Music Spectrum

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Benediction: A Poem for Thanksgiving Eve

I cannot stop listening to the single, “Dream Surreal,” from New Zealand’s Lotus Mason. Anthemic rock with an electronica gloss delivers a song that soars and swells in waves making you want to spread your arms open wide and spin contentedly on the top of some tall building, coming way to close to the edge but knowing somehow that every is alright—“Finally all my dreams are real.” Meanwhile, the track works Martin Luther King, Jr., into the mix, and culminates in a great guitar effect.

The EP features the single plus two other tracks. Expect the album out in 2011. Check out the video for “Dream Surreal”; it’ll make you a believer in this band.

Lotus Mason

Anticipating the release of two EPs this fall, here’s a look at My Cousin, The Emperor.

Listen for the city influence on My Cousin, The Emperor’s A Long Way From Home. Because although they are clearly a New Bluegrass band, coming out of Brooklyn, the city influence is there. Besides the addition of drums which isn’t true bluegrass, the city influence on “A Long Way from Home” comes with the electric guitar solo which comes in two minutes into the album, rips off a good piece of bluesy rock, and then fades into the background. On “Broken Bottle Blues No. 2,” the city influences the jumped-up rockabilly feel even as the song sings about Chicago. It also has this great smattering of plinking, barroom piano. “Justine” has a funky guitar vibe that swings the tune into town. There’s a 50’s rock feel to “When You Walk By.” The album closes with a rocking two-step “Regalo La Flor.” Definitely all worth a listen even before the new music shows up this fall.

My Cousin, The Emperor

And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul

Van Morrison’s song “And It Stoned Me” have always struck me as incredibly apt at describing the feeling I have listening to Turin Brakes. Their music stones me right to my soul. The vocal harmonies of Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian plus their acoustic guitars just send the listener high and deep. It’s a striking combination of those tight harmonies, pop melodies, and eclectic arrangements.

This continues on their latest release, Outbursts. “Sea Change” opens the disc with a call to action that builds intensely as percussion comes on in force and the anthem gets more soulful. Meanwhile, it counts down from “six billion backs against the wall” to “it’s just your back against the wall,” as if a song by the Old Testament prophet Elijah who sat alone in a cave, hiding, thinking he’s the only faithful one left. And God calls him to action.

The prominent acoustic guitar on “Mirror” comes with some bluesy fills as we stare with Turin Brakes at a threatening future: “Let the universe do its worst/Devil, do your worst/Black star, do your worst.” “Rocket Song” starts with an uncharacteristic deep vocal, rising up to the “love is a rocket” heights where Turin Brakes normally resides in a folk-influenced ethereal air.

There’s a waltzing introspection on the Badly Drawn Boy-like song, “Paper Heart.” “The Invitation” has jazz brushes on the drums with an overall quiet reserve to a big show tune. The folk-influenced pop is drenched with strings on “Will Power.”

The 6/8 “Apocolips” rhythmically rises up from life’s darkness, hitting a stride even while looking back to see what’s chasing us down. “Embryos” comes from a small space sonically asking “Love, won’t you come and bring me a story?” It’s jazz-influenced folk with so much contained passion that quietly “burns bright like magnesium.”

After listening to the album, I can’t but help to agree with the line on the acoustic blues “Never Stops”: “Sing another song for me/Fill your lungs with history.”

Turin Brakes
Cooking Vinyl

With Rufus Wainwright vaudevillian, show tune-like rock and Jason Mraz jazz-influenced singer/songwriter flair, Matt Morris sings for the heights while talking about the depths searching for the things that might rise about the predicament called life. I don’t pretend to know anything about Morris’ beliefs concerning the divine, but I hear him shoving past the meanness of this world to peak into the “what could be’s.”

For instance, on “Love”:

Love…
For lack of a better word…
Love…
In spite of what you have heard…
Love…
Is perfect and plenty enough

Morris locates love behind his heart and his lungs, but it isn’t just inside of us.

Deep inside the earth,
Beneath the stones under my foot,
And above the power lines and building lights,
Between the spaces of our words,
There is a love that flows like water
To the roots of Eden’s trees,
Growing truth from every branch,
Changing colors with the season,
Giving shade to cool the weary
Giving strength to house the needy,
Holding you and I completely.

Using biblical imagery, Morris says love flows from some greater source than inside of us. The song swaggers and staggers toward this conclusion that the source of love will not run empty. Love can conquer all wrongs.

“Love” flows right into the ballad story song, “Bloodline.” Like a reminder of Jesus calling on His disciples to care for the least of these—and by doing so they will serve Him, we find a broken woman who has been rejected by the world—the least of these not served by her neighbors. It’s a stark call to repentance in its second stanza:

She heard Heaven is invite-only, reserved for Christian soldiers;
Not unwed girls living in the city, asking for change from strangers.
But Father said Jesus loves her, even though she never married;
God loves her more than the Christians do. She’s part of his Holy Bloodline.
She got saved in the Bloodline.
The price He paid for the Bloodline changed her life.
She cries at night and keeps alive His Bloodline.
She believes in the Bloodline; lives and breathes by the Bloodline.
With all her might she cries at night and keeps alive His Bloodline.

The song concludes with the woman not giving up because of the strength of her bloodline. However, recalling “Love,” perhaps Morris is also saying that the source of that strength is the blood of Jesus. We will not find the answers in ourselves.

It’s a line of thought that leads to the concluding track, “Eternity,” a pounding ballad that builds up in orchestration and intensity. It’s a general confession; we are all sinners and the sins of our forefathers have been passed on down to us.

I’m carrying the memory of these things inside of me.
I greet them with humility.
They’re with me for eternity.
I’m telling you, with sincerity, that what you do
And what you be is go’n follow you like it follow me,
And be with you for eternity.

Yet, again, Morris urges us to turn from ourselves and “turn your eyes to God.” Our sins will follow us into eternity unless there’s a source of love that finds forgiveness for us, lifting us above what we are.

Which takes us back to an earlier track, “Forgiveness,” a simple prayer seeking relief from the condition described in “Eternity.” But Morris offers no answering word from God, doesn’t give the answer that comes sweet and clear from Jesus in His promise that we will live forever. Morris sings of his deep love for his husband on “Live Forever,” but there’s a sense that the chorus can only truly be answered in Christ whose love lasts forever.

We’re looking for a way to make it better
We’re looking for a way to change the weather
Whether you or I survive tonight
I promise you I will love you like we’re going to live forever.

That’s how Jesus loves us sinners—like we’re going to live forever with Him. And we will.

Matt Morris
Tennman Records

The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night opens with an electronic noise and keyboard overture (“Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent, Pt. 1) which leads right into “Part 2” with Jace Lasek’s falsetto like Bon Iver. When the percussion hits, it could be that this is all leading into a dance track. But here the percussion groove doesn’t break up the overture. Neither do the My Morning Jacket-like guitar licks that jump up in the blessed out jams and atmospheric rock. Rather, the percussion and guitar punctuate the curtain of sound, piercing it but never fully pulling back the overture’s blue light, smoke, and mystery that are setting the stage. In fact, the overture sound will truly run throughout this AltFolk/College/Art Rock album.

“Chicago Train” continues the overture theme with waves of falsetto sound like fog rolling off the mountains. Then suddenly the train comes around the bend with its driving beat and charged guitars. The final third of the song has the falsetto choir return to help the mountain come back into view before the whole scene fades out.

“Albatross” sees Olga Goreas take the lead vocal backed by a Beach Boys-like chorus. There’s again a driving beat but the overture is present in the background. An electrically-charged wall of sound begins “Glass Printer” with the overture them in the main vocal while percussion is smashing into all corners. That wall of sound seems to be built on the dominant guitar entrance from “Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent, Pt. 2.”

“Land of the Living Skies, Pt. 1: The Land” returns to the original overture ambient noise, a mid-album break to reset the stage before “Pt. 2: The Living Skies” comes in with its Western flavor to the guitar, painting a haunting vista with the ambient noise still present like a vibraphone spinning in and out of consciousness. The Besnard Lakes create atmosphere, other worlds, and dreamscapes in a way similar to the Church (especially like Priest=Aura).

“And This is What We Call Progress” has a Tex Mex border guitar and the rhythm of a train speeding across an open flatland at night time. Yet, the overture’s theme is still present in the main vocal.

While most of the time the overture is hinted at, “Light Up the Night” reverses the roles. The overture’s themes are the main thing in the ambient intro, the piano, and vocal. The guitar and cymbals don’t break it up at first; they’re just flashes of a rock song—until the 4:45 mark when the drums take up a regular rock rhythm, the guitar comes on with a fuller roar, but it all builds into the overture’s triumphant sound.

Finally, “The Lonely Moon” is a Angelo Badalamenti/Twin Peaks, 50’s creepy, atmospheric pop that goes gently into the night on the overture’s themes.

So the overture sets the scene and runs it all the way through the album. The Besnard Lakes have crafted an exquisite work to let play from start to finish as you imagine the vista and story they create.

The Besnard Lakes
Jagjaguwar
Outside Music

Welcome to a new look at Music Spectrum now coming from WordPress. After Blogger discontinued a service that allowed me to host my blog at Blogger, I have made the transition over to WordPress. It should prove to be even better for Music Spectrum. In the next week or two, watch as the page changes, comments are turned on, and other features appear. Old posts lack the images and the links have changed. If you’re having trouble locating an old post, please let me know. Also, soon I’ll start using labels which will make it easier to find related reviews at the site.

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Ben Squires