Monday, September 8, 2008  12:08 am 

Transcend the here and now

Ah, Vangelis, where would we be without you? Surely we wouldn’t have danced with gods and demons over portentous clouds of a blinding blue, or roamed the streets of hallucinated eastern bazaars where weasely merchants display their strange wares in a most ramshackle manner, baroque pieces of analogical technology blessed with spells of a sublime glamour, we have waxed lyrical about the organic psychedelia and mystery of Earth, and ‘See you Later’s’ synthetic mesmerism, we have fallen in love with Sean Young under a technological rainbow and beheld, from the great wall of China slender ghosts and spirits flying as the sun sets, you have taken us to so many fantastic places, without you we wouldn’t be what we are, and thus we can forget with a smile of understanding the New Age excesses down which your glorious path eventually led.

Let us tread today the vast grounds of that glorious sonic cathedral which ‘Heaven and Hell’ is, and more specifically the first part of its first movement, ‘Bacchanalle’, mere mortals scurrying around the colossal feet of Gods and Demons as they rendezvous responding to the call of a horn blown by Heimdall, artifice of hands manipulating a synthesiser which strikes like a lightning bolt hurled by Zeus, or the riff with which Mahavishnu Orchestra shake our soul at the beginning of Birds of Fire, this is Vangelis at his most bombastic, the exhilaration of his movements bringing to mind images of abstract and blinding power that parallel the apocalyptic vistas of Magma’s mastodontic opus, no mean feat.

This is music larger than life the likes of which are few and far between these pedestrian days, this is music that flies past the mundane, oblivious to the sneers of those who dare not, aiming for the impossible and, for a second, attaining it. It is commendable to try this way, and we will love you for it, but when you have actually reached these peaks so often, illuminating our lives with music this propulsive and ecstatic, like a condensed ray of divine light breaking through black storm clouds, then we shall worship you.

There.

Vangelis- Heaven and Hell first Movement: Bacchanale

Most of which things would of course also apply to Werner Herzog and his grandiose comrade in arms Klaus Kinski, as well as many of those fiery german progressive bands of the 1970s which paraphrasing our brother Lord Nuneaton (happy birthday, see below!), got close, oh so close to the flame. I hadn’t listened to Popol Vuh until quite recently, and I have been rather blown away by the way in which their epic ruminations have influenced Earth’s slow motion codeine doom, and the spellbinding incantation of so many folk bands of these days, Six Organs of Admittance and Espers do come to mind most particularly.

In the beautifully contemplative ‘Wo bist du, der du uberwunden’ we find ourselves slowly enveloped by intertwining patterns of sound, stand in front of the luxuriant jungle clad in your shiny silver breastplate, modern music conquistador, and watch the jungle slowly grow around you, roots and creepers stretching and climbing like these intricate guitar melodies, life spreading gentle and strong until you find yourself surrounded by a canopy of green and the smell of things growing and dying and rotting, hearing ghostly voices from beyond, perhaps the spirits of Mayan swimmers at the bottom of a lake full of gold, more likely the echo of a dream.

Popol Vuh- Wo bist du, der du uberwunden

And let us bring today’s post to a close with a reference to kids whose music also smells of things green, fresh and lovely, this is High Places, who have kept going from strength to strength since they came to our attention a year or so ago.

In their new S/T album out on Thrill Jockey (or beloved Upset The Rhythm in the UK), they continue on a transit down quiet roads under the light of the moon and the attentive gaze of barn owls, to the rhythm of a music constructed organically, maybe with drum machines grown in corn fields, or sampling the precisely improvised movements of wood creatures burrowing food during for the autumn. In this sense there is a resemblance to the Animal Collective, but more serene, mellower, these are lullabies and spells to vanquish the nightmares and horrors in the darkness at the edge of your campsite, in the case of ‘The Tree with the lights in it’ a calypso made of dead leaves which comes across like Glass Candy’s Iko Iko tender and shy sister, very very lovely stuff.

High Places- The Tree with the Lights in it

- – - – - – -

NICE CLOTHES

Finest purveyors of modern apparel Art in the Age of the Mechanical Reproduction have just put up for sale the oh so very nice Spring Break 08 tees that No Age have made specially for them. They are limited, and quite special so we advise you to run to their online store and grab one. Or perhaps try your luck with the contest they are organising, if the Gods smile upon you you might well end up with not only the t-shirt, but also Nouns on vinyl and Eraser on 7”. Of course you should already have those, but hey!

- – - – - -

GOOD SHOWS

We’ll be there on ecstatic celebration of the amaze of chaos and wonder that Medicine and Duty are (check out the new tunes in their myspace player, Jury Rigged is absolute killer) as well as Lord Nuneaton Savage’s birthday, don’t miss out!

labels >> Popol Vuh, high places, xxjfg

No Comments »