Bruce Cockburn - "Going To The Country"
The subject of this song is something I know nothing about. Driving (I can’t) to the country (which, I believe, is full of bugs), having grown tired of urbanity (I have no real conception of anything outside of the urban setting).
Bruce Cockburn is still a Hippie, and whatever you think of his politics, this has a negative effect on his music (or, at least, his music is bad). “Going To The Country”, however, was recorded when it was O.K. to be a hippie and that makes all the difference.
Everything is clear as glass. The guitar playing is complex, yet confident and sturdy, and with its melody, the singing faultlessly, unassumingly harmonizes.
Cockburn almost makes the country sound like a place I might want to visit. [Buy]
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Os Mutantes - "Panis Et Circenses (Bread and Circuses)"
Portuguese sounds kind of Slavic, doesn’t it? Any linguists want to explainee?
“Bread And Circuses” sounds like the arrival of a King (the King of Psychedelia?), a peasant’s soliloquy as reaction to that event, and a Michelangelo Antonioni dance party. It ends like My Dinner With Andre accompanied by Doctor Who incidental music. And I don’t feel any better about that description than you do, so don’t get mad.
Os Mutantes were nearly as technically innovative as they were musically creative; inventing their own instruments and pedals. Their production, the work of Manoel Barenbein (I dare you to be named something better than that), is clear and intimate.
Full of stops and starts and self-conscious experimentation, “Bread And Circuses” builds momentum and finds a spaced-out regal beauty. [Buy]
Alexander "Skip" Spence - "Diana"
Skip Spence was 22 years old when he recorded Oar, his one and only solo album. Spence was the original drummer for Jefferson Airplane and a member of the California sunshine psychedelic pop/rock band, Moby Grape. He was also a lunatic who recorded "Diana" just after being released from the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital, where he had been incarcerated for attacking Moby Grape's drummer with an axe.
So, keep that in mind.
The fact that this song was written from within the hospital, lends an eerie quality to Skip's off-kilter incantations of the subject's name. Maybe he sees Diana as his chance at a normal life. Or his chance to communicate, finally. He wants her to understand him.
"Oh Diana, I am in pain. This is my heartbeat."
The song slips in and out of key. Solos come from all directions, often seemingly unrelated to the rest of the song.
He barely keeps it together, and it can be painful to listen to, but out of all the hurt and discord, the disorganization and opaque lyrics, emerges a stumbling, ham-fisted, yet trenchant love song. [Buy]
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Arcade Fire - "Rebellion (Lies)"
I remember reading an interview with the Arcade Fire in which Win Butler (the band's frontman) said something about not thinking of the band as being part of the indie-rock genre, but as part of the broader pop tradition. At the time I didn't think much of this beyond it being just another example of the band's bravado. But now, after having listened to Funeral tens of times in the last week, I understand. These songs are not about experimentation or new directions, they were not written in the traditional sense. They were simply plucked, fully developed, from wherever it is that perfect pop songs like these are kept. Funeral is ten close approximations of the Platonic form of the pop song. The Arcade Fire has access to that very special room, a glorious song shop, visited in the past by The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye and New Order among a very select few others.
"Rebellion (Lies)" is a linear forward push. Only down strums and alternating bass drum and snare hits. A perfect pop bass. Though they are weighty and metallic (heavy metal?), the guitars (in cahoots with the piano) don't rush you forward, they just put their hand on your back and guide you faster and faster. Win's vocals ebb against the instruments' flow and you can always keep the pace up.
"Sleeping is giving in."
The instruments are sleep and the vocals are trying not to give in. The resulting clash is a dense shimmering piece of pop tumult.
At 3:18 there are two hand claps and "Rebellion" starts shimmering harder.
At 3:34 the chorus shifts into the minor key, it implodes on itself, and the guitars and strings turn to wind, pushing out in all directions.
The girl sitting across from me at the computer lab as I write this, saw the cd case and said:
"Are you listening to that right now?"
"Yeah."
"Fucking epic, man."
"Yeah, it's good."
What else can be said? [Buy]