3 June 2013 (Day 154) – Mysterious Sounds For Grey Days

I wake up this morning and don’t want to get out of bed.  As we approach the winter solstice, mornings are cold and dark.  Eventually I make my way to the kitchen and “M” has the coffee ready and hot.  We sit at the kitchen table and have breakfast but for all intents and purposes it’s still night time.  By the time we’ve showered and dressed, light has begun to filter through but the outside world still seems dark.

As we drive into town the rising sun alters that world to a dark shade of grey, a sense not helped by the number of new towers and concrete elevator shafts of skyscrapers under construction.   Surely it must have dawned on someone to paint the new buildings, I grumble.  “M”, who knows how dispiriting it is to grow up in a city dominated by grey concrete buildings, agrees.  Then comes the moment I least look forward to each week, as I drop “M” off at her work, marking in my mind the formal end of the weekend. 

I get to my Office and sit at my desk.  I turn on my computer and look at of the window to its left and take in the view of my workplace car park.  I don’t notice other staff members as they arrive.  All I notice is the grey.  I look down at my iPod and decide that I must have music.  Whilst my computer turns on the various programs I need to work I try to find something to match my mood and the outside world.

(# 395) Slint – Spiderland (1991)

Acknowledged as an underground classic this was this band’s second and final album.  Almost the entire album consists of slowish guitar numbers  with lots of space.  In parts the guitars are so low you can barely hear them; you know they’re there, you can sense they’re there but you have to strain to hear them.  Yet everything is audible – guitar string licks, faint reverberating strums, glistening cymbals and lyrics mostly about an alienating existence.  Only on the middle track, Don Aman, does the tempo accelerate with almost all of the remaining tracks sounding like variations of the same ghostly track.  The other exception is the final number, Good Morning, Captain, one of those masterful tracks, such as the final track on Sigur Ros’ (   ) album, that appears to have been inspired by Stairway To Heaven.

(# 396) Bitch Magnet – Umber (1989)

Bitch Magnet utilised an approach similar to that which Slint were to use, (the track Douglas Leader would not sound out of place at all on Spiderland) only much more consistently louder and faster.  But the crisp production, on admittedly my remastered version of the album, means that even the feedback on tracks like Americacrusier and Navajo Ace can be clearly picked out by the listener. 

(# 397) Codeine – The White Birch (1994)

This is another album that reminds me greater of Spiderland but with a lusher guitar sound.  The guitars on this, in turn, also remind me of the warmer sound Sonic Youth were to generate on latter period albums such as Murray Street and Sonic Nurse.  Indeed Vacancy on this album could pass for a Thurston Moore track especially with Stephen Immerwahr’s  soundalike vocals.

(# 398) The Sand Pebbles – A Thousand Wild Flowers (2009)

The Sand Pebbles are a guitar driven psychedelic band from Melbourne.   Whilst not exactly in the same mode as the previous three albums, I played this owing to some superficial similarities, notably the emphasis on guitars and the relatively clean production.  This is a compilation album for the international market with tracks taken from their three albums up to this point and some live material.  Full of tunes with marvellous clear guitar lines that twist in and out and around each other, the best way to experience this band is in concert as the live tracks on this attest.  But the real gem here is the epic 12 minute Black Sun Ensemble, the equal of any guitar heaven track you’d care to name.