introspective

Modernism Monday: “Rolling Stone,” Reuben and the Dark

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This band is a new discovery for me, and I’m more than a little obsessed with this song.  The group is from Canada and makes music that is as expansive and beautiful as the country itself.  My cousin compared the banjo to the telephone poles that pin a highway to the earth.  Since this song sounds like a high-speed yet solo car journey, I think he’s exactly right.

FRIEND WEEK! Sacred Sunday: “And I Saw A New Heaven,” Edgar Bainton. Submitted by Sara.

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Yankette’s Reaction:

Oh, stick a fork in me.  This piece might – might – be more fun to sing than listen to, but nevertheless, it’s a sucker-punch.  It starts so mildly, but by the end, you’re completely wrung out.  It’s a masterwork.

Shameless friend promotion!  Sara is the best singer I have ever sung with, in my life, ever, and probably always will be.  She also happens to be an astoundingly cool person.  So listen to her singing and then put her in any and every musical production you have going.  Trust me.

Sara’s Justification:

Here is Edgar Bainton’s “And I saw a new heaven.” If you’re Anglican you’ve probably heard it; if you’ve been involved in church music at all you’ve most likely sung it. I am of the opinion that most British choral music that has stood the test of time is pretty darn good, but I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that this anthem might be the best one ever. It’s written in the same lush late-romantic style as pieces by Bainton’s better-known contemporaries, like Vaughan Williams, but what I think makes this one so special is that it doesn’t draw on any of Vaughan Williams’ sensible British folksiness. There is a sense throughout the anthem – in both its dynamic and textual heights and most hushed moments – of an otherworldly ecstasy that cannot be matched in the rest of the choral repertoire from this period. Listening bliss. Enjoy!

FRIEND WEEK! Worldly Wednesday: “Man x Woman,” Mar. Submitted by Ryan.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbYWgSZtwP4&feature=youtu.be

Yankette’s Reaction:

This guy has one heck of a voice.  The range and the control is just gorgeous.  I love how spare the song itself is, too.  There’s no unnecessary production – just a man with a sexy song and a guitar.  Effective, soulful, and different.  I’m a fan.

Shameless friend promotion!  If you like humor, sexy songs, and haikus, check out Ryan over at the wonderful blog, The Wheelhouse Review.

Ryan’s Justification:

I present to you Mar, a Dutch Danish Dutch soul singer from Amsterdam. Dutch soul, you ask? I was skeptical at first too when I first came across his “Mar Variations.” Although I am as worldly as I am handsome, I assumed the Dutch only did wooden clogs and red light district(s), certainly not soul music. But after hearing his ridiculously smooth voice on the second “variation” he released, 1st session, I was hooked. He is now firmly in the category of artists I’d pay for an album of them singing names in the phone book. Or to quote Michael Bolton on Michael Bolton, “I celebrate his entire catalogue.”

Given his Michael Bolton status, it was hard to pick one song, but I decided to go for this one because it’s just a guitar and his voice. This version of “Man x Woman” is a stripped down, acoustic version of the original song, which as all things Mar I celebrate, but had a club/EDM beat that didn’t showcase his voice as much as this version does. The acoustic rendition has all the features of his music, and especially his voice, that find him prominently featured in two of my most-played iPod playlists “head noddin’ pre party” (check out 2u4u for that) and “baby makin’ music” (check out “our attempt” for that). You hear the jazz-inspired ad libbing, the impressive falsettos, and just the absurdly soultastic smoothness of his voice. Seriously, it’s like a silkworm dipped in cocoa butter, topped off with a sprinkling of baby powder. As a bonus, he belts out some falsetto and upper register notes (especially starting at the 3:08 mark) with power you normally don’t hear him show off. Enjoy. And hit me up if you want either of those playlists. You’ll thank me later.

Sacred Sunday: “I’m Building Me A Home,” Traditional Spiritual

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zaPf9tZxWk

I know it’s a bit outré to use a video clip from a TV show, but hear me out.  Click the second link below first before you watch the clip.  The Morehouse College Glee Club sings the song masterfully.  The harmonies are tight and the dynamics are powerful.

Now click on the video clip.  It’s an entirely different song now.  Using it as the song the railroad workers sing as they hammer the nails into the track – singing a song about building a home as they’re building the railroad – is genius, and very moving.  The clip is from the TV show, “Hell on Wheels,” which is about the creation of the Union Pacific railroad after the Civil War.  By and large, the men working on the railroad are (very recently) freed slaves.  The rest are immigrants from Ireland and settlers from the rest of the country.  Together they are building the railroad that will knit the country, torn in two by the war, back into one nation – a new home for everyone.  The first sharp clang of the hammer on the nail is a wonderful moment.  The rest of the scene shows the protagonist of the story, Cullen Bohannon, a former soldier in the Confederate army who has sought a kind of redemption in spearheading the construction of the Union Pacific, being led to a Mormon camp to answer for a crime he committed.  The Mormons, too, are building a home for themselves in the new country.  To have this song running through this scene that shows all of these different groups joined by the same goal…it’s pretty powerful.

 

 

Modernism Monday: “Echo,” Helen Jane Long

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The author of a book I read years ago described jet lag as a soul, on a tether to the physical body, making its way back home after the body has traveled too far, too fast.  That may or may not explain why I’ve felt slightly catatonic all day today, and why this post is so late.  Another explanation is a deep sense of contented stability brought about from returning to a good life that I have worked hard to create.  Either/or.

Good night.

Modernism Monday: “Home,” David Byrne and Brian Eno

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Sorry for the unannounced hiatus, Tune Sharks – I’ve been at a rodeo (as one is from time to time). I’ve spent the past three days in a location I have never been to before. At certain times, I felt very far away from home. So I spent much of the time thinking about what “home” means. The best friend I visited just moved back to her home state and had been having a bit of a tough readjustment period. I couldn’t have empathized more. Having spent two decades there, how can a few years away make things feel so different upon return? I, too, am considering a move, to make a new home for myself somewhere else. I’ve done that multiple times before but this time it feels scarier, a lot riskier. But isn’t home less about place and more about people? And if I move with and closer to those people in whose company I feel fully myself, safe, and accepted, then why should it feel as alarming?

Home and identity are inextricably twinned. Even people with pathological wanderlust have places that make them feel at home, centered. Home is a major identifier – a way we are binned into categories by people we barely know. People who have been born in one place, grew up in another, and live someplace else, as is my lot, don’t have any idea what to say when asked where they’re from. In a way, they’re both stateless and ambulatory new states – some multi-location hybrid. A territory, population 1. But who am I? Am I anyone recognizable? Will people understand me?

The peril we face as we grow is the possibility of outgrowing either our people-homes or our place-homes. Or, as can often happen, both. We become trees whose roots have punched through the sidewalk and whose top branches recline in the power lines. We are awkward, ostentatious, dangerous eyesores in our communities. We’re show-offs. We need to go. Also unpleasant is that this can make us feel ungrateful: we have used up all the resources we can and are moving on, leaving a depleted moonscape behind us. Now we really aren’t from anywhere, and if we’re not from anywhere, how can we ever go home?

Because we aren’t the center of the universe. Everything is changing, all the time. We can go back home. We can make new homes. Sometimes that’s the same thing.

Before I get to go home, Im getting on another plane to spent a week in another strange place, this time for work. Don’t worry, I promise I’ll write.

Sacred Sunday: “Crux Fidelis,” King Joao of Portugal

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My friend’s new wife being Portuguese, I feel this an appropriate choice for today.  Also, my headache is sponsored by vinho verde, a Portuguese white wine.  So, a calm, quiet little number is also in order.  Many thanks, your highness.