Thursday, May 28, 2009

darkness and dawn



Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions (listen) I was just sitting here about to make a Facebook plea of what I should listen to today, a survey that never produces useful results. Not that my friends are bereft of taste; most of them are genius curators of their own sonic environments. The request hidden in my innocuous query is this: I want to be momentarily led into the hole and consumed by darkness because I can't find anything handy on the sunny surface I want to hear, and Sunn O))) is nothing if its not dark hole music, though it must be said that the ending of "Alice", a massive tribute to Alice Coltrane is positively lovely, bringing out the Robert Wyatt side of subterranean doom drone metal, if there is such a side.

Alice Coltrane - A Monastric Trio - Alice Coltrane's first album after the death of her famous husband plumbs depths the semi-monastic duo that tributes her don't quite yet explore. Pharaoh Sanders' sax is convulsive and flitting from glee to despair in a phrase, while she, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummers Ben Riley and Rashied Ali maintain the rotation of the planet, like mourners scurrying around at the funeral reception, making sure everyone's drinks are filled, if only to stave off the dark a little while longer.

Robert Wyatt - Shleep - The eventual point of the dark, once we get over the anxiety it brings about in us, is to deprive us of factual sight and force us to dream.

Four Tet - Everything's Ecstatic
(listen) - The point of the dawn is that it cuts across the rim of the abyss and beckons us to climb out.

No comments:

Post a Comment