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Tuesday. Karen Jonas
From the very first days of this blog Karen Jonas features on it, so when a new song (and album) is announced it is time for me to start paying attention. Tuesday is a country song with Karen Jonas singing in a country way combined with a strong attack taken to the lyrics. Dreaming of California but having dirty dishes in the sink at home. Between dreams and real life one is allowed to have daydreams and a whiskey or two. It allows for the way the lyrics are brought. The band is tight, Tim Bray gracing the song with a lot of just right notes, although the peddle steel certainly chips in as well. Tuesday is the kind of song that easily sticks to me, so the right kind of single. It is such a pleasure to hear a new song by Karen Jonas.
Jump into the time machine Muck and the Mires is. Looks and music are all from a long gone era when music was somehow more innocent. Not for the parents of the day. This was the work of the devil or worse. What I mean is that it's music from an era when youths could explore their chosen artform and try to do what they could to bend existing rules and formats. Something that happens less and less these days.
Yesterday I listened to the radio at an odd hour. It played a Top 40 from May 1988. What struck me was the music being so diverse, not necessarily good, but so diverse. Music now basically seems to come from an algorithm as it is so much alike.
Take Me Back To Planet Earth is not original, the song emulates the best of what has been once and makes it come alive in a new song. What Muck and the Mires is capable of is recreating the best songs on a box set like 'Nuggets' or the 'Psychedelic States' series in original songs. This single is vibrant, rocking and has that typical organ sound of the 60s garage rock era. The band is much tighter than most 60s garage band could ever imagine becoming. The recording technique simply is much better and the loudness of it all lends a little from later eras in rock. No matter how much I theorise on the song, I simply love listening to it. Rock and roll forever.
The title of the song may be true. Humanity shares a lot more than stars. Unfortunately it doesn't equal up to agreeing on loads of topics that can be fought and strived for, to dominate over the other. This generalisation aside, listening to the opening of We Share The Same Stars I could not help but wonder why does a band from 2020 want to sound like an exact copy of The Cure? Now I know the band did a totally unexpected great comeback at the major festivals last year (remember them?), but there is a The Cure already.
The Sea At Midnight delves a bit deeper into the late 70s, early 80s doom and gloom it turns out. The synths of Tubeway Army, the dark singing of almost all singers of the era combined with Mark Almond and Andy Bell's phrasing. The result is a nice song though. I am almost certain that an album will be far too much for me, but, just like then, one strong single is a good thing to have. We Share The Same Stars has the same effect on me as 'Torch', 'Don't You Want Me?' or 'Just Can't Get Enough' had. Not like 'A Forest' or 'Are Friends Electric?' though. There always need to be another level to strive for in life.
Dark sounds and singing, lots of echo/reverb on the guitar. Again the 80s march into my ears. Why is that decade so popular? In my mind it is the weakest decade musically I lived through. One I had a lot of fun in, but that is another story. Siegfried 1969 musically does not refer to that year. This is about the age when a drum machine was truly discovered, music could be mechanical, like marching robots. I won't even start dropping names, they are all in this song it seems. And yet it works. The song is built up in the right way. There's even a climax of sorts, for as far as the rigid rules of early 80s music allows one. In its own warped way Siegfried 1969 is totally danceable, so it would have worked in my dancing heyday as well. The paradox in my little write up is noted.
All of a sudden I think to be hearing German being sung. Is it? It is then I notice I simply do not understand a single word from what is sung. It is almost unintelligible. I assumed it was English, simply due to the musical connotations and the bands name, but there is the Neue Deutsche Welle, right? And yes, I have to put The City Gates into that category it turns out, were it not that the band is from Montreal. Confusing? Yes, it is. Working with the German guest singer starts to explain a little.
With Para Lia things are easier. The band is from the former East Germany where The City Gates' guest vocalist, Alexander Donat, is singing about. Para Lia featured twice on the blog last year and returns with the first single of it's upcoming album. The title Riders On The Dike brings back a youth memory. All the pre-moped dreamers of my youth fantasized about riding on a souped up moped able to do a 160 on Zeeland's dikes, like they did there, allegedly. Next to the immediate connotation of The Doors' great hit single of course.
Riders On The Dike is a great rocking song, not unlike the next single discussed here, 'Happy' by Garlands. It has an inner sort of happiness that is a welcome change from the two singles that came before. The music is in line with the dreams about getting away from it all and go riding on that dike together. There's some great guitar playing in the song. In the rhythm and lead playing. Underneath that there's some nice melancholy synths/mellotron sounds. Of course the rhythms are super tight allowing for the joyous music going on over it all. Riders On The Dike is the kind of single that makes me look forward to the rest of the music on the upcoming album, 'Gone With The Flow'.
Can Garlands come up with a mediocre song? Listening into the band's monthly releases of the Corona lockdown days the answer seems to be a firm no. Garlands shows, again, a slightly different side of itself. Happy is, of course, an alternative rock song, but more than just that. With Happy Garlands combines its British roots with U.S. West Coast (punk) rock. The result is a sweet flowing rock song that begs singing along to. "I was Paul and you were John", to quote a line from the song. Musically the song has little to do with the Fab Four and more with its descendants of the 90s Blur and Oasis. Melodically I would not be surprised if Gordon Harrow sings here about his earlier influences and translated them into sound alternative rock songs. Summing up, I simply cannot get enough of this song. I love the descending chords and the way the pre chorus plays itself out.
Seek To Hide starts with a lot of energy, yet brings me back to the 1980s once more. The singer is mixed into the whole making his words hard to understand. The drumming lends a lot from Therapy?'s drummer's technique. More whacking than traditional drumming and all over the place. It gives the song power but also something incoherent as the lead and rhythm guitar don't mind flying off the path every once in a while. It is the pumping, dark bass keeping the song together. The music comes to me like unexpected gales or irregular waves on the beach. It washes over me, covering me whole and then letting go again. It makes it hard for me to really form an opinion of Seek To Hide. The band that finally comes to mind is Motorpsycho as just like that band A Shoreline Dream's members can go off in all directions. The next step is to come together in a more decisive way. It seems I need a little coherence in music. The energy is there though, so a listening session is advised.
Susanna debuted on this blog last year with the album 'Garden Of Earthly Delights', inspired by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. Now it is the poems of Arthur Beaudelaire that sparked her imagination. The music is very different as she accompanies herself on the piano only. I have to listen closely as Burial is over before I know it. A traditional 60s length single it is, 2.36 minutes only. Musically it is sober but also slightly impressive. With her dark voice that is able to shoot up when she wants to, she lays the right sort of emotions into the singing. Dark and sad, but full of emotions when she just sings the word burial. The result is a song that attracts attention and demands listening. Is Susanna able to keep up this level on a whole album, 'Beaudelaire & Piano', filled with just her voice and piano? Time will tell.
Wo.
Listen to our Spotify Playlist to find out what we are writing about:
https://open.spotify.com/user/glazu53/playlist/6R9FgPd2btrMuMaIrYeCh6?si=KI6LzLaAS5K-wsez5oSO2g
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