thomas Diaz choose to sing and shout, I love how scattered he seems and the way his words so often seem to cry out in hopeless recognition. He is as conversational as he is reflective, in the way early Death Cab for Cutie is, blending scenes of trees, cars and bedrooms with self-aware revelations on being alone, flawed, or human. The most memorable lines, I think, come from the latter, and they are placed to be shown off. Frequent use of group vocals add to the highlights, a vital layer in the expanse. But I'm not really listening to this band for its words, so much as I am seeing where they fit, how they fit, inside this greater interchange of sounds. 

For all their intensity, these songs are only so aggressive, they are too melodic to be thrashy. Timing is constantly played with, creating dynamic moments. Songs that begin in the world of echo-y, measured melody then pause for a string solo, and pound out a sped-up, cymbal-colored chorus before building a long, slow bridge to the end. In many ways,these are songs atypical in structure, and I think that is what makes them so good for deep, lost listening. They meander, in a way perfectly paired with ponderous, sad thoughts of being a wreck and being alone. 

I can see why this band is often polarizing, I can see why people wouldn't "get it," and I could see why one wouldn't want to subject their ears to something that is at times disorganized and strange on its way to finding moments of captured, heightened beauty. But what a journey that is to take.

"No, we aren't ghosts.
Even ghosts have a home to haunt.
No, we aren't ghosts.
We open doors and we shed our skin.
No, we aren’t ghosts.
Open your windows and let us in." 
~I Will Be Ok. Everything.

The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, Are Here To Help You (Split w//Deer Leap)

7/27/14

"And I'm so sad
Like a good book, I can't put this
Day back
A sorta fairytale with you."


Today I had the brilliant stroke of Pandora-induced luck to discover the demo version of "A Sorta Fairytale." I think I've listened to this song three quarters of the mornings in the past month, the version from "Scarlet's Walk,"  which is a stunning and moving tale of soulmates gone awry. It's among my favorite tracks from 2000s-era Tori. But this version, with the solo piano, and the first draft of the lyrics, is much more intimate. And what are soulmates, if not that?

So, today, I heard this, and I danced in a parking lot. I waltzed and balanced with my headphones in my sandals, because it was empty of others and I was wandering and I felt like I was hearing something just for me just when I needed it. Especially with the tone of her voice on a line brand new to me - "this thing we created" - this, which encapsulated all the fretting and pain of the original verse, plus some, and so I broke into a thousand pieces and danced about it, because I was validated that yes, I knew what this tune was all about.

I would write more what I think this song is about, but instead I'll use this quote from the writer herself, included in "Scarlet's Stories:"

"I think that there is a place where she [Scarlet] realizes that people come in and out of your life. Sometimes for a day, sometimes for longer. And all of them make you what you are. You can't separate these people out of you. They form who you are. Even the ones that you kind of say well... you know, I don't know if I wanna be formed by them anymore. (laughs) But you are in some way. You are. That's why, maybe, you don't have to look at them so harshly because they have affected you. At the end, though, you know... it's us as individuals with our... mm... with our love for the land. For something intangible, that when soulmates come and go, you're never alone even when you're standing just you in your shoes, because you carry them with you."

"On my way up north
Up on the Ventura
I pulled back the hood
and I was talking to you
and i knew then it would be
a life-long thing, but I didn't
know that it could
break so well and clean

and I'm so sad
like a good book
I can't put this day back
a sorta fairytale with you

Said that day up on the 101
you would be someone
you tried to downplay it
but i knew we had come
face to face with this thing we created

and I'm so sad
like a good book
I can't but this day back
a sorta fairytale with you
I could pick back up whenever I feel...

 And I was riding by
riding along side for a while
til you lost me and i was
riding along side til you lost me
til you lost me in the rearview
til you lost me, i said

Way up north, i took my day
all and all, was a pretty nice day
and i put the hood right back where
you could taste heaven perfectly.
feel out the summer breeze
didn't know when we'd back and i
i don't, i didn't think we'd end up like,
like this."
~A Sorta Fairytale
Tori Amos, A Piano: The Collection

7/26/14

Mysterious, moody, symphonic and subtle, Copeland songs get under my skin something fierce. Whenever I listen to them, I obsess indefinitely, because they have this way of sinking my heart and lifting my spirits at the same time. 

Here, in this song, it's in the strings, it's in the falsetto, it's in their ever-immaculate ability to hold a silence before sweeping in with something grand and beautiful. I love the delay on the first guitar line in this song, how it echoes like a memory. Earlier Copeland sounds a lot more like their indie alt-rock counterparts of the early 2000s, with guitar solos and distortion as prominent as the piano that was something of their trademark, but since then, their composition skills easily outshined their peers beyond a full-band sound, embracing varied instruments and atmosphere. They've honed in on the cerebral. 

Everything about their music is highly self-aware. Copeland excels musically and lyrically, I think, because of precise, note-by-note layering and equally precise introspection. But those thoughts are present, and poetic, offering thoughts and observations along with the spilling of guts. So it never feels that sad, it never feels that vulnerable, as an element of reason counterbalances all that feeling. For a listener such as me, what a gift. Even in their more depressing narratives, such as this, defeat is skewed with a slight, desperate promise of hanging on and getting lost in songs. 

The next Copeland album, the first since the magnificent "You are My Sunshine" in 2008 and their subsequent hiatus, comes out this October. I cannot wait. With the many events and experiences I know I have on the horizon, and the thoughts and feelings swimming about, I'll know I'll want something deep and meaningful to cling to, and a much-anticipated reunion release from a band that's consistently blown me in away could be exactly the right fit.


"You see the night is all I have to make me feel,
And all I want is just a love to make it hurt.
Cause all I need is something fine to make me lose.
Now it's a funny way I find myself with you.

Because this song is all I have to make me feel,
And all it takes is just a love to make it hurt.
And every sound arranged in time can make me lose.
Now it's a funny way I find myself with you.

But now there's nothing left to do but waste my time.
I never knew where to move on.
I never knew what to rely upon.
And now there's nothing left to say to change your mind.
And if you're are unhappy still,
I will be hanging on your line should you return.
Should you return, should you return.

Because the night is all I have to make me feel,
And all I want is just a dream to make it worthwhile.
Cause all I need is someone close to make me lose.
Now it's a funny way I find myself with you.

But now there's nothing left to do but waste my time.
I never knew where to move on.
I never knew what to rely upon.
But now there's nothing left to say to change your mind.
And if you're unhappy still,
I will be hanging on your line.

But now there's nothing left to do to draw you eyes.
I never knew where to move on.
I never knew what to rely upon.

But now there's nothing left to say to change your mind.
And if you're just sinking down,
I will pulling on your line.

But now there's nothing left to do but waste my time.
I never knew where to move on.
I never knew what to rely upon.
But now there's nothing left to say to change your mind
And if you're unhappy still,
I will be hanging on your line should you return.
Should you return, should you return."

~Should You Return

Copeland, You Are My Sunshine

7/20/14

"meet me there, in the blue
where words are not, feeling remains. 

sincerity, trust in me, throw myself into your door.

well i go in circles 

running down.

meet me there in the blue
where words are not feeling

oh i dream to heal your wounds
but i bleed myself, 

well i bleed myself.

well i go in circles 

running down." 

~In Circles, 

Sunny Day Real Estate, Diary 

This album was released 20 years ago. Let that sink in, especially around the minute-and-a-half mark when the one-liner chorus kicks in followed by the kind of signature suspended minor chords so often employed by this band that helped shape a genre, the kind that make you realize how much intensity is often missing in today's alt-rock. This is probably my favorite track of theirs, that chorus memorialized in passing moments in other-friends-of-older-friends basements. I missed out on this early age of emo, the one rooted deep in grunge, by sheer timing. So I played catch-up as I best I could while still discovering the trends and trials of the scene of the early aughts. But since everyone's getting all #emorevival and since good music has no shelf life, it seems a good year to fully uncover the bands that lurked around the edges for me. It's been incredibly satisfying, at a time when new music and bands (with select exception) get stale pretty quickly with the same old tired sound and weak attempts at shaping an "image" that often comes across as fakery. Better to seek out something already tested, that's held up against the unrelenting foes of times and taste.From ample and front-loaded bass lines, heavy distortion and strung-out-on-sadness lyrics, so much of what I hear in Sunny Day Real Estate is everything I look for when I search out new up-and-coming bands today. Especially when I find the aggressive, understated drama so perfectly suitable for wordless feeling. Especially when their brand of taut and unresolved melody creates a forceful misery, one with enough attack and movement to distract the busy mind and assault the masochistic heart.