Ancient Echoes - SAVAE
This album is subtitled “Music from the Time of Jesus and Jerusalem’s Second Temple.” With respect to the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble, that subtitle is a lie. It’s music from 2002.
Okay, I’m being pedantic. It’s music made with instruments, techniques, and languages thought to be in use at the time of Jesus, recorded with an aim toward reviving an aesthetic as close to authentically ancient music as practicable given that time travel hasn’t been invented yet. The liner notes detail these elements along with explanations of all texts used in the songs, some of which come from Neil Douglas-Klotz’s refreshingly progressive translation of biblical verses.
Since I first got this album as a teenager, I have deepened my skepticism for anything claiming to authentically recreate elements of the past - a skepticism that first began to form when I learned that ancient Greece was not really anything like the world I saw through Kevin Sorbo’s Hercules. Yet, as I’ve shown repeatedly throughout this review project, I still deeply appreciate any modern attempts to aesthetically invoke ancient sounds and sights: drumming, wooden flutes, group chanting, and the like. I especially like when these elements are combined with modern sounds, as that seems much more honest - the present may borrow from the past, but cannot become it.
But it’s also nice to hear attempts like this one to use purely ancient sounds, or as pure as we can get it on a digital recording.
It’s also worth saying that the music is quite powerfully beautiful. While driving home from work a few nights ago, I’m sure I had a religious experience hearing the climax of B’tseth Israel (Psalm 114) where the voices all join together in piercing harmony. Other highlights of the album are a rendition of Song of Seikilos (the oldest written song known to history), and each of the beatitudes individually set to music.
Next: Parables and Primes
Monday, September 28, 2015
Friday, September 25, 2015
All My CDs, pt. 97: The Satyrs
The Satyrs - The Satyrs
Like When I Woke, this is yet another album I picked up from the bargain rack on impulse with no idea what it might sound like. Although I’m sure I must have put it on at least once the day I bought it, I have not listened to it at all in the several years since then, so it may as well have been a first-time listening. I must confess, I dragged my heels about writing this review, which is why it’s going up a day late. I have not enjoyed The Satyrs nearly as much as the last few albums I had the pleasure of reviewing.
This album has the cruise control set at 25. It only has one mood: slow, ponderous, and dark. The singing is so slow that following the lyrics is difficult, so it’s easiest just to let them go over your head like a blinking satellite marking its stately progress across the sky. There’s piano and guitars that despite their jangliness somehow manage to sound morose.
I don’t dislike it. It’s just that after the celebratory fullness of the last album I reviewed, and with all the exciting goings on in my life right now, I’m not really in the mood for anything slow or sad that lasts more than a few minutes. And this is forty-two.
Yet after a few generous listenings, I can actually say that it has grown on me. Taken on its own terms it’s rather beautiful, and despite its dark tinge is far from the aggressively depressing strains of popular emo/goth fare. A few songs have a country twang to them, which prompted me to see some parallels with Johnny Cash, an artist I enjoy very much but have not had time to fully explore yet.
I’m happy to move on to the next album on my shelf now, but I shall remember this album for next time I am in the mood for something slower. It’s bound to happen sometime.
Next: Ancient Echoes
Like When I Woke, this is yet another album I picked up from the bargain rack on impulse with no idea what it might sound like. Although I’m sure I must have put it on at least once the day I bought it, I have not listened to it at all in the several years since then, so it may as well have been a first-time listening. I must confess, I dragged my heels about writing this review, which is why it’s going up a day late. I have not enjoyed The Satyrs nearly as much as the last few albums I had the pleasure of reviewing.
This album has the cruise control set at 25. It only has one mood: slow, ponderous, and dark. The singing is so slow that following the lyrics is difficult, so it’s easiest just to let them go over your head like a blinking satellite marking its stately progress across the sky. There’s piano and guitars that despite their jangliness somehow manage to sound morose.
I don’t dislike it. It’s just that after the celebratory fullness of the last album I reviewed, and with all the exciting goings on in my life right now, I’m not really in the mood for anything slow or sad that lasts more than a few minutes. And this is forty-two.
Yet after a few generous listenings, I can actually say that it has grown on me. Taken on its own terms it’s rather beautiful, and despite its dark tinge is far from the aggressively depressing strains of popular emo/goth fare. A few songs have a country twang to them, which prompted me to see some parallels with Johnny Cash, an artist I enjoy very much but have not had time to fully explore yet.
I’m happy to move on to the next album on my shelf now, but I shall remember this album for next time I am in the mood for something slower. It’s bound to happen sometime.
Next: Ancient Echoes
Monday, September 21, 2015
All My CDs, pt. 96: When I Woke
When I Woke - Rusted Root
This is another of the several CDs I got from the bargain rack sound-unheard, with no knowledge of what lay within. I seem to remember putting it on that day and briefly enjoying it, but getting distracted and not picking it up again until now.
I wrote in my last review that I could stand to have more of “this kind of music” in my collection, and while Rusted Root is pretty far from Monica Richards in a lot of ways, I can’t help but see some infectious similarities. It’s a blessing that this album starts with Drum Trip, a rampage of drumming fit to induce flashbacks to six thousand years ago. Other songs incorporate elements of jazz, blues, latin rock and pop, but at its core this is drummy folky primal music that makes me want to throw a dance party around a bonfire.
At least one song, Send Me On My Way, is popular enough that I was able to instantly recognize it when it first came up; it’s been in several soundtracks so perhaps you have heard it as well. Its lilting flute and percussion and bubbly vocals seem to especially evoke the freedom of the open road, and all that jazz.
Other favorite tracks include Ecstasy, Food & Creative Love, and Back to the Earth. Hippy music, for sure; you can tell by the titles alone but every note pulses with that vibrant beat of barefoot, life-loving, art-mongering hippytude. I’m tempted to ditch the remainder of my review project, don a bandana, and head off to the mountains with this CD and a smudge bundle.
But only if the rest of you come with me.
Next: The Satyrs
This is another of the several CDs I got from the bargain rack sound-unheard, with no knowledge of what lay within. I seem to remember putting it on that day and briefly enjoying it, but getting distracted and not picking it up again until now.
I wrote in my last review that I could stand to have more of “this kind of music” in my collection, and while Rusted Root is pretty far from Monica Richards in a lot of ways, I can’t help but see some infectious similarities. It’s a blessing that this album starts with Drum Trip, a rampage of drumming fit to induce flashbacks to six thousand years ago. Other songs incorporate elements of jazz, blues, latin rock and pop, but at its core this is drummy folky primal music that makes me want to throw a dance party around a bonfire.
At least one song, Send Me On My Way, is popular enough that I was able to instantly recognize it when it first came up; it’s been in several soundtracks so perhaps you have heard it as well. Its lilting flute and percussion and bubbly vocals seem to especially evoke the freedom of the open road, and all that jazz.
Other favorite tracks include Ecstasy, Food & Creative Love, and Back to the Earth. Hippy music, for sure; you can tell by the titles alone but every note pulses with that vibrant beat of barefoot, life-loving, art-mongering hippytude. I’m tempted to ditch the remainder of my review project, don a bandana, and head off to the mountains with this CD and a smudge bundle.
But only if the rest of you come with me.
Next: The Satyrs
Thursday, September 17, 2015
All My CDs, pt. 95: InfraWarrior
InfraWarrior - Monica Richards
In 2010 I got my once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a favorite band, Faith and the Muse, live in my own hometown. While I vacillated in front of the merch table, someone advised me that if I loved the band, I would also enjoy the lead singer’s solo album. Eventually I did decide to buy it, and I was not disappointed. I do enjoy the music. Most of the songs are beautiful for the same reasons that Faith and the Muse is. Still, I don’t find myself listening to it as consistently or with as much relish.
I see a lot of similarities between this album and The Burning Season, which you may (or may not) remember as my least-favorite F&tM album. And it’s true there are several songs on each that I adore. But there are also a few that just bug me, for a specific reason. They seem to indicate a philosophy of gender I’ve come to call “female exceptionalism,” a common and tempting response to patriarchy that glorifies femininity rather than emphasizing equality or rejecting strict gender divisions entirely. Female exceptionalism holds that there is something special and divine about femininity; it privileges the mother goddess over the father god and embraces positive female stereotypes.
The first InfraWarrior that especially embodies this is Gaia (Introduction), really a spoken-word piece over a musical background, where a male voice summarizes the significance and importance of goddess-worship, culminating in the argument that “If we worship and revere male gods we ignore Gaia’s ultimate power over us.” I was right with it up until then, and I think it’s a pretty shaky argument to make. The whole point of polytheism is that you can worship any god without ignoring the others.
Other such songs are I Am Warrior, Feel to Regret (which has a fun slut-shaming line hidden in its delightfully anti-patriarchal rantings), In Answer, and Death is the Ultimate Woman. In Answer is the one I find least objectionable; it explores the restrictiveness of traditional gender roles by repeating “Choose, fate, choose / mother or lover, muse or martyr.” And it does so on top of a perfect driving percussion rhythm, just like many of my absolute favorite F&tM songs.
It’s worth saying that I don’t dislike any of these tracks. I actually enjoy them quite a bit. Feel to Regret is super-catchy, and the angry feminist in me thinks it makes some excellent points, I just think it takes them a little too far at times.
And thankfully not all songs on the album do so. Most are truly pleasurable musical explorations of modern polytheistic spirituality, ranging from creative retellings of the myths (such as The Antler King) to deeply personal encounters with the spirit world (such as The Turnaway and A Good Thing). And like Faith and the Muse, they combine elements of ancient drumming and chanting, modern techno-trance music, new-age ambiance, and a unique spark that makes it difficult to describe in words. I could definitely stand to have more of this kind of music in my collection, if I can find it.
Next: When I Woke
In 2010 I got my once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a favorite band, Faith and the Muse, live in my own hometown. While I vacillated in front of the merch table, someone advised me that if I loved the band, I would also enjoy the lead singer’s solo album. Eventually I did decide to buy it, and I was not disappointed. I do enjoy the music. Most of the songs are beautiful for the same reasons that Faith and the Muse is. Still, I don’t find myself listening to it as consistently or with as much relish.
I see a lot of similarities between this album and The Burning Season, which you may (or may not) remember as my least-favorite F&tM album. And it’s true there are several songs on each that I adore. But there are also a few that just bug me, for a specific reason. They seem to indicate a philosophy of gender I’ve come to call “female exceptionalism,” a common and tempting response to patriarchy that glorifies femininity rather than emphasizing equality or rejecting strict gender divisions entirely. Female exceptionalism holds that there is something special and divine about femininity; it privileges the mother goddess over the father god and embraces positive female stereotypes.
The first InfraWarrior that especially embodies this is Gaia (Introduction), really a spoken-word piece over a musical background, where a male voice summarizes the significance and importance of goddess-worship, culminating in the argument that “If we worship and revere male gods we ignore Gaia’s ultimate power over us.” I was right with it up until then, and I think it’s a pretty shaky argument to make. The whole point of polytheism is that you can worship any god without ignoring the others.
Other such songs are I Am Warrior, Feel to Regret (which has a fun slut-shaming line hidden in its delightfully anti-patriarchal rantings), In Answer, and Death is the Ultimate Woman. In Answer is the one I find least objectionable; it explores the restrictiveness of traditional gender roles by repeating “Choose, fate, choose / mother or lover, muse or martyr.” And it does so on top of a perfect driving percussion rhythm, just like many of my absolute favorite F&tM songs.
It’s worth saying that I don’t dislike any of these tracks. I actually enjoy them quite a bit. Feel to Regret is super-catchy, and the angry feminist in me thinks it makes some excellent points, I just think it takes them a little too far at times.
And thankfully not all songs on the album do so. Most are truly pleasurable musical explorations of modern polytheistic spirituality, ranging from creative retellings of the myths (such as The Antler King) to deeply personal encounters with the spirit world (such as The Turnaway and A Good Thing). And like Faith and the Muse, they combine elements of ancient drumming and chanting, modern techno-trance music, new-age ambiance, and a unique spark that makes it difficult to describe in words. I could definitely stand to have more of this kind of music in my collection, if I can find it.
Next: When I Woke
Monday, September 14, 2015
All My CDs, pt 94: Californication
Forgive my lateness.
Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Here’s another CD that entered my collection by way of my brother’s, when we were kids and I was relatively new to the concept of contemporary music. I don’t usually list Red Hot Chili Peppers among my “favorites,” but I’ve enjoyed them more consistently than many other popular bands, and I don’t foresee losing interest any time soon.
Shortly after putting this CD on for the first time in a few years, it struck me that the music is surprisingly sensitive and vulnerable for an all-male mainstream 90s rock band. Subconsciously that may have been a reason for my consistent draw toward their music; it’s emotional but still appealing in a less superficial way as well. The guitar-playing and harmonies are just complex enough that you know that these are skilled musicians, and the deeper meanings of the lyrics are just an extra bit of value if you’re in the mood to delve into them.
This is one band that is very good at fast-paced, high-powered rhythmic music. The album has a good mixture of “fast songs” and “slow songs,” and the fast ones have enough complex, interwoven rhythms to keep them interesting over many many listenings. Just the refrain of “Right On Time”, where the instruments stay fast and the vocals slow down, then another set of vocals come in on quadruple-time repeating the same phrase, is intoxicatingly textured. I think it’s all the more pleasurable to me because I know I’d never have been able to produce that effect myself. I have no innate sense of rhythm to speak of.
Albums like these are the reason I’ll never be a true hipster.
Next: Infrawarrior
Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Here’s another CD that entered my collection by way of my brother’s, when we were kids and I was relatively new to the concept of contemporary music. I don’t usually list Red Hot Chili Peppers among my “favorites,” but I’ve enjoyed them more consistently than many other popular bands, and I don’t foresee losing interest any time soon.
Shortly after putting this CD on for the first time in a few years, it struck me that the music is surprisingly sensitive and vulnerable for an all-male mainstream 90s rock band. Subconsciously that may have been a reason for my consistent draw toward their music; it’s emotional but still appealing in a less superficial way as well. The guitar-playing and harmonies are just complex enough that you know that these are skilled musicians, and the deeper meanings of the lyrics are just an extra bit of value if you’re in the mood to delve into them.
This is one band that is very good at fast-paced, high-powered rhythmic music. The album has a good mixture of “fast songs” and “slow songs,” and the fast ones have enough complex, interwoven rhythms to keep them interesting over many many listenings. Just the refrain of “Right On Time”, where the instruments stay fast and the vocals slow down, then another set of vocals come in on quadruple-time repeating the same phrase, is intoxicatingly textured. I think it’s all the more pleasurable to me because I know I’d never have been able to produce that effect myself. I have no innate sense of rhythm to speak of.
Albums like these are the reason I’ll never be a true hipster.
Next: Infrawarrior
Monday, September 07, 2015
All My CDs, pt 93: Together We're Heavy
Together We’re Heavy - The Polyphonic Spree
I got this album in the summer of 2012 after hearing a few songs on my Pandora station. I’m not sure exactly what I was thinking. Probably that the songs sounded good, and they do. In retrospect, listening to it produces more confusion in me than any other emotion. Not a bad kind of confusion, mind you. More a confusion that asks “What is this thing that I’m hearing and why is it so infectiously merry?” Do I understand it? No. Will I buy another of their albums soon? Probably.
The Polyphonic Spree is a little like The Arcade Fire, except that their lyrics make a bit less sense than “a million little gods causing rainstorms turning every good thing to rust”, and their overall mood is a bit cheerier. Like The Arcade Fire, they make an art form of having too many instruments, seemingly jumbled together with ostensibly very little discipline but with lots of joyful energy. (I say “seemingly" and “ostensibly” because I’m sure it takes a great deal of discipline and organization to get that many people to play harmoniously together, no matter how “clean" and “orderly" the resulting sound.) Which must have been what they were aiming for, because that’s the literal meaning of the band’s name.
Now’s the time when I like to tell you a few of my favorite songs on the album and what I like about them, but I’m not sure if I can do that. I have favorite passages, but the divisions between songs don’t seem to correlate to where those passages begin and end. And I wouldn’t be able to tell you why I find it so gratifying to hear the words “Hail to the sky / Hail to the sky / it’s time to watch a show / time to watch a show / the trees wanna grow / the trees wanna grow / grow grow grow.”
The trees wanna grow....
grow grow grow...
Next: Californication
I got this album in the summer of 2012 after hearing a few songs on my Pandora station. I’m not sure exactly what I was thinking. Probably that the songs sounded good, and they do. In retrospect, listening to it produces more confusion in me than any other emotion. Not a bad kind of confusion, mind you. More a confusion that asks “What is this thing that I’m hearing and why is it so infectiously merry?” Do I understand it? No. Will I buy another of their albums soon? Probably.
The Polyphonic Spree is a little like The Arcade Fire, except that their lyrics make a bit less sense than “a million little gods causing rainstorms turning every good thing to rust”, and their overall mood is a bit cheerier. Like The Arcade Fire, they make an art form of having too many instruments, seemingly jumbled together with ostensibly very little discipline but with lots of joyful energy. (I say “seemingly" and “ostensibly” because I’m sure it takes a great deal of discipline and organization to get that many people to play harmoniously together, no matter how “clean" and “orderly" the resulting sound.) Which must have been what they were aiming for, because that’s the literal meaning of the band’s name.
Now’s the time when I like to tell you a few of my favorite songs on the album and what I like about them, but I’m not sure if I can do that. I have favorite passages, but the divisions between songs don’t seem to correlate to where those passages begin and end. And I wouldn’t be able to tell you why I find it so gratifying to hear the words “Hail to the sky / Hail to the sky / it’s time to watch a show / time to watch a show / the trees wanna grow / the trees wanna grow / grow grow grow.”
The trees wanna grow....
grow grow grow...
Next: Californication
Thursday, September 03, 2015
All My CDs, pt 92: October Project
October Project - October Project
Here we have yet another self-titled album. I can forgive this one because the music is so good, but I maintain that it isn’t a good way to name albums.
This is the second-best October Project album, but still a favorite. The themes I see in it are a bit less spiritual than those I see in Falling Farther In, but the songs approach their subject matter from the same broad-minded, idealistic viewpoint, and there are a few of those deeply mystical moments as well. A Lonely Voice particularly captures some of that energy: “In a desert where no one can explain / You tell me God is dancing in the rain.”
If there’s another theme I can see connecting many of the songs, it’s loss and acceptance. Wall of Silence, Return to Me, and Paths of Desire seem to acknowledge the pain of separation, but embrace the surrender of control required to endure that separation with serenity. They say, in as many words but never directly: “if you love something, let it go.”
Return to Me, in particular, says this, but in a potent demonstration of music’s unique potential as an art form, it only says so if you can listen to both the words and the sound. Reading the lyrics straight off the liner notes, there is desire and loss and the pain of separation, but no acceptance. In each refrain, the speaker repeats “Return to me, return to me.” It looks like a plaintive expression of need - or a controlling command. But when the words are sung, they’re in a sweet and light tone, and the instrumental accompaniment is gentle and fluid. It is then that the refrain becomes a request, or perhaps a humble prayer, with no grasping or need for control.
Perhaps this is one of the many answers to the question I’ve found myself repeating throughout this review project: what is it with songs whose words convey one mood, but whose music conveys another, often contradictory mood? What’s with happy-sounding sad songs, and sad-sounding angry songs, or other combinations? Going by this one, the appeal is that such songs play with the complex and difficult spiritual and emotional quandaries that plague our emotional lives. Acceptance of loss feels contradictory, but is necessary lest we constantly pine for what we want or numb ourselves entirely to love and joy.
Speaking of love and joy...
Next: Together We’re Heavy
Here we have yet another self-titled album. I can forgive this one because the music is so good, but I maintain that it isn’t a good way to name albums.
This is the second-best October Project album, but still a favorite. The themes I see in it are a bit less spiritual than those I see in Falling Farther In, but the songs approach their subject matter from the same broad-minded, idealistic viewpoint, and there are a few of those deeply mystical moments as well. A Lonely Voice particularly captures some of that energy: “In a desert where no one can explain / You tell me God is dancing in the rain.”
If there’s another theme I can see connecting many of the songs, it’s loss and acceptance. Wall of Silence, Return to Me, and Paths of Desire seem to acknowledge the pain of separation, but embrace the surrender of control required to endure that separation with serenity. They say, in as many words but never directly: “if you love something, let it go.”
Return to Me, in particular, says this, but in a potent demonstration of music’s unique potential as an art form, it only says so if you can listen to both the words and the sound. Reading the lyrics straight off the liner notes, there is desire and loss and the pain of separation, but no acceptance. In each refrain, the speaker repeats “Return to me, return to me.” It looks like a plaintive expression of need - or a controlling command. But when the words are sung, they’re in a sweet and light tone, and the instrumental accompaniment is gentle and fluid. It is then that the refrain becomes a request, or perhaps a humble prayer, with no grasping or need for control.
Perhaps this is one of the many answers to the question I’ve found myself repeating throughout this review project: what is it with songs whose words convey one mood, but whose music conveys another, often contradictory mood? What’s with happy-sounding sad songs, and sad-sounding angry songs, or other combinations? Going by this one, the appeal is that such songs play with the complex and difficult spiritual and emotional quandaries that plague our emotional lives. Acceptance of loss feels contradictory, but is necessary lest we constantly pine for what we want or numb ourselves entirely to love and joy.
Speaking of love and joy...
Next: Together We’re Heavy
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