Musings On Music II: Neigh!! - Elysium, Soon

 On Friday the 13th of September, the other band that really made me realize that the era where I first started listening to them really defines what I listen to with them released their 27th (!) album (although if you could add a couple other releases depending on how you choose to count. The band is Motorpsycho, and I think I already have shared a little bit about how I started listening to them the summer of 1993 - and I did see them live at least once a year until I moved to the US in 1999. To me, the albums they releasted from Demon Box in 1999 through Trust Us in 1998 are unparallelled in Norwegian rock history - and they also form one of the strongest album arcs of any artist/band I have followed. 

However, following Trust Us, they started playing with pop arrangements, and while I think the three next albums are perfectly servicable with some songs that are absolutely spectacular, something was missing from the far out freak outs of their 90s output to me. It was still indeed Motorpsycho, but it did not hit me the same way as the earlier music had done. I almost wrote that it was not the same - but I am actually appreciative of that, as I do like that they grow, develop, and are true to themselves. But the thing was that to me, they didn't hit me the same way. Then their drummer, Gebhardt, left, and the album Black Hole/Blank Canvas was a letdown for me. I still struggle listening to it. But with their next album and their next drummer, Kenneth Kapstad, they were back to form again, and I loved the albums they released with him - but I struggle remembering many songs, if any. After Kapstad left, they got Tomas Järmyr in as a drummer, and once again, they created great albums that I enjoyed - but with limited durability or staying power.

Then Järmyr left, and they are back to the core duo of Bent Sæther on bass and vocals (and drums in the studio, at least) and Hans Magnus Ryan (Snah) on guitar and vocals. And then the album Neigh came out. And rarely has an album been more aptly named. It isn't that it is bad, and it could be that it will grow on me if I listen to it more, I just really don't feel like it. There is something missing. The lone highlight to me is Elysium, Soon - which sounds like the brother or sister of Evernine, one of the highlights of Trust Us for me. It's not that it's a bad album, as I already said, it's just not really clicking for me. And while I think that the obvious explanation to me is that it doesn't flow as freely as an album does when they play as an ensemble (although this was an odds and ends album, so the flow of the album may not have happened regardless - it's just that whenever they play a song without a drummer from outside the core duo, it sounds flat). 

But I do think that in contrast to Nick Cave, this proves my point. I don't think they ever will reach the same heights for me that they reached in the 90s. I think we may have grown apart - and nostalgia may be a significant factor here as well - but the bottom line is that the music they made in the 90s still hits me as hard as it did back then. I still love those albums... Demon Box, Timothy's Monster, Blissard, Angels And Daemons at Play, and Trust Us still get played often. And whenever I play them, I get transported to this other world. And I don't even really need to play them to listen to them. They have tattooed themselves onto my nervous system, hardwired themselves into my cerebral cortex, so all I need to do is focus - and I am right there, from the first "hee haw" of Waiting For The One that opens Demon Box to the climactic finish of Hey Jane that mellows out with Dolphyn (Eric Dolphy, anyone?) that ends Trust Us. Just about all of it is right there. And that is the beauty of music.

Now I have followed them for 31 years, and I will follow them until they pack it all up and close the doors to their bunker (battening the hatches, so to speak) - and I will keep on enjoying their music, but they really haven't created music that keep visiting me since Trust us in 1998. They have not released bad albums, but their music just has not clicked with me to the same extent. The only exceptions to this are their Roadwork live albums, where you still can hear the fire burning. In that sense, they are getting closer to Grateful Dead in that their live work surpasses their studio work - they just need to keep putting out great live music... I will be here to buy and to listen. 

In the meantime, I will keep on listening to the great albums from the 90s. And every now and then I will listen to some of the later work as well. Sometimes that does lead to me rediscovering music I almost had written off, and with Motorpsycho being as strong of a band as they are, I am almost expecting that to happen. And then there is Elysium, Soon. I will keep listening to it. 

Musings On Music I - Wild God

These past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about music - and about how so much about it is dependent on time and place. Back when I was in high school, I am thinking 1988 or so, I was introduced to Nick Cave by Lars Tomren Støring, one of the new friends I had made with a great taste in music. And I should probably point out that when I said he introduced me to him, I am really talking about his music - I have not met the man himself (although I finally have seen him live - and I will see him live again in Detroit on April 19, 2025 - but this time with The Bad Seeds). The album that launched my love for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was Tender Prey, with The Mercy Seat as the focal point (later covered very successfully by Johnny Cash), and ever since, he has been a fixture in my record collection - and in my musical taste. The next album, The Good Son (1990), was the one most of my other friends discovered, but I kept going back to Tender Prey. The Good Son was followed by a string of great albums: Henry’s Dream (1992), Let Love In (1994), Murder Ballads (1996), and The Boatman’s Call (1997). It is quite an impressive string if albums, and while I mainly go back to Henry’s Dream and The Boatman’s Call, I really love this series of album, as well as No More Shall We Part from 2001. 2004’s Nocturama was a low point for me, and I almost gave up on him, especially after hearing that Blixa Bargeld left The Bad Seeds prior to Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus from 2004; however that was a true return to form. 

I have been following him and his career all the while, through Grinderman and work with Warren Ellis as well as more solo oriented recordings and tours, and he has always been there, lurking, with music that recently has made me think more than feel. His career started changing with the album Push The Sky Away (2013), where traditional song structures were disappearing for more free form poetry accompanied by a more ethereal sounding Bad Seeds. Personal tragedy struck while he was recording Skeleton Tree (2016), and this style of music was taken to a long-form extreme on Ghosteen (2019). Of course, being somewhat of a completist, I have also gone back in time and listened to the albums released prior to Tender Prey, including the work from The Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party. But the music of his that is nearest and dearest to me is still the output from the 1990s, which is when I was most active listening to music - and probably when a lot was imprinted on me. 

And that is really what I wanted to write about, and I will do a follow up to show a contrasting feeling with a different artist that is near and dear to my heart. I am developing somewhat of a thesis that when we first hear an artist - and I am really talking about the period here more than a specific year, although in some cases, that is how short the period is - really cements how we listen to them. And it doesn’t have to be contemporaneous music to when we first hear them (if that was the case, I would be listening more to Paul McCartney and Wings than The Beatles, as The Beatles were over by the time I was born), but it is the music we got introduced to. And there aren’t many exceptions to that in my book. But Nick Cave is one of them. 

Now, let me be very clear about one thing: I am all for artists developing and evolving - and I am also perfectly at ease with me evolving in a different direction - that is what growing apart is all about. But sometimes artists grow in ways that are separate, yet somewhat parallel - but make just the right turn at just the right time to hit you just right again. Nick Cave is one of those artists for me. Like I said earlier, Nocturama was a low point, but Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus became a spectacular high again - and it is one album I keep on revisiting, especially Abbatoir Blues. Dig Lazarus Dig (2008) sounded like he tried too hard, and, as I already have said, Push The Sky Away, Skeleton Tree, and Ghosteen all hit me differently. They are great albums, but they are not ones I come back to all the time (although there are songs like the haunting Jesus Alone that follow me around) - until Wild God, released August 30. I have listened to it quite a bit - but I also find that the songs from it come to visit me frequently. It started with Wild God, but I find that songs like Frogs and Joy and Conversion also come visiting more and more often. And that, too me, is what makes an album great. When you can listen to it when it isn’t even playing. There are some albums I can do that with - and that is happening with Wild God to me right now. 

I don’t know that I will think that any of his albums will top the series he released from Tender Prey in 1988 through The Boatman’s Call in 1997 (I might throw in No More Shall We Part from 2001 as well) to me - and that is the important thing to remember here, this is all about how I connected with his music - but Wild God is damn close. As was Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. And that, to me, is what makes Nick Cave so very special. And I am pumped to see him live with The Bad Seeds in April!

A Design For Life

How do you respond to personal tragedy? That is a question we all will have to face in life, and likely more than once. What do we do? Where do we go?

For Manic Street Preachers, that personal tragedy happend on February 1, 1995. At 7:00 AM, Richey Edwards checked out of the Embassy Hotel in London. He was scheduled to meet up with singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield to fly to the US. He never showed up - and he was never heard from again. To this day, there is no certainty as to what happened, but he was declared presumed dead on November 23, 2008. 

Initially, Richey Edwards was the Manics' driver and photographer, as he was another close friend - the only friend who could drive... But he eventually joined the band on rhythm guitar despite barely knowing how to play - and it wasn't a skill that developed much during his time in the Manics. But he had style and public relations skills - and he wrote lyrics along with Nicky Wire. And what lyrics they were... The Manics' third album, The Holy Bible, which was released at the end of August, 1994, was filled with Richey's harrowing lyrics about depression, anorexia and the state of the world. Reading the lyrics to 4st 7lb is particularly painful, as it clearly depicts anorexia and a weight sliding down to the lower tolerance limit of the title, which is about 63 punds. 

Richey had his demons. Suffering from depression and anorexia, and finding solace in cutting and other self harm, he had been receiving in-patient treatment on several occasions. And then he vanished, leaving his three very good friends behind to try to pick up the pieces. Like I said yesterday, these were good friends who decided to play music together, and three of them are still doing that. But in 1995 they were faced with the very existential question: What do we do now?

So how do you respond to personal tragedy? I must admit that I greatly admire the ones who turn it into something constructive, and that was what Manic Street Preachers did. After a six month hiatus, and with the blessing of Richey Edwards' family, they regrouped and eventually recorded Everything Must Go, which in some instances at least to me seemed to deal with Edwards' disappearance head on.

        We don't talk about love
        We only want to get drunk

These two lines are from the song of the day today, A Design For Life, the first single from the fantastic Everything Must Go. I could go on playing music by the Manic Street Preachers for a long time following my much delayed awakening, but I will take a little bit of a break from them now. But please explore them. It is quite the treasure trove. 

Motorcycle Emptiness

Some songs just stay with you. I hadn't listened to Motorcycle Emptiness from the Manic Street Preachers' first album Generation Terrorists in years when I for some reason started looking at the Manics again this summer. I can't remember what compelled me to do so, but oftentimes it is something I read or see on tv that triggers a memory or a desire to explore some music further. And this summer, Manic Street Preachers became yet another rabbithole for me to fall down into. I remember getting Generation Terrorists way back when it first was released in 1992. I liked it. I liked it a lot. But to me, my interest in the Manics was relatively short lived at that point. 

After rediscovering them, I will say that watching the documentary No Manifesto really changed the way I looked at them. I have a soft spot for friends deciding to get together to play music - and even more so when the same friends are still together making music 34 years after they start and 28 years after they released their first album. It  hasn't been without issues, but I will save that for a later post. To me, the fact that James Dean Bradfield (guitar and vocals), Nicky Wire (bass), and Sean Moore (drums) still play together - and still sound damned good - is really what every band aspire to. On their first three albums, Richey Edwards played rhythm guitar and wrote lyrics with Nicky Wire, so that is the fourth member seen in this video. 

I still won't pretend that I fully understand the lyrics to Motorcycle Emptiness and all the imagry it contains - although I get the theme of consumerism and the hollow pleasures it brings. And I am a huge fan of the final switch from "motorcycle emptiness" to "everlasting nothingness". "Under neon loneliness" indeed. 

 

Liar

There isn’t much to say about this song except that it describes DJT perfectly. But Rollins band is well worth exploring if you haven’t yet. The musicianship is stellar - on the album Weight, the lineup featured Melvin Gibbs on bass and Sim Cain on drums, both of whom had played with one of my favorite jazz guitarists, Marc Ribot, but in Rollins Band, they played with Chris Haskett on guitar, and the sound they created was the perfect foil to Henry Rollins’ uncompromising and at times brutal delivery. And Liar has a perfect description of a narcissistic con man of the type that currently occupies the White House.

7empest

So Fiona Apple might have this year's best album - at least in my book (and certainly so far, I have no doubt) - but last year was all about Tool for me. I discovered Tool through the song Sober a long, long time ago and have been following them since. They had released the EP Opiate in 1990, and then they released their first official full length album (Opiate almost has a full album playing time, but it's still an EP) Undertow in 1991, which is where Sober was found. Then, like clockwork, every 5 years they released a new album. Aenema in 1996, Lateralus (in my opinion still their masterpiece) in 2001, and 10,000 Days in 2006. And then it was quiet. Until last fall, when they released Fear Innoculum. After waiting 13 years, the expectations were insanely high, and I am really happy to say that they delivered. Fear Innoculum was a great album, with great musicianship throughout - but then again, you know that's what you will get when you talk about Tool. 

The song I have selected is 7empest, but I could easily have selected just about any song on the album. It is that even. It really goes from highlight to highlight, and it feels like one cohesive artistic statement. 7empest is the last proper song on the album, and if you have the physical copy (cd), it is the closing number. It is well worth listening to - it is long, but it is spectacular...

Under The Table

I know, I am a couple of days off with this song, but I had other things I wanted to get off my chest, so I put it off. But I have a feeling that Fiona Apple crushed the competition for best album of the year as early as April 17... Fetch The Bolt Cutters is a spectacular record, and every time I listen to it, I discover something new. I love the production - it is a very percussive album - and I really think she is the link between Tori Amos and Tom Waits that I didn't know that I needed, but now don't quite know what I would do without. 

Fiona Apple has been nothing but consistent in the quality of music that she has released. Starting with Tidal, which was nothing short of a spectacular debut album - one of the best debut albums I have ever heard. She takes her time between albums to make this happen, and this time it had been 8 years since The Idler Wheel... But Fetch The Bolt Cutters was well worth the wait. It sounds like she is in your living room performing - and that is probably because she did record it at home. That is one of the awesome consequences of the technological advances of the last few years - high quality equipment is both affordable and portable enough that just about anybody wanting to record decent quality music can do so. And for someone as reclusive as Fiona Apple, that does mean that she can record where she is comfortable - which shows in the music as well. 

In short, I love this album. The title track stood out right away, as well as the song Shameika, where the chorus, "Shameika told me I had potential" sounds haunting to me. There is something about that line that really touched me. However, the song I am playing is Under The Table, which I take the liberty of dedicating to all the women who didn't shut up, who didn't conform. It's been 100 years of women's suffrage in the US (I know, I am off by a couple of days), and that is something I think Fiona Apple can help us celebrate.

Depp

 Last week I was bemoaning the way I currently discover music - but one positive in all of this available music is that it is possible to find long forgotten songs as well, and that is what today is all about - before I take a few days to talk a little bit more about music that has been released a little more recently, which is my plan for the next few entries...

But today, I want to go back in time. Back to 1988 or thereabouts, when I was about 16 years old. My friend Jan Are played rhythm guitar in the band Ceptic Tank, and they had secured a gig opening for (somewhat unknown) Ræva Rockers at UFFA (Ungdom For Fri Aktivitet - Youth For Free Expression, more or less), a notorious underground venue in Trondheim where several of the Norwegian great bands got their start (it was a place where bands like Wannskrækk, who turned to Norwegian rock's most popular band DumDum Boys, Motorpsycho, and Israelvis played early and often) - and the audience was always enthusiastic. 

Anyway, on the day of the gig, I think I was asked to push the buttons for the stage lights for Ceptic Tank. I had no clue what I was doing, but somehow ended up doing a decent enough job with it, so the people in Ræva Rockers asked me if I could do it for them as well. My 16 year old self was probably beaming with pride as I accepted, and I was getting very excited. I was going to do something for a touring rock band. Pretty cool, huh? 

So Ceptic Tank finished their set, and Ræva Rockers were getting ready to go on stage when tragedy struck: A fuse had blown in the mixer. It was late at night, and getting a new fuse meant going to a gas station, but most gas stations had already closed. However, there was one pretty close by exception: A Shell station. Problem solved, right? Not so fast... This was back in 1988, and South Africa was still in the throes of apartheid (this was right around Little Steven's Sun City project). What I neglected to say about UFFA was how radical it was - very, VERY left leaning, closing in on anarchism (some called themselves anarchosocialists), and Shell was doing business in South Africa, hence they were on the list of companies good leftists would boycott. So faced with the choice of spending a minimal amount of money at a Shell gas station or simply not playing the gig, Ræva Rockers held true to their principles and did not play - and thus my light contributions were limited to Ceptic Tank. But I still think the story is worth telling... And I did go back to UFFA to buy the Ræva Rockers EP, where today's song is from. It is called Depp, and the lyrics don't make much sense to me today either... But I like the song...

City Swine

So where do you go when you look for new music that sounds interesting? What direction can you go that doesn't sound like it's been done before? That is really what I struggle with these days. So much music sound like rehashes - and often in styles I am tired of (or genres where there are some bands that simply are so good that anyone else sound like pale immitations). As music stores became less important, I started trawling the internet for sources - and year end lists of music have been a great inspiration - although sometimes I even look at "top ten..." genre lists to find new music.

So what does it take for me to find music interesting? That is a good question. Sometimes I am a sucker for a good melody, a good pop song. Now, granted, what I consider a good pop song is rarely found on the top 40 charts, and my definition of what a pop song is might deviate from the norms, but a melody and a hook without too much ornamentation can be very good. And sometimes, the arrangement has to be changed for me to realize it (or maybe I simply am a music snob - how else can I explain how I detested Britney Spears' Oops I Did It Again while I love Richard Thompson's acoustic version of it - oh, that's right, I will stick to the arrangement argument). 

But what I love the most is when a song is unpredictably moving forward in a way that makes sense when you look back at it. I like dissonance giving way to a harmonic resolution. I like odd time signatures that roll along in a way that they sound "normal". I like chaos that have splashes of order. I like the push and pull between extremes. I like tension. I think this is why I am drawn to bands with strong opposing personalities: The Beatles with John Lennon's edge and Paul McCartney's pop polish. Pink Floyd with Roger Waters' edge and David Gilmours pop polish. The tension inherent in these two bands really brought out the best in everyone involved. Even solo artists like Nick Cave, who has foils in his Bad Seeds (Blixa Bargeld for a long time, then Warren Ellis), and David Bowie with his Mike Garson on keyboards or Reeves Gabrels on guitar - the different strong personalities push and pull and creates tension. 

And this tension is really apparent in Imperial Triumphant, a New York trio that claims to play rock music. The most commonly seen category - or genre - I have seen is avant garde black metal. They do use some of the black metal tropes: blastbeats and cookie monster vocals are very prominent. But then there is everything else... The clear jazz elements, the very angular riffs, the occasional freewheeling bass runs... I don't care what anyone wants to call it, I simply call it great music. Their latest album, Alphaville, was released on July 31, and it is a masterpiece. This is not music for everybody - sometimes it takes time to cut through the dense layers of sound to find the nuances that truly makes Imperial Triumphant worth listening to. Today's track has a drum section with Japanese Taiko drums where they got Thomas Haake from Meshuggah to help out. It was recorded in a dojo in New York City, and it provides another contrast in a great song. City Swine is it for today. And Imperial Triumphant is really a band worth checking out...

Hunted Down

I have been thinking a lot lately about how things used to be - and how things are now - when it comes to music. I should start this off with a disclaimer: I don't collect records as much as I collect music. I am not one to be looking for specific pressings of vinyl albums, first editions, misprints or anything like that (at least not for most artists), but I am a sucker for finding new music to explore. And today, that is easier than ever. I can get most music on Amazon - and what I can't get there, I can at least check out at YouTube first. There are long articles with detailed discographies available online, so I can always find out what just about any artist has released. And it is great! There is no doubt about that.

 I am ok with MP3 files - if the bitrate is 256 kbps or higher, I don't hear the loss so many complain about (especially vinyl fanatics), and so I have all my CDs converted to MP3 files and while Amazon still allowed it, I uploaded every CD I owned so that I can access it from the cloud, knowing it is music I paid for (I actually believe in doing my small part for musicians to be paid). I have the same relationship with music as I do with books: I have a nostalgic relationship to physical copies (I loved peering over vinyl albums while playing them for the first time just as much as I loved the smell of a new book as I cracked it open), but ultimately, it is the content that matters. The music on albums and the text in books. And If I can have all of them at my fingertips on my phone, tablet, and computer, that just makes it that much easier to always access this content.

However, I also think that something has been lost in all of this, at least for me. I miss the discovery of stumbling over something I didn't know existed as I explored record stores - or the hunting down of releases I knew were out there that I had to convince record stores to get. I remember waiting for Tori Amos' second album, Under The Pink, having to ask the record store to order it, because it wasn't really on their radar. I remember stumbling over Primus' Miscellaneous Debris getting excited that they covered Peter Gabriel on a release I didn't know excisted. I remember going to a late night record shop in Philadelphia in 1995 on my first visit to the US, finding out that aforementioned Tori Amos had released an album under the moniker Y Kant Tori Read, and purchasing it despite the dubious version of that particular release (it was technically out of print, but someone decided to print it anyway...). 

And I remember the sense of awe I felt when I on the same USA trip, this time in Baltimore, browsed through an outdoors record display for a tiny hole in the wall record shop - or maybe it was just one salesman sitting outside with some CDs to peddle - and I stumbled across a Soundgarden release called Screaming Life/Fopp. I was a huge Soundgarden fan, but I don't remember ever having heard about this. I picked it up, held it in my hands, and just looked at it. Was this legit? It sure looked like Chris Cornell... The names were right... Yup, I had to have it. So I bought it. I believe it was on heavy rotation on my DiscMan (remember those?) - and I truly enjoyed it. It might not be their finest moment, but Chris Cornell showed he could wail on the song I have chosen today... And Hunted Down fits, because that's what I used to have to do for albums. But not so much anymore. The only times it happens now is when I go against my interest in the music itself and also want to find a physical copy (such as it was with Tool's Fear Inoculum). But for the most part, the days of surprising finds are over. And while I do miss them, I still will have to say that having access to all this music isn't a bad thing either... Just sayin'.