“Lost my heart between sheets of lightening / Been singing you this song inside a bubble / Lying in your attic / I can feel your static” are just a few of the perceptual lyrics to the opening number off of Stornoway’s debut album, Beachcomber’s Windowsill. Named after the Hebirdean town on the Scottish isle of Lewis, the band’s name, one assumes, relates to their preoccupation with the mythical folklore associated with such an isolated place. Anchored by cello, keyboards, trumpets, and violins, these Oxford musicians sit comfortably in the popularized pop-folk genre, which has recently simmered to the surface thanks to the success of bands like Dirty Projectors, Guillemots, and of course, Fleet Foxes.
Lead singer, Brian Briggs, Stornoway’s mastermind looks and sounds like an early Hank Williams, with the lyrical adventure of Huckleberry Finn. Making his way through numbers about fish species, and ornithological matters (“Watching Birds”), Stornoway are unique because of their unabashed ability to meld these niche topics, with accessible matters of the heart. If such lyrical, and sonic amalgamations sound peculiar, then one need look no further than Briggs’ biography, where it is noted that he attained his PhD in the habits of Shoveler ducks.
Most people, I imagine, tend to associate the word “ambient” with a form of soulless pretentiousness that only high-brow music snobs are able to relate to. It’s the sort of fad that fills gallery and performance spaces, kind of like elevator music for the erudite—it is “curated”, “acquired”, and all sorts of things that the more generic music aficionado simply couldn’t dream of understanding. The Australian-born/Iceland-based Ben Frost is one musician who fills said spaces, but on the contrary, manages to denounce such notions.
Sitting somewhere between classical composer Arvo Pärt and Nine Inch Nails, Frost willfully crosses genres, often defying classification with his sophomore release, By the Throat. As the title suggests, Frost’s aural creations are assaultive, boasting an intense musicality that is beguiling, if at times a little invasive. This isn’t something to play before bed. Rather, it’s the soundtrack to an eerie thriller, or horror—puncturing one’s synapses, it will have you sneaking paranoid peeks over your shoulder, well after the music has stopped.
Like his half-brother, Sean, Julian Lennon has managed to develop an indelible musical career, despite the weighty pressure and skepticism that comes with upholding such a historic musical lineage. And like his brother, Julian was born with a voice very much akin to their father, former Beatle John Lennon. It is a voice that can flutter between a low-tremulous range, an uncomplicated whisper, and a meaty yelp, almost seamlessly.
Now, in 2009, Noble Rot is reissuing three of Julian Lennon’s original releases on Atlantic Records that have since gone out of print: The Secret Value of Daydreaming, Mr. Jordan, and Help Yourself. On the first of these, 1986’s The Secret Value of Daydreaming, Julian delves into a stream of unbridled confession. With Phil Ramone at the record’s helm, Lennon presents the listener with a foray of perfectly refined melodies. These intricately crafted songs thump with a righteous exuberance, like the album’s second track, “Stick Around”, which utilizes a buff funk groove, and an assertive Julian, debating whether he should “stay” when “nothing is clear” in matters of his own heart.
On the tuneful “Want Your Body”, Lennon wrestles with both physical and mental appropriations—he “want(s) your body” and “want(s) your mind”, despite how “unkind” people are. This helpless desire is further echoed on the pensive “You Don’t Have To Tell Me”, where Julian mutters, “You don’t have to tell me / You don’t have to cry / You don’t have to tell me / What you’re feeling inside”.
Laura Nyro is one of those odd mystical creatures who seems to float somewhere above the cannon of popular music culture. Considered an icon amongst her devotees, without ever achieving mainstream chart success, she was a prolific musician and songwriter up until the release of Mother’s Spiritual, which induced the artist into a nine-year recording hiatus.
As a solo artist, Nyro was notorious for her wounded jazzy tone, which would often fluctuate effortlessly between instances of restrained soulfulness and bouts of unbridled, some would even say hysterical, frenzy.
One of David Geffen’s early musical discoveries, Nyro was nurtured under his leadership, producing mature releases like New York Tendaberry at the ripe young age of just 22. When commercial success failed her, Nyro’s management had her compose songs for other artists, which were often warmly welcomed by the populace. Although she couldn’t read a note of music, Nyro managed to pen classics such as, Barbara Streisand’s “Stoney End”, the 5th Dimension’s “Blowing Away”, Blood Sweat & Tears’ “And When I Die”, and Three Dog Night’s “Eli’s Coming”, to name but a few.
Now, nearly 12 years after her untimely death from cancer at the age of 49, Laura Nyro’s eighth studio album Mother’s Spiritual has been re-released by Iconoclassic Records for public consumption. Originally released in 1984, these songs have rarely been so accessible. It was considered a critical failure at the time. Fans and critics alike criticized Nyro for assuming a restrained sound that many believed paled in comparison to the adventurousness of her previous works, which found Nyro breezing effortlessly between soul (Gonna Take A Miracle, produced with Labelle) and multi-layered Jazz opulence (Eli and The Thirteenth Confession).
In 1999, on the eve of PopMatters’ inception, I was an angst-ridden teenager, who had a tendency for ditching classes only to sit in the toilet reading back issues of Rolling Stone. By the end of the decade, my love for grunge music had sent me searching through expanses that spanned Punk & New Wave to classic rock, gospel, and soul.
But despite my obsession with the retrospective milieu, I was always conscious that I was, of all things, a product of the ‘90s. As such, the world mythologized in the pages of music magazines about vinyl records, played on analogue players was something that I believed, belonged to my forefathers. Certainly, the rickety sound of a spindle scratching the surface of an old record was romantic, and the large artwork was appealing—but nevertheless, I was a staunch believer in the compact disc (CD). With its plastic shell, artwork, and liner notes, the CD had all the positive bearings of an old gramophone disc, except they were portable. This isn’t too mention, the shimmering and ‘untouchable’, optical surface intrinsic to every CD—for a music aficionado like myself there was something quixotic about this; it felt like music was sacred. It was something worth protecting.
In a recent PopMatters post, I highlighted the importance of the Glasgow music scene – and its historical relevance to the world of music. Like musical hotspots, Seattle and New York—Glasgow possesses the wet weather of one, and the greased-up urban spontaneity of the latter. As such, it should come as no surprise to find that another up and coming Glasgow-based band is rekindling the flame of the 1970s NY punk music scene in 2009.
In particular, I am referring to the quartet, known as Isosceles. A member of the Art Goes Pop music collective, Isosceles’ sound is emblematic of the collective’s moniker. Rickety guitar work is interspersed with a spattering of drums, and lead singer, Jack Valentine’s yelping vocal execution – all of which help position the band nicely between Television and The Modern Lovers.
Holcombe Waller is one of those underground artists that doesn’t seem to care about what is happening on the surface of the popular music landscape. He writes songs in his apartment in Portland, he performs (straight-forward performances, fused with a smattering of performance art), oh and he teaches a little too…an elective course at UC Berkeley, to be exact. All of which seems to be executed, and indeed achieved at the artist’s very own creative whim.
How my love affair with this man’s music began, is simple. I discovered him just over a year ago in a back issue of Butt, and from that moment, I felt compelled to ‘discover’ whether Holcombe had the artistic credos to back up his cheeky interview persona.
The quest began with a long wait, for a US import of his release,Extravagant Gesture to arrive to the UK. Once fully loaded and synced, it was only a week, before four tracks off of the album were in my Ipod’s most played list, with the layered, melodic cataclysm ‘Anthem’ taking the prized spot as the number one repeater. At that point, I started to understand why I felt so passionately about Holcombe. Somehow, he had managed to fuse Van Morrison’s lyrical delivery, with a touch of Gospel soul, and cradled that within the airy melodic landscape suited to the The Smiths.
In the UK music scene, the city of Glasgow is the stuff of legend. Considered by many to be a Mecca for discovering new talent, it possesses one of the most vibrant music scenes in the world. Texas, Primal Scream, Snow Patrol, Oasis, Simple Minds, Franz Ferdinand, Mogwai, Young Marble Giants, Belle & Sebastian, Camera Obscura, and the eponymous, Glasvegas—are all in some way or another indebted to the city for their success.
The reasoning behind its flourishing musical environment is simple. Marred by consistently rainy weather, an industrial past that left deep class divisions, and a cultural regeneration unparalleled in Europe in the 1990s – Glasgow has all of the signature trademarks of a city like Seattle or New York. It is no wonder then that the artists who live, breathe, and play in Glasgow, are propelled by a spirited urgency.
Something odd has been happening to me as of late, no, I haven’t managed to achieve those 6-pack abs I have always dreamed of. Instead, I have been especially inclined to romantic music – pumping away on the treadmill, with Dolly Parton quietly playing away on my Ipod. Now before you turn your nose up at me, let me profess that I might be the victim of an especially profound ‘crush,’ which is the motivation behind my newfound fixation with all things maudlin.
To commemorate this event, I thought it would be fitting to rundown some of the most ‘moving’ songs out there…ones that will break your heart, others that will help mend it, and one or two that might just help you win the affections of that unrequited love of yours.
Please do leave your own suggestions in the comments section, and rest assured, projectile vomiting is permitted, so long as you don’t expect me to clean up the mess afterward.
Everybody Here Wants You by Jeff Buckley
There is something transcendental about this song, one of Buckley’s posthumous releases. His voice builds from a simmer and reaches towards the brink of climax, only to return to a hushed silence. His performance is intrinsic to the quiet longing over an unrequited love. Indeed, he professes, “everybody here thinks they want you,” “thinks they need you,” “but I will be waiting right here to show you,” “how our love can rise just like embers.”
Although bold lyrically, the listener is aware from Buckley’s tentative vocals that he has yet to muster the courage to tell that woman just how much he ‘wants’ her – little does he realize that he may very well have missed his chance.
Let us put aside for a moment, the media hoopla that has surrounded Courtney Love over the last 15 or so years, hard as that may be, and let us consider some of the bold musical splendour on display in her band, Hole’s, first label outing,Pretty on the Inside.
From the very first song, Love who leads the band with her lacerating tongue yelps, that “when she was a teenage whore”, how her mother confronted her, to which, she responded that she “wanted it” because “she was so alone”—in turn, forcing riot grrls everywhere, to question the relationship between youth, abuse, and sexual practice.
From CD to MP3: The Degradation of Music Curating
In 1999, on the eve of PopMatters’ inception, I was an angst-ridden teenager, who had a tendency for ditching classes only to sit in the toilet reading back issues of Rolling Stone. By the end of the decade, my love for grunge music had sent me searching through expanses that spanned Punk & New Wave to classic rock, gospel, and soul.
But despite my obsession with the retrospective milieu, I was always conscious that I was, of all things, a product of the ‘90s. As such, the world mythologized in the pages of music magazines about vinyl records, played on analogue players was something that I believed, belonged to my forefathers. Certainly, the rickety sound of a spindle scratching the surface of an old record was romantic, and the large artwork was appealing—but nevertheless, I was a staunch believer in the compact disc (CD). With its plastic shell, artwork, and liner notes, the CD had all the positive bearings of an old gramophone disc, except they were portable. This isn’t too mention, the shimmering and ‘untouchable’, optical surface intrinsic to every CD—for a music aficionado like myself there was something quixotic about this; it felt like music was sacred. It was something worth protecting.
Keep on Reading…
Pop Matters, Special Feature: PopMatters@10, 2009
No Comments » | Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
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