Surreal

The Pearl; Harold Budd & Brian Eno

Sometimes an album hits you, or blankets you, or reaffirms you in a way that's impossible to articulate because words don't do it justice. The feeling has everything to do with your life at the particular moment, or string of moments, where you find yourself listening to said album over and over, especially alone. It's an emotion tied to a place, a person, a calamity, or all of the above that blends seamlessly with one album to create a nonverbal attachment. A sort of musical photograph.

[Not to be confused with "favorite albums" that permeate your existence; what I'm talking about is an album that more-so applies to a certain set of circumstances and that you feel on a deeply emotional, or subconscious level. Mostly of the melancholy variety.]

If you ever attempt to coax others into feeling this specific album the way you do, you'll probably feel exposed, cracked open, splintered; not to mention hurt by their possible critiques ("it's boring" being my least favorite). If they weren't immediately connected to your initial experience, or string of experiences, that embedded the album in some unknown part of you, then it's impossible to pass on the internal significance.

For me, The Pearl is one of several albums that act as emotionally driven, nostalgic forces. Interestingly for me, The Pearl was released in 1984, the year of my birth (along with Treasure by the Cocteau Twins, which is just as, if not more, personally significant), although I didn't hear it until 2006.

Two famous ambient musicians, Harold Budd and Brian Eno, came together to create this album. I love both of them apart (like Budd's The Room and of course Eno's Another Green World), but this collaboration really speaks to me, without the necessity of words. And I deal with words all day long, so when music can line my bones and course my bloodstream without so much as a relatable set of lyrics, it means something.

It simply doesn't work to describe, define, or god forbid analyze the songs using words. I will say this: the piano glides and whispers, the same melodies drifting in out like flickering lights; in one moment, everything is new, and another moment everything familiar. This is, in my opinion, the mark of a perfectly conceived cohesive album, which begs to be listened to from start to finish, and then start to finish once more. The colors and abstract contusion of the cover symbolizes the blending and fading that happens throughout this watercolor-hued record, where the ocean, the sky, and your solitary bed converge at the break of dusk, or dawn, or whenever/wherever you choose to listen.

What makes this album particularly "Surreal" for me is that I used to fall asleep to it night after night, the waves of piano accompanying me. The music blurs the distinction between my self-aware mind and my subconscious; between the waking world where the music exists and breathes, and the sleeping one where it is but an echo, a reflection, an infinite stream of sounds.

Even just the titles of these songs are poetic:

# "A Stream with Bright Fish"
# "The Silver Ball"
# "Against the Sky"
# "Lost in the Humming Air"
# "Dark-Eyed Sister"
# "Their Memories"
# "The Pearl"
# "Foreshadowed"
# "An Echo of Night"
# "Still Return"


dream. and listen.

-amy.
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Bizarre

The "Gloomy Sunday" Suicides

David Foster Wallace might have gotten an idea for Infinite Jest (I won't say what it is, in case you haven't read this monster, although to be honest I've only made it through about 300 pages) from the legends surrounding "Gloomy Sunday."

The song was written and recorded by a Hungarian pianist and composer named Rezső Seress in 1933, using a poem by László Jávor. In 1936, the song became connected to a number of suicides in Hungary; those who committed suicide apparently did so after hearing it, or while it was still playing on their gramophones, or they included the lyrics in their note. The song was then allegedly banned in Hungary, a country that already had a high suicide rate.

In 1941, Billie Holiday recorded an English version of what became known in the US as the "Hungarian suicide song." Legend has it that radio stations banned the song for fear that it would cause people to off themselves, but it seems that only the BBC did so, citing the tragedies of WWII. While some sources claim up to 200 American suicides could be linked, others report no such connection.

However, Rezső Seress did commit suicide when he jumped to his death from his apartment in 1968. Also, Billy Mackenzie, a vocalist for the Scottish band The Associates, committed suicide in 1997; the band had recorded a cover of Billie Holiday's version fifteen years prior. And of course, David Foster Wallace killed himself as well (rip).

Mere coincidence? Collective unconscious? Read the original lyrics and listen to Holiday's version, if you dare....


The literal English translation of the original Hungarian lyrics are as follows:

Gloomy Sunday with a hundred white flowers
I was waiting for you my dearest with a prayer
A Sunday morning, chasing after my dreams
The carriage of my sorrow returned to me without you
It is since then that my Sundays have been forever sad
Tears my only drink, the sorrow my bread...

Gloomy Sunday

This last Sunday, my darling please come to me
There'll be a priest, a coffin, a catafalque and a winding-sheet
There'll be flowers for you, flowers and a coffin
Under the blossoming trees it will be my last journey
My eyes will be open, so that I could see you for a last time
Don't be afraid of my eyes, I'm blessing you even in my death...

The last Sunday



I happen to think Radiohead's "How To Disappear Completely" also makes for a good suicide song. And let's not forget Nirvana's "Something In The Way" and NIN's "Hurt." Have a great Sunday!

--amy.
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Surreal

Two underwater album covers...

In addition to the infamous Nevermind cover, I often find myself captivated by underwater photographic work. My favorite is the cover of Catherine Wheel's Chrome, which also happens to be an amazing album. In fact, the underwater dancing perfectly symbolizes the shoe-gazey, slick and somewhat murky album, especially the song "Fripp." The photo was shot in an indoor swimming pool by legendary Storm Thorgerson of the Hipgnosis design company (think Pink Floyd)...which makes it that much better.

Now, Chrome was released in 1993, but just this year, just last month actually, British indie band Foals put out their second album, titled Total Life Forever. Since obtaining a copy of this album months before its June release, I've been listening nonstop...and, as you see, the cover art is eerily similar to that of Chrome. While the dancers in the blue underwater world of the former photograph are poised, fluid, and seemingly in effortless formation, the guys in Foals' underwater world look like free-falling hipsters. They're either drowning and sinking to their deaths, or they've grown some gills and are just hanging out down there for kicks. Either way, both bands are British, both covers surreal and both albums blissful.

...A note on Storm Thorgeson: he did another surreal watery cover for the Mars Volta, which is nearly as breathtaking, as well as a very emotive cover for The Cranberries. The man clearly has a thing for the color blue. See below:





-amy.
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