All My CDs, pt 16: Bound to Go

Bound to Go - Andrew Calhoun & Campground

Folk music is music that’s more fun to sing than to just listen to. It was the first kind of music: made not by a performer for a silent, receptive audience, but by a group collaborating to create an experience that would tie them together as a community and make life that much more bearable during times of hardship. During the times in my life when I’ve attended religious services, I always named singing as my favorite aspect of worship, and cannot imagine a communal spiritual experience without some collective music-making involved.

I sometimes fear that this kind of music is dying, as more people think of songs as something that creative writers and skilled performers produce for a consuming majority rather than something all people can participate in on some level. But I think enough non-professionals are making music - whether by performing live on street corners or remixing popular tunes on the internet - that the folk song as a cultural institution isn’t quite dead yet.

Bound to Go is a collection of spirituals and folk music of black Americans from the time of slavery and after. Many are clearly work songs, sung to stave off the fatigue and pain of being forced to labor under unhappy conditions (“Them ol’ black gnats, they so bad / they bites and stings and drives me mad”). Others are more sublime, sweetly describing heaven and the coming of a more perfect future (“Weep like a willow, moan like a dove / if you wanna go to heaven, gotta go by love”). Like any piece of art from another time or culture - or even contemporary art - some background knowledge of history helps to understand the context. But the songs are enjoyable even without such knowledge, because the feelings they express are universal.

Albums like this one are important for preserving the songs from cultures and subcultures of the past, but the songs really come alive when you take the time to learn them and sing them, especially in groups. For this reason, I have found more enjoyment from singing along to these songs than from just sitting back and listening to them. They are not difficult, even for people with very little musical ability or training. A few of the tracks on the album - such as Run Mary Run or Blow Your Trumpet Gabriel - that are produced and arranged such that they are enjoyable as much as a passively-received performance as they are fun to sing. The trumpet solo that concludes the last track, Tree of Life, is especially appreciable.  But most of them are short, simple, and minimally arranged.

So, if you choose to listen to this album, my advice is this: Sing along. Learn the tunes. Sing them when you’re working or bored or suffering or celebrating. Encourage others to sing with you. I don’t care if you actually believe in Satan or Jesus or heaven or hell, or whether you feel any personal connection to black American culture and history; these are damn good songs and should be remembered.

Next: Barricades & Brickwalls

All My CDs, pt 15: Prolonging the Magic

Prolonging the Magic - Cake

 In my review of Cake’s album Comfort Eagle, I described their singer’s voice as “emotionless, almost mechanical.” For reasons beyond my knowledge, that is not true of the songs on this album. I would attribute the difference to an overall change in the band’s style over time, but from what I know of other music by them, that is not the case. For whatever reason, this album feels more relaxed, less precisely-arranged, and more emotionally expressive than other music by the same band. The subtle shift in style strikes me as appropriate given the songs, which tend more toward personal, relationship-driven subjects than in Comfort Eagle.

I bought this album less than a year ago, and haven’t had a lot of opportunity to listen to it until now. It was another impulse purchase from the dollar rack, although I’d been considering purchasing it for a number of years because of the song Sheep Go to Heaven (Goats Go to Hell). I’m a bit of a sucker for things that involve goats (on a related note, my favorite wine). Besides being goat-related, this song also contributes to a loose theme that seems to connect several of the songs: references to religion and mythology. The narrator prefers a life of fun sin (“I just want to play on my panpipes / I just want to drink me some wine / As soon as you’re born you start dying / so you may as well have a good time”) to one of responsibility, even if it means he’ll “go to Hell.” This casual acceptance of damnation is echoed in Satan is my Motor, and a more fatalistic reference to the theme appears in Hem of your Garment, which may be a biblical allusion.

Amid all these casual references to evil, the darkest song on the album (in my opinion) is You Turn the Screws, which I find myself listening to over and over. Unlike the fun-loving, relaxed persona described in Sheep Go to Heaven, the subject of You Turn the Screws is cold, calculating, and cruel - and worse, he assumes everyone else is like him.

Other songs are lighter, but still contain a curious mixture of darker elements. Alpha Beta Parking Lot describes a pretty sunset scene, but then contains the lines “Standing in the Alpha Beta parking lot / watching you leave me / not quite believing.” Let Me Go and Bound for Mexico are similarly bittersweet.

Although Comfort Eagle (the song) remains my favorite song by Cake, I think Prolonging the Magic might be my favorite Cake album.

Next: Bound to Go

All My CDs, pt 14: Comfort Eagle

Comfort Eagle - Cake

Today is tomorrow, and tomorrow today
and yesterday is weaving in and out

When I was in high school, online flash animation was in its golden age. I can’t claim to have been at the cutting edge of any cultural movement, but I did enjoy watching flash cartoons, and Drew Mokris (a.k.a. drewmo) produced some of my favorites. One of them was a music video for the song Comfort Eagle by Cake. It wasn’t funny (except in the sense of being visually absurd, which is typical of many music videos), but it was very well-made, and I loved the music. Soon, I decided to buy the album.

My impression, both when I first got the album and while listening to it now, is that the title track exists on a plane far above the rest. The rest of the songs are entertaining and well-made. Comfort Eagle is a work of transcendant art. The one time I shared it with my father - a musician himself and a bit of a music snob - he made a similar observation, calling the song “the hit among the dance songs.” He saw in it a scathing satire of the music industry. I see in it similar commentaries about commercialism and pop culture in general, a world that cynically commoditizes spiritual experience.  Its sound is darker than the other songs, and incorporates a broader variety of instruments but stops just shy of being overwhelmingly overproduced. The lead singer’s peculiar style of singing - emotionless, almost mechanical - contrasts with the pseudo-spiritual lyrics and pseudo-new-age instrumentation to underscore the themes of unscrupulous power co-opting the soul for its own soulless purposes.  “We are building a religion. We are making a brand / We’re the only ones to turn to when your castles turn to sand.”

Please don’t conclude that Comfort Eagle is the only good song on the album. I also enjoyed Comissioning a Symphony in C, Shadow Stabbing, and the instrumental Arco Arena. I like how the lyrics, even at their most coherent, don’t stick to common or conventional subject matter. That said, if not for Comfort Eagle, I don’t think I’d have liked this album enough to buy it and keep it around for this long. In a way, that might be a good thing. It means that my music collection broadens even my already-diverse listening habits.

Next: Prolonging the Magic

All My CDs, pt 13: Moodswings

Moodswings - Brodsky Quartet

I’m not especially familiar with the work of the Brodsky Quartet except for their collaborations with singer-songwriters; when they do, I believe what they create is a genre of music separate from and greater than what a good singer-songwriter and a good string quartet can each achieve on their own. In this album, they worked with a variety of vocalists and writers. Roughly half the songs were with established artists from wildly divergent genres, from Bjork to Sting, and in others they collaborate with students and teachers in several schools in what I’m sure was a tremendous learning experience for all involved.

The title of this album comes from the first track, a beautiful and exciting arrangement of “My Mood Swings” by Elvis Costello, but it may also refer to the vast array of  styles represented in the songs that follow. Some sound like jazz standards, others like avant-garde art songs, others like classed-up rock. In some, such as Dumptruck or I’ve Seen It All, the lyrics seem to take center stage and the music provides flourish. In others, such as Shallow Footsteps or the wordless Gotham Lullaby, the vocals are treated more like a fifth instrument than a deliverer of words.  And somehow all this diversity is achieved within the confines of a string quartet accompanying a single voice for each song.

There are so many songs here that I would love to name as my favorite, not just on the album but out of all songs. I’ve never been more grateful that polyamory in musical taste is an accepted lifestyle choice. Shallow Footsteps taught me that even I can enjoy an operatic style of singing. I Never Went Away is that so-common but so-appreciated thing, the love song that speaks to current experiences. Gotham Lullaby came on late last night when I was driving on the highway straight toward the most beautiful moon I’ve ever seen. And then there's Daedalus.

Daedalus makes me feel so many emotions at once it’s overwhelming. In addition to being the longest song on the album (and I’ve always liked long songs), Daedalus begins with doubt (“is this the life you would have wished for? / Is this the life you would have killed for?”) and progresses to hope (“Can you still find him? / Will you still find him?”) and to fear (“He is fallen / fallen to the sea.”) These emotions repeat and mix together like the voices of a fugue, finding kinship in one another as well as contrast. If I absolutely had to chose a favorite, it would be this one.

And yet... there is always a rub. Among all these wonderful songs there is one that I just can’t stand. Venus Flytrap is not just annoying in the way it’s sung, but its lyrics are malicious and even downright misogynistic. The message of it seems to be along the lines of “How dare a woman be attractive to me and not also nice?” I have forced myself to listen to it a few times so that I could fairly review the entire album, but I have been unable to find anything redeeming about the song.

I have considered deleting Venus Flytrap from my electronic backups of the album, that I can listen to the rest of the songs without being reminded of their misfit sibling, but that seems dishonest to me. I think of a good album as being like a good friend, and good friends often have flaws that must be accepted. The point is that the album is great as a whole, and I love it very much.

Next: Comfort Eagle

All My CDs, pt 12: Homogenic

Note that a few of the words in this review are supposed to have special characters used in Icelandic, but not in English. If someone wants to show me where those special characters are hidden in Blogger's editing tools, I'm all ears.

Homogenic- Bjork

“I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me!”

In the late 00s I was introduced to Bjork’s music in the form of a few collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet that appeared on my Pandora station. I remember being surprised at how normal those songs sounded, considering how weird Bjork was reputed to be (see the above gif). A few years later I got the album Homogenic, played it regularly for a few months and then suddenly lost interest. It has languished on my shelf since.

Although the songs that I originally enjoyed on Pandora were mainly accoustic, this album (and most of the music I’ve heard of hers) is very techno. A few of the songs are almost trance-like, with mystical lyrics and an etherial sound - especially All is Full of Love, which would not be out of place playing softly in the background at a yoga studio. Pluto is equally etherial, but rather than soothing, its sound is agitating; not all that is new age is peaceful.

Others are similarly mystical, such as Joga and Alarm Call. Alarm Call is my favorite; it has a cheerfulness tinged with anger that’s quite infectious (“I’m no f***ing Buddhist, but this is Enlightenment”). Joga was my favorite when I first bought the album, because of its explicitly emotional lyrics (“All that no-one sees you see what’s inside of me/ every nerve that hurts you heal deep inside of me”) and the pretty string accompaniment. I enjoy it very much still. Others that I enjoyed back then, such as Bachelorette and Unravel, have since lost their appeal, although I have to admit their lyrics are very creatively written.

I almost feel that I encountered this music at too late a time in my life to enjoy it completely. When I was young and my mind less firmly attached to the mundane world of grocery lists and insurance policies and worrying about getting parking tickets, I was much more into techno music with spiritually-inclined vocals. I am not as prone to mystical trances as I was in my teens, but perhaps it’s time I give mind-altering another try. When I do, I will reach for Homogenic and feel the universal love.

Next: Moodswings

All My CDs, pt 11: Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light

Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light - Bell Orchestre

Once in a while, I pick up an album at near-random from a rack, one that I’ve never heard or heard of, and just buy it. I find that I’ve had better than even odds of actually enjoying the music. That was the case with this one.

I should say that I have absolutely no knowledge of this album’s origins beyond my having found it in the dollar rack of my local record store. I don’t know the names or biographies of any of the group members, or what genre they identify themselves as (if any), or even their nationality. No voices appear on the album, so I can’t even get clues based on the gender or language of the vocals. All I know is that these people do beautifully discordant things with orchestral instruments.

The music is all instrumental and mostly uses accoustic, orchestral instruments, including a significant but not overwhelming amount of brass. In fact, I suspect the name of the group refers to the “bell” or flared end of a brass instrument, although a few of the other type of bell are also heard in The Bells Play the Band and Recording a Tape (Typewriter Duet). A few less conventional sounds are used as instruments, such as the typewriter in the aforementioned Duet, and the muffled traffic noises in Recording a Tunnel (The Invisible Bells).

The music itself also appears to be an uneven mix of the ordinary and the unexpected, but slanted toward a more comfortable, “safe” sound. It has just enough experimental flare to be fresh and not boring, without being so out-there as to challenge my learned sense of aesthetics. Few of the songs have much in the way of a melody, but are more atmospheric, and make very good background music. Salvator Amato briefly contains a melody that stuck in my mind and that I would describe as catchy, but few of the others do. And that’s okay, because they’re still beautiful.

I found the overall mood to be optimistic but pensive, and at a few times dramatic, as in Throw It on a Fire, which is my favorite track. It’s the fastest-paced of all the songs, and features stringed instruments used as percussion; this is an easy way for a song to gain my affection. All in all, this is a good album and I’ll make a mental note to put it on when I want pretty but relatively undistracting background music.

Next: Homogenic

All My CDs, pt 10: Beauty and the Beast

Long ago, in an era of ancient history known as “the nineties,” I was a child. And at some point during that mythic time, Disney released an animated feature film about a geek girl and a boy with mood problems.

Beauty and the Beast (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) - Alan Menken, Howard Ashman

I haven’t listened to this CD since I picked it up on impulse from the dollar rack last year. I remember the movie fondly both from childhood and the few occasions in adulthood that I’ve seen it again, but this is the first time I’ve paid attention specifically to the music by itself.

Say what you will about Disney, but it has certainly perfected the art of the children’s animated musical film, and Beaty and the Beast’s soundtrack shows it. It has many good songs that each are enjoyable on their own, but also are woven together with each other and with the instrumental passages in a way that can be deeply appreciable if you’re paying attention. Listening to the soundtrack by itself gave me an opportunity to notice details that the movie might have distracted me from.

One thing I like about a good musical is themes that repeat and vary, so that the use of a specific melody can signal a connection between two or more scenes - if only because it expresses a certain character’s style. The music can thus do a fair job of telling the story even without all the action and dialogue from the movie.  I enjoy delving into the instrumental portions of the soundtrack searching for musical references to various songs.

The songs themselves are well-written and fun to listen to. I found that they were simply too interesting to leave playing in the background while I did other things; it’s best to listen to them with an undistracted mind. Gaston, which explicitly and savagely lambastes conventional notions of masculinity, is especially hilarious, although it may have inadvertently subverted its own agenda by glorifying the arrogant, misogynistic behaviors it sets out to ridicule.

Another aspect of musicals that bemuses and amuses me is how they portray inherently chaotic and disordered events as perfectly synchronized and choreographed. The Mob Song is a classic example, where a whole village wracked with panic and incited to irrational violence is nevertheless capable of singing complex lyrics in unison and harmony. I listen to it over and over again, especially while driving, because it’s simply exciting. Be sure to look up the lyrics, because there are some clever gems hidden in the rapid delivery.

Perhaps next time I’m shopping for music, I’ll keep an eye out for other children’s classics. I wouldn’t mind adding the soundtracks for Mulan or Frozen to my collection as well.

Next: Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light

All My CDs, pt 9: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles

The Beatles is one of my favorite bands of all time, and from what I understand I’m not alone. You’d be hard-pressed to think of a group as skilled, as versatile, as innovative, as inspired, or as influential over as broad a period of history. So it’s especially incredible that apart from the Yellow Submarine disk I reviewed last time, this is the only album I own by the Beatles. I may have to change that at my next opportunity.

I haven’t been able to find any thoughts or impressions that apply to the album as a whole, so I’ll just write some thoughts on each of the songs.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - The title track doesn’t seem to do much except introduce the album. It paints an interesting image, like the front cover, that mixes modern and old-fashioned aesthetic elements and is just fun to listen to. The same applies to the reprise later in the album.

With A Little Help From My Friends - Songs about friendship are hard to come by in pop, with romantic love being the much more popular subject. This is a classic example, and it’s hard not to enjoy it. It simply rings true.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - The poet in me is enamored with the imagery and the creative use of unconventional modifiers in this song. An interesting note: for my whole life, I thought that one of the phrases used to describe Lucy was “the girl so incredibly high.” This morning, when listening, I suddenly realized that part of the song describes flowers “that grow so incredibly high.” Misheard lyrics. They’re a fact of life.

Getting Better: This song is more complex than it seems at first glance. I thought it particularly admirable that the narrator doesn’t simply describe life “getting better all the time,” but links the improvements in his life to changes in his own behavior, and his past troubles to harmful attitudes and deeds. It’s the kind of personal responsibility that isn’t easy to find these days.

Fixing a Hole: I’ve had this song stuck in my head more this week than any other, and would name it as my current favorite track on the album. I didn’t listen to it much before, but I very much dig it now. It puts me in the frame of mind to clean my apartment top to bottom, then sit somewhere with my feet up and watch people who are in a greater hurry than I am.

She’s Leaving Home: I’m not fond of this one. The lyrics strike me as passive-aggressive.

Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!: Someone told me that this one was copied almost verbatim from an actual ad for the show it describes, which makes it a classic example of found art. I like how perfectly the instrumentation accompanies the lyrics.

Within You Without You - While it’s pleasant to listen to, I’m not really prepared to have coherent thoughts about this one. It seems to actively discourage logical thought, so perhaps that’s for the best.

When I’m Sixty-Four - This has always been a favorite, and as someone who always has at least one eye on the long-term future, it’s nice to see a pop song that acknowledges that life (and love) shouldn't end in one’s late twenties.

Lovely Rita - It’s also nice to see a narrative that admires a young lady for her less conventionally feminine characteristics.

Good Morning Good Morning - The sound of a crowing rooster makes an appropriate, even obvious addition to this song. The addition of more farm animal sounds following it is not hard to understand. The elephants and lions, however, are just silly. And silly is good.

A Day in the Life: The best thing about it is the instrumental crescendo that serves as a bridge between the first and second parts. You’ll know it when you hear it.

“Now we know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.”

Next: Beauty and the Beast.

All My CDs, pt 8: Yellow Submarine

This album was technically mis-shelved and belongs much later in the alphabet, since I generally shelve soundtracks by the title of the movie rather than the name of the artist. But I promised I’d review my CDs in the order they’re currently shelved, so here it is.

Yellow Submarine - The Beatles (soundtrack)

If you’ve never seen the all-ages animated film Yellow Submarine, and you like the Beatles, do yourself a favor and check it out. Like the live-action Beatles movies, it’s weird, it’s fun, and the music is beautiful. Unlike the live-action movies, it’s one of the most visually interesting movies I’ve ever seen, since the animation incorporates a broad variety of styles and techniques to create an artful and psychadelic experience to match the bizarre and clever writing. It was one of my favorite movies as a child, and remains stimulating and enjoyable well into adulthood. (It also has bonus footage after the credits, despite being made a good few decades before that was cool.)

That said, I must say I’m a bit disappointed in the soundtrack album. Roughly half the Beatles songs that were in the movie don’t appear in the album, including some personal favorites like Nowhere Man, Eleanor Rigby, and When I’m 64. On the other hand, some great songs did make the cut, like All You Need is Love, It’s All Too Much, and Yellow Submarine. And the second half of the album contains tracks from the original score of the movie, so it’s well worth listening to despite the conspicuous omissions.

The original score is composed by George Martin, whose name really should appear alongside The Beatles on the front cover. Unlike a lot of film scores, this is not mere background music, barely noticeable except as an auditory mood-enhancer. The movie itself was made partially as a vehicle for the music, and that goes for the score as well as the Beatles songs that were its main focus, so the score had to be able to stand on its own as good music.

These tracks are full of wonder and whimsy and humor, just like the movie, and I can’t not think of my favorite scenes while listening to them. I have watched the movie so many times that the scenes simply play out in my mind’s eye while I hear the music. This might say something for the music’s illustrative powers and its impactfulness, especially when paired with the powerful imagery of the movie. Then again, it may say more about my inadequacy as an unbiased listener. Either way, I enjoyed listening.

Next: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band