Archives : all posts by Jordan

Steely Dan - "Charlie Freak"

I get an email from an old friend, a philologist from Montreal, and he's attached a song for me to hear. It's from an album called Pretzel Logic, a favourite of my brother's, but I've never given it much thought. Steely Dan, those studio pedants with a perverted name; why should I listen?! I've got work to do! But the philologist, with whom I used to often play music, says that the song reminds him of early Genesis, which is the second most enticing thing he could say next to that it reminds him of late Genesis. So I listen, and I'll eat my hat if he's not right; it sounds like early Genesis - the ornate piano arpeggios, the mellotron swells, the cryptic, surreal lyrics, and the pretzel logic song structure, not to mention the bounteous fruit and unselfconsciousness - or was that a different Genesis? To be frank, it's been a long time since I listened to Foxtrot or Nursery Cryme, those favourites of my youth, not so long past now, but if you had told me then that on a rainy January morning in a downtown Toronto office building I would be reminded by my friend the philologist, via classic-period Steely Dan, of the nearly-forgotten joys of early Genesis, I would have questioned your thinking.

Toumani Diabate - "Bi Lambam"

Alemu Aga - "Abatatchen Hoy"

Hear that buzzing? That's a collection of strings, made variously taut, and then plucked. It sounds like a guitar when I describe it, but not when I play it; when I play it, unlike a guitar, this instrument actually sounds like a collection of strings, buzzing, immanent. Do you feel happy? This buzzing was perhaps the world's first anti-depressant and almost certainly its most effective.

King David is well remembered for his skill for killing with taut string, but less well remembered for his ability to heal using the same. The first King of Israel, David's predecessor Saul, was tormented by an evil spirit, sent by god; the only relief from this torment was provided by David's harp playing -- a tough pill to swallow, so to speak, since Saul rightly viewed David as a formidable rival. Still, what choice did he have but to accept the cure? David would play, buzz, buzz, buzz, and "relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him."

David's harp -- what we now know as the begena -- is not often played anymore outside of Ethiopia, which perhaps explains the world's sadness.

The begena soothes, there's no doubt, but its power is frightening, hence the need for that comforting whisper of a vocal, weaving itself into the begena's buzzing. "It's OK," says the voice (or so goes my translation from the original Amharic, a language I don't speak). Buzz, buzz, buzz. "Shake the spirit loose; feel better."

Willie Eason - "Little Wooden Church on a Hill"

Which is not to say that guitars don't have a power too.

[Buy Alemu, Willie]

Jackson C. Frank - "Just Like Anything"

If one can understand Jackson C. Frank at all, then one can understand him in two ways when he explains that he "speaks in answers only/to see them in my mind." Either a) he exclusively speaks in answers (and does so to see them in his mind), or b) when he speaks in answers, he does so for one purpose only: to see them in his mind. If the former, then he's like the television show Jeopardy in that his answers aren't solutions but questions, though Frank's (e.g. "Death has no season/so I know I'll never die"), unlike Trebek's (e.g. "The largest North American rodent"), are metaphysically puzzling and unGooglable. If the latter (or, for that matter, if the former -- and therefore, yes, necessarily), Frank is obviously in jeopardy of losing his grip on coherence and meaning and maybe even sanity -- the last being something that, when the singer was still a young man, would forever escape him. This fact casts an added bleakness on what is already an unrelentingly bleak folk song. The song's premise -- that, "just like anything, to sing is a state of mind" -- reminds us how sad was the fate of Frank's gifted mind, prematurely lost along with all its states. [Buy]

Shirley Collins - "Died for Love"

Jeopardy has a legal sense, too. It is the danger, posed to defendants in a criminal trial, of being found guilty and of consequent punishment. In most constitutional democracies, a defendant is prevented from facing jeopardy twice for the same crime. But as in law, not so in love. Just ask Shirley Collins, who has been losing trials of the heart related to the same misguided tryst since the beginning of time. Despite the song's title, Collins has not died for love. She wishes. [Buy]

Paul Simon - "Peace Like a River"

"Peace Like a River" is a song about a city through which peace-like-a-river, like a river, runs. And like a river, Paul Simon's guitar runs through "Peace Like a River," flowing around every word, into the song's every empty space. The titular phrase comes from the 19th-century hymn "It is Well With My Soul," which celebrates the imperviousness of the godly soul to worldly trials and degradations. This is essentially the theme of Simon's song, too, except, for Simon, the health of the soul seems not to depend on faith, but on an adherence to righteous principles. "Peace Like a River" is from Simon's self-titled oh-so-good post-S&G debut and there's a bit of "The Only Living Boy in New York" in it, in the way that it hooks you and tugs with each unexpected rise and fall.

Buy]

Sarah Siskind - "Falling Stars"

It was through Bon Iver's self-damning love for "Lovin's For Fools," the heartbreaking, "You Are My Sunshine"-jacking ballad by Sarah Siskind, that I learned of this talented songwriter. Sad music and production this present usually go together like tea and poison, though succesful meetings of the two are not without precedent. When, as a child, I first heard James Taylor's "Fire and Rain", I fell into an insufferable weeks-long funk that persisted until my father's repeated pleas of "It's just a song" finally made an impact. The impassioned, highly melodious babble of Al Green's "Simply Beautiful" has always floored me, despite its proper production, as have countless other soul tear-jerkers. Sarah Siskind avoids perfection's pitfalls by sullying her antiseptic sonic space with distortion and density and counterintuitive musical lines, and thus creates an ideal showcase for her pure, falling country cadences.

[Buy]

Vester Jones - "Katy Cline"

So many songs so much like this one, so why does Vester Jones' "Katy Cline" stand out? The vocals are a less rich variation on the affable mode of Mississippi John Hurt, and the lyrics, while nice, don't stray far from well-worn formulae. What elevates "Katy Cline" to the sublime is the banjo playing -- that dense swirl of sound with an ache at its centre. In the midst of this syncopated flurry of notes -- its satisfying cadences and stuttering rapidity -- the song's cliches become unassailable insights, its prosaic form the Platonic form of good.

[Buy]

Laura Barrett - "Chidiya"

Neatly divided into two equal halves, "Chidiya" begins like an operetta -- the music bent and stretched to the singer's words -- and ends like a particular nonexistent kind of film. To wit, I'm thinking of movies that end with - or, more accurately, do not continue beyond -- an infinite pan across a rich, miniature landscape. After two minutes of melodic restlessness, a brief, bewitching tune emerges and is endlessly repeated with only subtle variation. This might be boring, I know, but it's not: Everything is contained in that sad little riff and, for its duration, there is nothing outside of it.

[Buy]