It's been a slow week. I'm sick and spend the day at home with Simone Weil's Need for roots. The colors outside are exploding. I feel drowsy. I take naps and have weird dreams. I make English breakfast at 1 pm and spend the rest of the day grazing in my sunlit room.
The opening track of the album Light in the west by Milton Cross hits my mind like a fresh breeze. The aptly titled "It's been almost a year" is 11 minutes of gauzy introspection, 11 minutes of floating sounds plodding onwards for what seems to be a blissful eternity. A beautiful melody played on violin is initiated, the pace is fastened and the melody starts to fall apart, being replaced by a thick layer of harmonium drones. That song evokes lots of things in me. Places, memories, emotions. The rest of the album is very good, too. More experimental, perhaps, more clattering little sounds, than the cohesive world created by the first track, but the songs are always interesting. Admirers of Boxhead ensemble or Brokeback might like this album, too.
After listening to Milton Cross, I felt an irresistible urge to put on a Boxhead Ensemble album. Two brothers, fro
m 2001. It's a much more narcotic affair than Milton Cross' rustic record. I am not immediately convinced by the compositions. It is, I think, a far more difficult album than some other releases by that same band (like Dutch Harbor, Niagara falls or Quartets). But it grows and it certainly will continue to grow as I listen to it more. Somehow, this album has some atmospheric similarities to Nick Cave's and Warren Ellis' soundtrack to The Assassination of Jesse James. I'm not sure why. Among the instruments featuring on the record, we find guitar, violin, percussion and cello. All of which are played by prominent indie/post-rock musicians more famous for their other projects. The pace of Two Brothers is mostly slow, but there are recurring noiser elements that prevent the record from becoming too serene. Several members from Dirty three parttake in the Boxhead Ensemble project this time around, and listening to the result, this is really obvious. In a good way. I really like some Dirty Three albums, even though their catalogue is a quite mixed bag.
Great stuff, indeed.
The opening track of the album Light in the west by Milton Cross hits my mind like a fresh breeze. The aptly titled "It's been almost a year" is 11 minutes of gauzy introspection, 11 minutes of floating sounds plodding onwards for what seems to be a blissful eternity. A beautiful melody played on violin is initiated, the pace is fastened and the melody starts to fall apart, being replaced by a thick layer of harmonium drones. That song evokes lots of things in me. Places, memories, emotions. The rest of the album is very good, too. More experimental, perhaps, more clattering little sounds, than the cohesive world created by the first track, but the songs are always interesting. Admirers of Boxhead ensemble or Brokeback might like this album, too.
After listening to Milton Cross, I felt an irresistible urge to put on a Boxhead Ensemble album. Two brothers, fro
m 2001. It's a much more narcotic affair than Milton Cross' rustic record. I am not immediately convinced by the compositions. It is, I think, a far more difficult album than some other releases by that same band (like Dutch Harbor, Niagara falls or Quartets). But it grows and it certainly will continue to grow as I listen to it more. Somehow, this album has some atmospheric similarities to Nick Cave's and Warren Ellis' soundtrack to The Assassination of Jesse James. I'm not sure why. Among the instruments featuring on the record, we find guitar, violin, percussion and cello. All of which are played by prominent indie/post-rock musicians more famous for their other projects. The pace of Two Brothers is mostly slow, but there are recurring noiser elements that prevent the record from becoming too serene. Several members from Dirty three parttake in the Boxhead Ensemble project this time around, and listening to the result, this is really obvious. In a good way. I really like some Dirty Three albums, even though their catalogue is a quite mixed bag.Great stuff, indeed.
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