I got to see my friend Sharon play Rough Trade tonight, it felt so good. The place was very busy, and the set was gorgeous. The new LP is wonderful, and will probably be one of the small handful of very special records I take away from 2012 and return to again and again over the years.
I just felt super proud too. I met Sharon at that same place 3 years ago. I took a couple of friends along, and there were maybe another 10 people there at the absolute max. This time she was album of the month and the place was ramajam! She’s sold out Cargo tomorrow and announced a Scala show in May. So good. So well deserved.
Here is a lovely video of Sharon and Heather doing ‘Leonard’ from the new LP, ‘Tramp’.
Here is a piece from The Well Tempered Clavier, by J.S Bach. The series of music is so genius, seminal, beautiful and wonderful – after you listen to Bach it’s difficult to listen to other music for a little while after. I am getting through his pieces slowly, his body of work is just astounding. It’s a joy.
I’ve only listened to the new Islands record a couple of times, but I’m very much enjoying. Written post-breakup, the album finds Thorburn at his most sincere. It’s a slick pop album more than worth a listen. I’d heartily recommend it:
“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.” – Cicero
Today I was reading some of Cicero’s musings (oh, God) and I found this humorous quote. Even though he said this around 2000 years ago, something about it still rings true today. Everyone is broadcasting their opinions.
I’ve thought about how I can say what I want to say without writing a long essay, but basically I just came to the conclusion that it’s so important to just be genuine to yourself. Of course it can be hard to ignore the influence of others, but something about the whole internet hype machine is so disingenuous and self congratulatory. It feels like certain bands get hyped because they are superficially ‘cool’ rather than actually being genuinely interesting or talented musicians. And being seen to like ‘cool things is, in itself, ‘cool’. Of course this is nothing new, but because of the fast pace of everything it feels like it happens so much, all the time.
What makes the greatest bands so special is that they are rare. Declarations of ‘amazing or ‘unbelievable’ get thrown around all the time; and ‘best new’ gets prefixed to things so casually, on a daily basis. When people are freaking out over things sometimes I just want to take them by the shoulders and ask that they step back and think to themselves ‘do I really like this?’. I just don’t think it’s fair to anyone when people all gather to something and shout ‘AMAZING! AMAZING! BEST NEW BAND!’ and then the next ‘BEST NEW BAND!’ comes along a couple of months later. Because there’s this platform to publish opinions immediately, often people just don’t give anything any time. I don’t want to find albums I listen to five times then never feel like listening to again, because in a year’s time it transpires that the band was just typical of that time and not genuinely making special, interesting, important music. On many levels it feels like people don’t acknowledge this or chose to ignore it – it’s all about the here and now and being ‘first’.
I’m not saying ‘don’t like something if everyone else likes it’. Not at all. I just think it’s important to like things because you like them, and if it happens to be that everyone else is freaking out over it too, then that’s cool, but when people like things because everyone else is freaking out over it, that’s where I find the problem.
I think each year there are a small handful of special albums, and then a big handful of albums which are very good but perhaps simply of the time. Then a truckload of bad albums. And I think that’s just fine.
Tchaikovsky’s Pas De Deux from the Nutcracker ballet has to be one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. I have no technical knowledge of music, so my articulation of why I love it so much will be VERY POOR but I love it so much that I want to try anyway.
The piece is gorgeous. Simply beautiful. The descending melody from the strings played over the harp is heart wrenching. My favourite part of the piece is about a minute in, when the original descending melody is played on flute, whilst the strings perform a rising melody. The strings rise and rise and the woodwinds repeat the descending melody, finishing as the strings continue to rise and level out – it feels like an escape. A calmness. Then the strings return to the reflective, melancholy descending melody once again. Anyway, whatever the hell is happening sounds gorgeous to me -
The tension around the two minute mark builds from a gentle pleading into a desperate begging, culminating with the woodwinds building a rumbling darkness before the original string melody sweeps in again. The woodwinds jut allow for the strings to crush your heart with the dramatic fall.
Also interesting is to hear the piece performed as the piano solo -
So here, my favourite part happens, again, around a minute in, as the descending melody the pianist originally plays on his left hand switches to his right, and the left hand now plays the gentle rising melody. It’s easier to see what’s going on – the left hand is playing the part of the strings, and the right is the flute, before coming together again.
It’s incredible to watch it performed both with the orchestra and as piano solo. I’ve listened to it so many times, it’s just such a fantastic piece of music.
And here it is with the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince -
Shortly before Tchaikovsky began work on Nutcracker his beloved sister died, which is said to have influenced why Tchaikovsky chose to give the Pas De Deux a melancholic falling melody. It’s wistful and enduring, full of emotion and heart. In one letter Tchaikovsky wrote to his brother that he felt it ‘impossible’ to depict the music of the Sugar Plum Fairy after what had happened, and theorists believe the piece to be a homage to his sister.
