et qualis erimus?

In other tenuously theological independent folk music news, one really has to imagine that Devendra Banhart’s new album is name-checking Augustine, City of God XXII.

Get excited

I might (as if anybody read this!) post more substantial thoughts on why this is not only ‘good news’ but perhaps the best news ever, even if you don’t happen to be (1) a fan of the Mountain Goats and (2) a theology doctoral candidate. But for now, just take it, it’s news, and a new free track.

An accurate statement, under the guise of an unintuitive reference point:

What Miles Davis did for sound, Andrew Bird is currently doing for lyrics.  

Namely:  a strictly regulated ‘play.’  Both are interested in the purely formal exercise of putting things next to each other, comparing ‘notes,’ revelling in meaninglessness, with only a scarce backwards glance towards the conventions (in the case of Davis:  melodies, progressions; in the case of Bird:  stories, love songs, protest songs, &c.) of their genre.  Presumably there have been poets who have done with words something like what Bird is doing with them:  but do you know them?  I do not, and suspect that you might not either, largely because we are a listening rather than a reading generation.  (What does this tell us about the project of writing about music?  It is left as an elementary exercise for the reader).

This tells us little, I suppose, about Bird, but more, I hope, about Davis:  while the language has long held respect for something like Bird’s project by acknowledging something called ‘wordplay,’ no such word as toneplay exists.  But a careful listen to Bird and his technique of using words as an instrument might cast in new light Davis, or perhaps instrumental music as such, as a poetry of sound.  In this respect, while Bird’s music is not itself particularly revolutionary (although it is undeniable that the man can whistle), his effect on the English language might be:  he is turning etymological puns into scat.

 

(Both are probably more interesting than Animal Collective, who have illicitly or at least ahead-of-their-time-ly tried to combine meaningless wordplay with meaningless toneplay).

Metaphor?

An old favorite.

In my estimation, it’s best at the beginning. And really falls apart at the bridge. But the last couple of lines might be worth sticking around for: especially if you are familiar with the original video.

Only the quickest of hits.

It is not unlikely that you have already encountered this: about that, if I am permitted to speak frankly, I’m not sure I care.

 

(NB I think this is better in audio than in video, so by all means,  close your eyes).

I know I have promised some of you, privately at least, that this site would not be an exercise in being the first to know anything

But tickets move quickly.

If you have any access to New York, do consider attending this show, which features probably the best lyricist of whom I am aware, and (secretly) might also feature the runner-up for such a title. Also you will not be permitted to shower.   O sweet exclamation would this show be fun.

Life is a tribute to you

Did that last post not sound like me?  What’s that you say – uncharacteristically well-informed and wide-ranging?

Good eye, you!  I don’t even know who the Horrors are!  But if you look more closely, you’ll see that Alex wrote that post – Alex, who is a co-conspirator in Nottinghamian Theology; Alex, who blogs regularly (sort of) here; Alex, an introduction to whom I was meaning to write in order to welcome him to the site, but never got around to writing after all.   (So, Alex, if you feel like writing an introduction to yourself, on musical or other grounds, feel more than free – feel encouraged, nay, pled with.)

And if you, reader who is not Alex, feel emboldened to ask whether this means that De Musica is slowly becoming a collaborative exercise in the leisure and precision of writing about music, and indeed if you can partake in such an exercise – well, let’s just say, yes, your participation is welcome. 

This is going to be fun, or else!

A Note To The Horrors

Your latest record is not really the best way to answer the critics of your music like me. When your first record came out, I maintained you were a band with impreccable influences that executed a take on them very well indeed, but your music only just inclined me back to those influences. So I listened to it before returning to what influenced it: The Birthday Party, Bauhaus, The Cramps, myriad fuzzy 60s garage rock bands with names beginning with The.

Listening to your new record, Primary Colours, I can’t help put feel exactly the same. It’s pretty good, and your guitarist should be roundly commended for managing to completely nail Kevin Shield’s shimmering guitar drift (compare Three Decades to My Bloody Valentine’s Loomer – having a blurred photo as a cover isn’t really helping me not make this comparison) but why would I want to listen apart from a memo to remind me that I can listen to the Jesus and Mary Chain, Kitchen of Distinction (or even Interpol), shoegaze (Slowdive anyone?) or in the first track Eno’s collaborations with Bowie? Your lead single Sea Within a Sea is case in point. I liked it, some great twisted guitar in the middle section, but in the end I just wanted to put on NEU!’s Hallogallo. Your arpeggiator in the closing bit just made me want the truly magical arpeggiator from Portishead’s The Rip. Considering your producer was the guitarist from this band, I have my suspicions it was in fact exactly the same arpeggiator. This all said, the title track is cool.

Paul Simon, “Punky’s Dilemma”

You may listen here.

Does, indeed, everyone know what he’s tippy-toeing down there for?  Register your opinions in the comments.  In any event, this may well be Paul Simon’s most comment-worthy song, though it has received little comment.  Unlike much of his other, more “respected” and “listened to” work, “Punky” asks a fair amount from its listener:  it asks, in particular, that we put up with no fewer than two breakfast-related optatives (which might not seem like many, but do bear in mind that this is nearly one breakfast-related optative per minute):  this is in addition to the song’s narrator’s informing us of his jam polity.

In short, it is an absurdist piece, and as such unique in the Simon catalogue.   It is also unique in the Simon catalogue (and no, I have not forgotten “Bridge over troubled water” in making this assessment) for the startling fact that Simon has let Garfunkel deliver the important line of the song (mercifully, his only role in the song):  Ah, south california!  This lyric wafts (as does Garfunkel’s work in the S&G catalogue, or indeed Garfunkel’s post-S&G career) into the background, and no doubt most listeners have preferred to listen to the bouncing bass-line.  Nevertheless, they go astray in so doing, for this brief apostrophe forms the only point of entry to the lyrics:  viewed through it, the rest of the (more patently absurdist) lyrics emerge as a critique of so-cal culture:  or perhaps, of sociality as such (I don’t think Simon has ever lived in California, south or otherwise).  In Punky’s purview, every cultural exchange (To Mary Jane, best wishes, Martin) becomes as goofy as a cornflake surreptitiously checking out a raisin’s toupee.

Is it a particularly sophisticated critique?  It is not.  But look at it context:  over the rest of his career, Simon has to date only offered one social critique worth listening to; he did it on Broadway, so nobody listened to it, and he lost millions of dollars.  Can’t fault the guy for lack of ambition.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, “So Everyone”

When we got married, it was difficult to choose an appropriate ‘first dance’ song.

I argued that it would thus be best to choose an inappropriate song:

http://blip.fm/profile/demusica/blip/5833648

Okay, it’s a bit ribald, but it also perfectly exposes the underlying logic of the wedding dance.