Friday, November 25, 2005
Vashti Bunyan
Just Another Diamond Day, 1970
Lookaftering, 2005
My most recent find, I unearthed Vashti Bunyan after cruising Pitchfork's recommendation list. I thought I'd take a chance on her--I knew roughly what to expect from my limited contact with Devendra Banhart and other freakfolk acts, but I was mostly intrigued by the story behind the two albums--a new album made after a 35-year lapse by an artist who walked away from the music business after her sole, universally highly-regarded album. I haven't yet gotten into Devendra Banhart or the other freakfolk acts--which I discovered only a few months ago after browsing the Young God catalog--but something about Vashti's sound intrigued me. I just finished listening to these two albums back-to-back, and have gone through Just Another Diamond Day a couple times.
Because of my lack of reference, Vashti Bunyan's earlier album defines my mental image of a '60s psychodelic folk movement. Somewhat whimsical lyrical themes, at times with surreal imagery, combine with ancient instrumentation. Many of the songs are shorter, almost like haiku, and the instrumentation on the album--from string accompaniament to flutes--changes from song to song. In this way the album evokes a walletful of moods, from wistful to even elegiac, while the shortness of the songs allows the album to touch each without settling in for extended meditation of any. The real attraction, though, is Vashti Bunyan's voice, which she pours over her lyrics and accompaniament like a delicate fragrance. The gentleness of her approach seems not dissimilar in spirit to that of the late Elliott Smith, though less wispy. Her voice is mixed more centrally than the backing music, but retains an earthy closeness that gives the whole recording a cooly intimate feel. It has the effect of recalling songs you heard yesterday telegraphed from the ancient past: simultaneously immediate and ancient.
The 2005 album feels much more like an album recorded in the now. It runs just four minutes shorter but has seven fewer songs, and the approach seems much more meditative and focused. The wistfulness is less immediate than in the earlier record, and the longer songs develop their emotional tone more intensely. There is as much variety but more focus in instrumentation from song to song, and at several moments Bunyan is accompanied solely by a piano or a guitar, with orchestrations which more add texture than set the stage. Bunyan's voice also nestles in more closely to the music, so one imagines her more sitting with her players than far in front of them as in the earlier album. And that voice: if 35 years have done anything they've given something of a foundation to her voice's airy fluidity, adding subtance if not age. Like the music itself, her voice has traded some of its wispiness for emotional texture.
Bottom line: I'm quite glad I have both albums, though I find Lookaftering a bit more accessible, as it feels more like a cohesive record than a collection of invaluable time capsules. Perhaps as I play the newer album more I'll be better able to appreciate the old--if Vashti Banyan has proven anything, it's that music can, like wine, grow more flavorful with age.
Lookaftering, 2005
My most recent find, I unearthed Vashti Bunyan after cruising Pitchfork's recommendation list. I thought I'd take a chance on her--I knew roughly what to expect from my limited contact with Devendra Banhart and other freakfolk acts, but I was mostly intrigued by the story behind the two albums--a new album made after a 35-year lapse by an artist who walked away from the music business after her sole, universally highly-regarded album. I haven't yet gotten into Devendra Banhart or the other freakfolk acts--which I discovered only a few months ago after browsing the Young God catalog--but something about Vashti's sound intrigued me. I just finished listening to these two albums back-to-back, and have gone through Just Another Diamond Day a couple times.
Because of my lack of reference, Vashti Bunyan's earlier album defines my mental image of a '60s psychodelic folk movement. Somewhat whimsical lyrical themes, at times with surreal imagery, combine with ancient instrumentation. Many of the songs are shorter, almost like haiku, and the instrumentation on the album--from string accompaniament to flutes--changes from song to song. In this way the album evokes a walletful of moods, from wistful to even elegiac, while the shortness of the songs allows the album to touch each without settling in for extended meditation of any. The real attraction, though, is Vashti Bunyan's voice, which she pours over her lyrics and accompaniament like a delicate fragrance. The gentleness of her approach seems not dissimilar in spirit to that of the late Elliott Smith, though less wispy. Her voice is mixed more centrally than the backing music, but retains an earthy closeness that gives the whole recording a cooly intimate feel. It has the effect of recalling songs you heard yesterday telegraphed from the ancient past: simultaneously immediate and ancient.
The 2005 album feels much more like an album recorded in the now. It runs just four minutes shorter but has seven fewer songs, and the approach seems much more meditative and focused. The wistfulness is less immediate than in the earlier record, and the longer songs develop their emotional tone more intensely. There is as much variety but more focus in instrumentation from song to song, and at several moments Bunyan is accompanied solely by a piano or a guitar, with orchestrations which more add texture than set the stage. Bunyan's voice also nestles in more closely to the music, so one imagines her more sitting with her players than far in front of them as in the earlier album. And that voice: if 35 years have done anything they've given something of a foundation to her voice's airy fluidity, adding subtance if not age. Like the music itself, her voice has traded some of its wispiness for emotional texture.
Bottom line: I'm quite glad I have both albums, though I find Lookaftering a bit more accessible, as it feels more like a cohesive record than a collection of invaluable time capsules. Perhaps as I play the newer album more I'll be better able to appreciate the old--if Vashti Banyan has proven anything, it's that music can, like wine, grow more flavorful with age.
Monday, November 21, 2005
New Music
I get music generally in two fashions.
First, through eMusic.com, where for $20 a month I can download a hundred tracks--that's between 8-11 albums a month. Second, through Yourmusic.com, which is run by BMG. Yourmusic is the kindest and most consumer-friendly of the music clubs that I've seen. It functions like Netflix in that you select a queue, and then each month they send you a disc from your queue. The best part about it is that each cd cost only $5.99, and that includes shipping and handling. No hidden costs, and you get just what you want for less than you'd find it at a used cd store.
I'm not meaning to turn this into a commercial--I've just been pleased by both services, and they enable me to acquire much more music than I would otherwise.
So, two new this month.
Van Halen: Van Halen (1978).
I don't know how I managed to not ever get into Van Halen. Perhaps they were a bit before my time, and I'm just now getting around to picking up the stuff that has influenced the stuff I listened to when I first got into music in high school. Regardless, this is absolutely fantastic rock and roll; almost every cut is still played on rock radio today, so it feels like a "Best Of" record, or one that I've always had in my collection and yet forgot to listen to for years. Eddie's guitar is absolutely brilliant: dynamic, alternating between appropriately understated and fiercely turbo-charged. I love masterful electric guitar--so it's about time this is in my collection. I'll pick up the other good Van Halen discs over the next few months.
Dream Theater: Octavarium (2005)
The newest album from the band that got me into music in the first place--so it pairs really well with Van Halen in biographical theme, if not in musical taste, even if guitarists like Van Halen made bands like Dream Theater possible. Reading reviews of this album before I had listened to it I was quite afraid; I had loved Dream Theater's heavier sound in their last release, Train of Thought, so I was disappointed to hear they had backed off from this a bit. I feared a return to the flaccid style of Falling into Infinity, but I'm happily pleased with the album after a couple spins. There are a few songs to which I've not yet grown accustomed, and which do take the more radio-friendly turn (which feels like a belly flop from Dream Theater). Even so, I get the feeling they construct their odd album around a cd-unfriendly 20+ minute cut, which we have in the title track with Octavarium--such long songs have to elbow their way in around other songs, and it makes track listigs a bit awkward no matter what. But I do like this disc quite a bit. For the first time since Awake, Dream Theater feel at home with a keyboardist. Jordan Rudess exerts serious muscle on the album, and his keyboards stand beside Petrucci's guitars as equal in presence, texture, and melody in several of the songs. This is good, because it shows the sonic depth the band has perhaps underutilized in the last few albums--for as much as I like it, Train of Thought really is more a metal album influenced by prog rock than it is a prog rock album influenced by metal. Petrucci's guitar always was the best when settling into a heartfelt solo over a crushing groove, and there's more of that in this album, but prog fans will find even the more listener-friendly tunes filled with amazing flourishes. Great album with great songs that made me consider a band's catalog as more the opportunity to develop different themes and textures rather than as a progression. I wrongly kept wondering how Dream Theater could get heavier after Train of Thought--and Octavarium shows they don't have to.
First, through eMusic.com, where for $20 a month I can download a hundred tracks--that's between 8-11 albums a month. Second, through Yourmusic.com, which is run by BMG. Yourmusic is the kindest and most consumer-friendly of the music clubs that I've seen. It functions like Netflix in that you select a queue, and then each month they send you a disc from your queue. The best part about it is that each cd cost only $5.99, and that includes shipping and handling. No hidden costs, and you get just what you want for less than you'd find it at a used cd store.
I'm not meaning to turn this into a commercial--I've just been pleased by both services, and they enable me to acquire much more music than I would otherwise.
So, two new this month.
Van Halen: Van Halen (1978).
I don't know how I managed to not ever get into Van Halen. Perhaps they were a bit before my time, and I'm just now getting around to picking up the stuff that has influenced the stuff I listened to when I first got into music in high school. Regardless, this is absolutely fantastic rock and roll; almost every cut is still played on rock radio today, so it feels like a "Best Of" record, or one that I've always had in my collection and yet forgot to listen to for years. Eddie's guitar is absolutely brilliant: dynamic, alternating between appropriately understated and fiercely turbo-charged. I love masterful electric guitar--so it's about time this is in my collection. I'll pick up the other good Van Halen discs over the next few months.
Dream Theater: Octavarium (2005)
The newest album from the band that got me into music in the first place--so it pairs really well with Van Halen in biographical theme, if not in musical taste, even if guitarists like Van Halen made bands like Dream Theater possible. Reading reviews of this album before I had listened to it I was quite afraid; I had loved Dream Theater's heavier sound in their last release, Train of Thought, so I was disappointed to hear they had backed off from this a bit. I feared a return to the flaccid style of Falling into Infinity, but I'm happily pleased with the album after a couple spins. There are a few songs to which I've not yet grown accustomed, and which do take the more radio-friendly turn (which feels like a belly flop from Dream Theater). Even so, I get the feeling they construct their odd album around a cd-unfriendly 20+ minute cut, which we have in the title track with Octavarium--such long songs have to elbow their way in around other songs, and it makes track listigs a bit awkward no matter what. But I do like this disc quite a bit. For the first time since Awake, Dream Theater feel at home with a keyboardist. Jordan Rudess exerts serious muscle on the album, and his keyboards stand beside Petrucci's guitars as equal in presence, texture, and melody in several of the songs. This is good, because it shows the sonic depth the band has perhaps underutilized in the last few albums--for as much as I like it, Train of Thought really is more a metal album influenced by prog rock than it is a prog rock album influenced by metal. Petrucci's guitar always was the best when settling into a heartfelt solo over a crushing groove, and there's more of that in this album, but prog fans will find even the more listener-friendly tunes filled with amazing flourishes. Great album with great songs that made me consider a band's catalog as more the opportunity to develop different themes and textures rather than as a progression. I wrongly kept wondering how Dream Theater could get heavier after Train of Thought--and Octavarium shows they don't have to.
