C
Codreanu
Guest
...or, tonight, I have entirely too much free time on my hands.
Hood - "Outside Closer"
The Remote Viewer - "Let your Heart Draw a Line"
Piano Magic - "Disaffected"
The Montgolfier Brothers - "All my Bad Thoughts"
Hood - "Outside Closer"
01. (Int)
http://s6.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2B6K5RE4LBH5F161EI4DJ1O1R1
02. The Negatives
http://s56.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3RXF4GYORT5KH3JUECN2GYI923
03. Any Hopeful Thoughts Arrive
http://s65.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0LPXLH6D4V9A03BWVNBYIO6FMI
04. End of One Train Working
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1Z3DTAM6JKP8933SXLXRHHLBCT
05. Winter '72
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=22R75AWS5K1KV1DHW1WLVZ7A4T
06. The Lost You
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2G7RW7RA35Y1G04LM5ZOCDFRNK
07. Still Rain Fell
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3S8B9293MM3MT0X79ZJBYLWOGW
08. L. Fading Hills
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=30JX1P08XJS130ZFK8XHJBDW90
09. Closure
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2UCSYD6540FY011Z3N2D020KDU
10. This is it, Forever
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2M8DT5KMZ6DE80RO6TUYFWE3CU
Go outside on the coldest, snowiest day of the year. Take off your coat, your hat, your gloves, whatever's keeping you warm. Lie down in the snow. Stay there for as long as you can. When the cold has seeped into your limbs and you're beginning to feel sleepy, gather your things and go inside. Again, remove as much clothing as you can, then find a warm spot and sit, and wait.
Outside Closer is the sound of people thawing.
Hood tap into a peculiar, pastoral vein of sensory constriction. Their songs are surrounded in haze, unresolved detail, half-glimpsed notions, third-generation copies of Platonic ideals. Unlike so much of today's music, they offer few if any obvious, toe-curling payoffs on your four- to seven-minute investment; the attraction is the warm, insular, slightly uncomfortable world they create. It's a love-it-or-hate-it place -- a land of quiet, lonely Sunday afternoons, stage one mourning, sense-sapping sickness, crushing depression and that sharp but distant tingle you feel as circulation gradually returns to your extremities. It's possible, at times like these, that nothing exists beyond the music's gauzy veil; sounds that should lessen your feeling of isolation instead enhance and focus it back at you. Creepy, isn't it?
"The Negatives" is Outside Closer's first blurry jolt. Rich strings, solemn acoustic guitar and a reverse-gated accordion-type instrument mingle over a tambourine and handclap-spiced rhythm track; it floods in like a migraine, imposing its jingling lockstep rhythm on your every movement, the breathy, half-heard vocals sighing like late-night confessions. "There isn't any space for love any more," they sing. "And if you know the feeling then you'll surely go / to the furthest place from your house / stand there a while / Make sure you’re broke / And watch the birds fly round." It's hard to say what's so bleak and alien about the image -- the distance? The loneliness? -- but simply pondering the group's instructions can induce depression.
"Any Hopeful Thoughts Arrive"'s choppy, IDM-ish beats build to a more satisfying peak -- crashing cymbals, sighing strings, soaring horns and glitchy drums creating random capsules of instrumental perfection that'll make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. By contrast, "Winter 72" threatens an even louder conflagration for its first few minutes, but always sidesteps: we hear the noise bursts, the phasing effects and the reverb in the distance, as if they're happening down the hall while we're mired in plodding beats. "The Lost You" initially regurgitates its melody in little blasts of sound, bargain-basement glitch bursts that sound as if they were made by manipulating a two-position switch. Once it gets going, the song pits overbearing melodic thrusts against a plateau of blunted chimes -- a sensory drubbing that could give you the shakes if you're the delicate type.
That's the point when Outside Closer begins its long, slow slide into abject depression. "L. Fading Hills" is the sound of a feverish Brian Wilson imagining that he's Amon Tobin. "Closure"'s threadbare isolation offers no closure whatsoever. Closer "This Is It, Forever" is a hidden track you can't find -- oblique, encoded emotion that's either too far away to understand or too close to process.
Keep the Prozac close when you finish the album. Outside Closer is maddeningly indirect, and the diminishing returns of its final minutes might make you wonder why you invested the time in the first place. But honestly, how many albums can claim to have so palpable an effect? When was the last time you finished listening to a record and didn't want to be touched for a few minutes? Outside Closer is a treacherously slippery slope of misfired emotions, capable of triggering self-loathing, cautious joy -- even paranoia. It will leave you feeling drained, prickly, nervous, angry... and far more attuned to your emotions as they continue to thaw.
* * *
The Remote Viewer - "let your Heart Draw a Line"
01. They're Closing Down the Shop
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2UI8GQ71B8HPD2VF1ZFCXQNRFW
02. To Completion
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=12KWQXRNSVTIQ2QYT29HMAERJU
03. Sometimes, you Can't Decide
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2NPTTKFPM88B51L0O9HSTXC6F5
04. Last Night you Said Goodbye, Now it Seems Years
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=26BKKGCRN7IBV0UIMXZD8TJ259
05. Take your Lights with You
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=17NCUQPMXTY7L0LDLJF6U3OCCT
06. I'm Sad Feeling!
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2UD9IZ91JODF905PZI5EIBE8HH
07. The f***ing Bleeding Hearts Brigade
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0FSPCMHEJWJ1Q37URBHB1KLUDO
08. It's So Funny how we Don't Talk Anymore
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2UMJM0W0MHQYB2XGL8LR9FOYX7
09. Kindtransport
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1M2KRHOBUGDUU0AI3RAJ6MQ0X8
10. How Did you Both Look me in the Eye?
http://s7.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1AO36AAAZ698N3C9U1IDSRC67O
Cover art [lp] (front)
http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=19T6JN33IXE1I2TRCPRB6J5IYS
Cover art [lp] (back)
http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0XJPK0XTOTWYW0TU94IFMCQP5Q
Craig Tattersall and Andrew Johnson, founding members of Hood, now working together as The Remote Viewer after a brief stint as the Famous Boyfriend, are part of a peculiar strain of Very English Music with a history almost as underground and esoteric as the England’s Hidden Reverse faction of Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound. The duo is connected to operatives as diverse as Sarah Records artists Boyracer, Stewart Anderson’s 555 label, Empress, Third Eye Foundation, and potting-shed drone artist John Clyde-Evans. This back-history shores up The Remote Viewer’s aesthetic: electronic music that is melancholy and diffident, drawing on the humility and existentialism of Hood, the minimalism of Empress’ drowsy pop songs, and the indie pop of Sarah.
Let Your Heart Draw a Line is as divisive as The Remote Viewer’s other albums. The duo often teeters on the edge of misery, sounding effortlessly downcast. Some schmuck once tried to pin ‘bedroom electronica’ as a genre tag for this slightly gauche breed of introverted musing, and they almost got it right: this music is defiantly alone, happy to sit away from everyone, slightly dejected, pondering its inability to breathe life into its own quarters. When The Remote Viewer fall into this trap, they are no different to the drippy skulking and perpetual underachievement of so many discs clogging the release schedules of imprints like Morr Music and The Leaf Label.
Thankfully, the duo often escapes the wallow intrinsic to so much modern bedroom music. Let Your Heart Draw a Line excels when they discover a ‘lexicon of intimacy’ - where their diminutive songs imply familiarity and warmth. This is audible in the hesitant breaths that puncture “Kindtransport” or the unsticking of guest vocalist Nicola Hodgkinson’s lips at the beginning of “Take Your Lights With You.” It’s not just the human voice that offers this ‘out,’ as instrumentals like “To Completion” gleam with delicate detail, essaying resonant miniatures that – as with the best of this sub-set of electronica, such as Colleen, To Rococo Rot, and Fennesz – privilege space and restraint, allowing a kind of semi-ambivalence that hints at emotional responses rather than floundering in melancholy indulgence. If The Remote Viewer’s bloodlines are awkward indie and pastoral pop, they could do well to emphasize the pastoral and its plenitude of expressive contours, rather than the mawkish sentiment that bogs down some of their output. Because a good portion of Let Your Heart Draw a Line is undeniably lovely - music that’s small but quietly proud, a late-night exegesis on transitory states.
* * *
Piano Magic - "Disaffected"
01. You Can Hear the Room
http://s7.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=357QDGNRYDNM10MJXDAGXKCKFW
02. Love & Music
http://s7.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3IGUERYHZG4DC0QTCPMKP5UUH7
03. Night of the Hunter
http://s6.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=01SU8TO3H8XZL1Z5UL983VMB5B
04. Disaffected
http://s6.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=36R1JTRR8TGGD0O2CUGR2OJIXJ
05. Theory of Ghosts
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=15NO1UZ8H8XVJ3DPBLAZTHNAC4
06. Your Ghost
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2W6XMJQUNEZNW182TKSV51B5MT
07. I Must Leave London
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3R4N3J7IZ98IN12FA51S7TRQ9A
08. Deleted Scenes
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0EFIR3CDL1JDM1RBRAGM899Z6I
09. The Nostalgist
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2R8O84N4OJ6EK03HTDAJ0B55X9
10. You Can Never Get Lost (When you've Nowhere to Go)
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0QMTVXE7FW5AE0RA7RVB0C7SEN
11. Deleted Scenes (extended mix)
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2R2635QQ33SO433BGX59HMRH9G
Cover art (front)
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0Z8BLB90DCIJY0WB7SPZT8D3UN
Cover Art (back)
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3CI9X7Y9N48SW1F274NUY0AMEC
If, as the title implies, Glen Johnson (the main man behind Piano Magic) is merely disaffected, it's disturbing to consider what he might come up with if he were actually feeling sad or depressed. The album cover gives a pretty good idea of the most likely response to Disaffected's overwhelmingly bleak outlook. Even taking into account the oddly dancefloor-oriented beat that Johnson adds to the album's final track (an extended remix of "Deleted Scenes"), nothing on Disaffected could be described in upbeat terms; all is dark and melancholy, from the music to the lyrics to Johnson's haunted (and haunting) vocals.
Of course, as Johnson demonstrates throughout the album, even darkness possesses a multitude of shades and degrees, and hearing him explore them is what makes Disaffected such an intriguing listen. In opener "You Can Hear The Room", for example, icy synths back Johnson's claustrophobic lyrics ("You can hear the room on these long winter nights") as he captures winter's oppressive gloom, while on "Night of The Hunter" a ringing guitar line that wouldn't sound out of place on a downtempo Coldplay anthem is undermined by creepy, menacing lyrics like "Sleep tight, this snowy night / For spring, you will never see again", and "I'm twenty steps from the funeral / I'm twenty steps from your last breath." There's urban fatigue in "I Must Leave London" ("It is bad for my soul / It is making a hole that will erode me"), disconnection and alienation from friends and acquaintances in "Deleted Scenes", and a general fear of both the past and the future. You'll hear it in "The Nostalgist", as "I can't get on because I live in the past" gives way to "The present is imperfect and the future, well, it's conditional", and in "You Can Never Get Lost (When You've Nowhere To Go)", when Johnson sings, "I will haunt myself blind".
It goes without saying that heartbreak features prominently on Disaffected's maudlin menu -- but in the downbeat double-bill "Theory of Ghosts" and "Your Ghost", the idea of being unable to let go of someone takes on an entirely new (and distinctly unsettling) dimension. In "Theory", Johnson sings, "I've a theory of girls / They always seem to leave in the spring / As if they know that it hurts more to carry a heartbreak through the summer." The latter will make you wonder whether the girl in question left the relationship or this mortal coil -- note the references to skeletons, blood and "the kill".
It would be nice to be able to say that Disaffected offers occasional respite from Johnson's depressive moan -- but it doesn't. Yes, he sings "I met a girl who said she loved me" in "Love & Music", but that's followed by "I hadn't heard those words before." He goes on to sing, "All I need is love and music / Love and music 'til I die", giving the impression that he can't wait for that eventuality to come to pass. The gloominess pervades, even when Johnson isn't providing the vocals -- on the title track, Angèle David-Guillou provides a female contrast, but she's singing about being worked to death! "The rain makes me happy," she concludes, as if that somehow turns the mood around.
So yes, Disaffected is depressing -- but it's still worth hearing. Piano Magic capture despair, in all its many forms, with uncanny accuracy; it's fascinating to hear an artist give the emotion such depth. It may be music to slit your wrists by, but at least you'll be humming when you go.
* * *
The Montgolfier Brothers - "All my Bad Thoughts"
01. The First Rumours of Spring
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0G8CZDKSOTOJW0ZYA28CMXVA0J
02. Don't Get Upset if I...
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=01V8XFOZ0K0C2G91V76XFIB50
03. All my Bad Thoughts
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3KRCT7D93WJBU2A94XEQLMSKXP
04. Sins & Omissions
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=078ACTSR3S8AU0PEI6PJG39FVF
05. Stopping for Breath
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0TGB97N0PPA5N3AYDYJXGJUW4N
06. Koffee Pot
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=14APCSSIUZXPT0W2Y4MGSDCXQW
07. Brecht's Last Waltz (Summer is Over)
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2A5DUKV9W23IX3PA73HFIJ0SZW
08. Quite an Adventure
http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1KZRZKEQPMJUS2W6EBV4OJ35PU
09. Journey's End
http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=162JUT39AN06Q2RTF1LN3QDKPA
10. It's Over, It's Ended, It's Finished
http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1H5JOYJX0YERP1IFK21CI13I3Q
The Montgolfier Brothers' "World is Flat" (which I wrote about here, and which you can listen to here,) is an incredibly sad song. It's a song of smiling rock-bottom, of standing at a window with empty hands. And I never thought that Roger Quigley would stay in that unhappy place. It's with some worry, therefore, that I listen to All My Bad Thoughts and find that things have not got much brighter for him. The Montgolfier Brothers are stuck in the bluegrey dawn hours when everything feels hopeless, when everything is painted beautiful. "Journey's End" is a song of horrific loss, of paralysis, of longing. It's the opposite of Xiu Xiu's inward cursing - The Montgolfier Brothers look out, across the town, to where the former lover is sleeping; they look out, around the world, to where the sun is curving to greet them; they look out, out, out, to all the places they've ever gone, they've ever kissed, they've ever felt happy. The piano plays with a sharp loveliness, a circling serenade, but there under its surface is the wreck, the dread, the awful f***ing inevitability of things that have already happened.
Hood - "Outside Closer"
The Remote Viewer - "Let your Heart Draw a Line"
Piano Magic - "Disaffected"
The Montgolfier Brothers - "All my Bad Thoughts"
Hood - "Outside Closer"
01. (Int)
http://s6.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2B6K5RE4LBH5F161EI4DJ1O1R1
02. The Negatives
http://s56.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3RXF4GYORT5KH3JUECN2GYI923
03. Any Hopeful Thoughts Arrive
http://s65.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0LPXLH6D4V9A03BWVNBYIO6FMI
04. End of One Train Working
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1Z3DTAM6JKP8933SXLXRHHLBCT
05. Winter '72
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=22R75AWS5K1KV1DHW1WLVZ7A4T
06. The Lost You
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2G7RW7RA35Y1G04LM5ZOCDFRNK
07. Still Rain Fell
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3S8B9293MM3MT0X79ZJBYLWOGW
08. L. Fading Hills
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=30JX1P08XJS130ZFK8XHJBDW90
09. Closure
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2UCSYD6540FY011Z3N2D020KDU
10. This is it, Forever
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2M8DT5KMZ6DE80RO6TUYFWE3CU
Go outside on the coldest, snowiest day of the year. Take off your coat, your hat, your gloves, whatever's keeping you warm. Lie down in the snow. Stay there for as long as you can. When the cold has seeped into your limbs and you're beginning to feel sleepy, gather your things and go inside. Again, remove as much clothing as you can, then find a warm spot and sit, and wait.
Outside Closer is the sound of people thawing.
Hood tap into a peculiar, pastoral vein of sensory constriction. Their songs are surrounded in haze, unresolved detail, half-glimpsed notions, third-generation copies of Platonic ideals. Unlike so much of today's music, they offer few if any obvious, toe-curling payoffs on your four- to seven-minute investment; the attraction is the warm, insular, slightly uncomfortable world they create. It's a love-it-or-hate-it place -- a land of quiet, lonely Sunday afternoons, stage one mourning, sense-sapping sickness, crushing depression and that sharp but distant tingle you feel as circulation gradually returns to your extremities. It's possible, at times like these, that nothing exists beyond the music's gauzy veil; sounds that should lessen your feeling of isolation instead enhance and focus it back at you. Creepy, isn't it?
"The Negatives" is Outside Closer's first blurry jolt. Rich strings, solemn acoustic guitar and a reverse-gated accordion-type instrument mingle over a tambourine and handclap-spiced rhythm track; it floods in like a migraine, imposing its jingling lockstep rhythm on your every movement, the breathy, half-heard vocals sighing like late-night confessions. "There isn't any space for love any more," they sing. "And if you know the feeling then you'll surely go / to the furthest place from your house / stand there a while / Make sure you’re broke / And watch the birds fly round." It's hard to say what's so bleak and alien about the image -- the distance? The loneliness? -- but simply pondering the group's instructions can induce depression.
"Any Hopeful Thoughts Arrive"'s choppy, IDM-ish beats build to a more satisfying peak -- crashing cymbals, sighing strings, soaring horns and glitchy drums creating random capsules of instrumental perfection that'll make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. By contrast, "Winter 72" threatens an even louder conflagration for its first few minutes, but always sidesteps: we hear the noise bursts, the phasing effects and the reverb in the distance, as if they're happening down the hall while we're mired in plodding beats. "The Lost You" initially regurgitates its melody in little blasts of sound, bargain-basement glitch bursts that sound as if they were made by manipulating a two-position switch. Once it gets going, the song pits overbearing melodic thrusts against a plateau of blunted chimes -- a sensory drubbing that could give you the shakes if you're the delicate type.
That's the point when Outside Closer begins its long, slow slide into abject depression. "L. Fading Hills" is the sound of a feverish Brian Wilson imagining that he's Amon Tobin. "Closure"'s threadbare isolation offers no closure whatsoever. Closer "This Is It, Forever" is a hidden track you can't find -- oblique, encoded emotion that's either too far away to understand or too close to process.
Keep the Prozac close when you finish the album. Outside Closer is maddeningly indirect, and the diminishing returns of its final minutes might make you wonder why you invested the time in the first place. But honestly, how many albums can claim to have so palpable an effect? When was the last time you finished listening to a record and didn't want to be touched for a few minutes? Outside Closer is a treacherously slippery slope of misfired emotions, capable of triggering self-loathing, cautious joy -- even paranoia. It will leave you feeling drained, prickly, nervous, angry... and far more attuned to your emotions as they continue to thaw.
* * *
The Remote Viewer - "let your Heart Draw a Line"
01. They're Closing Down the Shop
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2UI8GQ71B8HPD2VF1ZFCXQNRFW
02. To Completion
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=12KWQXRNSVTIQ2QYT29HMAERJU
03. Sometimes, you Can't Decide
http://s18.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2NPTTKFPM88B51L0O9HSTXC6F5
04. Last Night you Said Goodbye, Now it Seems Years
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=26BKKGCRN7IBV0UIMXZD8TJ259
05. Take your Lights with You
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=17NCUQPMXTY7L0LDLJF6U3OCCT
06. I'm Sad Feeling!
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2UD9IZ91JODF905PZI5EIBE8HH
07. The f***ing Bleeding Hearts Brigade
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0FSPCMHEJWJ1Q37URBHB1KLUDO
08. It's So Funny how we Don't Talk Anymore
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2UMJM0W0MHQYB2XGL8LR9FOYX7
09. Kindtransport
http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1M2KRHOBUGDUU0AI3RAJ6MQ0X8
10. How Did you Both Look me in the Eye?
http://s7.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1AO36AAAZ698N3C9U1IDSRC67O
Cover art [lp] (front)
http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=19T6JN33IXE1I2TRCPRB6J5IYS
Cover art [lp] (back)
http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0XJPK0XTOTWYW0TU94IFMCQP5Q
Craig Tattersall and Andrew Johnson, founding members of Hood, now working together as The Remote Viewer after a brief stint as the Famous Boyfriend, are part of a peculiar strain of Very English Music with a history almost as underground and esoteric as the England’s Hidden Reverse faction of Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound. The duo is connected to operatives as diverse as Sarah Records artists Boyracer, Stewart Anderson’s 555 label, Empress, Third Eye Foundation, and potting-shed drone artist John Clyde-Evans. This back-history shores up The Remote Viewer’s aesthetic: electronic music that is melancholy and diffident, drawing on the humility and existentialism of Hood, the minimalism of Empress’ drowsy pop songs, and the indie pop of Sarah.
Let Your Heart Draw a Line is as divisive as The Remote Viewer’s other albums. The duo often teeters on the edge of misery, sounding effortlessly downcast. Some schmuck once tried to pin ‘bedroom electronica’ as a genre tag for this slightly gauche breed of introverted musing, and they almost got it right: this music is defiantly alone, happy to sit away from everyone, slightly dejected, pondering its inability to breathe life into its own quarters. When The Remote Viewer fall into this trap, they are no different to the drippy skulking and perpetual underachievement of so many discs clogging the release schedules of imprints like Morr Music and The Leaf Label.
Thankfully, the duo often escapes the wallow intrinsic to so much modern bedroom music. Let Your Heart Draw a Line excels when they discover a ‘lexicon of intimacy’ - where their diminutive songs imply familiarity and warmth. This is audible in the hesitant breaths that puncture “Kindtransport” or the unsticking of guest vocalist Nicola Hodgkinson’s lips at the beginning of “Take Your Lights With You.” It’s not just the human voice that offers this ‘out,’ as instrumentals like “To Completion” gleam with delicate detail, essaying resonant miniatures that – as with the best of this sub-set of electronica, such as Colleen, To Rococo Rot, and Fennesz – privilege space and restraint, allowing a kind of semi-ambivalence that hints at emotional responses rather than floundering in melancholy indulgence. If The Remote Viewer’s bloodlines are awkward indie and pastoral pop, they could do well to emphasize the pastoral and its plenitude of expressive contours, rather than the mawkish sentiment that bogs down some of their output. Because a good portion of Let Your Heart Draw a Line is undeniably lovely - music that’s small but quietly proud, a late-night exegesis on transitory states.
* * *
Piano Magic - "Disaffected"
01. You Can Hear the Room
http://s7.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=357QDGNRYDNM10MJXDAGXKCKFW
02. Love & Music
http://s7.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3IGUERYHZG4DC0QTCPMKP5UUH7
03. Night of the Hunter
http://s6.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=01SU8TO3H8XZL1Z5UL983VMB5B
04. Disaffected
http://s6.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=36R1JTRR8TGGD0O2CUGR2OJIXJ
05. Theory of Ghosts
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=15NO1UZ8H8XVJ3DPBLAZTHNAC4
06. Your Ghost
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2W6XMJQUNEZNW182TKSV51B5MT
07. I Must Leave London
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3R4N3J7IZ98IN12FA51S7TRQ9A
08. Deleted Scenes
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0EFIR3CDL1JDM1RBRAGM899Z6I
09. The Nostalgist
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2R8O84N4OJ6EK03HTDAJ0B55X9
10. You Can Never Get Lost (When you've Nowhere to Go)
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0QMTVXE7FW5AE0RA7RVB0C7SEN
11. Deleted Scenes (extended mix)
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2R2635QQ33SO433BGX59HMRH9G
Cover art (front)
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0Z8BLB90DCIJY0WB7SPZT8D3UN
Cover Art (back)
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3CI9X7Y9N48SW1F274NUY0AMEC
If, as the title implies, Glen Johnson (the main man behind Piano Magic) is merely disaffected, it's disturbing to consider what he might come up with if he were actually feeling sad or depressed. The album cover gives a pretty good idea of the most likely response to Disaffected's overwhelmingly bleak outlook. Even taking into account the oddly dancefloor-oriented beat that Johnson adds to the album's final track (an extended remix of "Deleted Scenes"), nothing on Disaffected could be described in upbeat terms; all is dark and melancholy, from the music to the lyrics to Johnson's haunted (and haunting) vocals.
Of course, as Johnson demonstrates throughout the album, even darkness possesses a multitude of shades and degrees, and hearing him explore them is what makes Disaffected such an intriguing listen. In opener "You Can Hear The Room", for example, icy synths back Johnson's claustrophobic lyrics ("You can hear the room on these long winter nights") as he captures winter's oppressive gloom, while on "Night of The Hunter" a ringing guitar line that wouldn't sound out of place on a downtempo Coldplay anthem is undermined by creepy, menacing lyrics like "Sleep tight, this snowy night / For spring, you will never see again", and "I'm twenty steps from the funeral / I'm twenty steps from your last breath." There's urban fatigue in "I Must Leave London" ("It is bad for my soul / It is making a hole that will erode me"), disconnection and alienation from friends and acquaintances in "Deleted Scenes", and a general fear of both the past and the future. You'll hear it in "The Nostalgist", as "I can't get on because I live in the past" gives way to "The present is imperfect and the future, well, it's conditional", and in "You Can Never Get Lost (When You've Nowhere To Go)", when Johnson sings, "I will haunt myself blind".
It goes without saying that heartbreak features prominently on Disaffected's maudlin menu -- but in the downbeat double-bill "Theory of Ghosts" and "Your Ghost", the idea of being unable to let go of someone takes on an entirely new (and distinctly unsettling) dimension. In "Theory", Johnson sings, "I've a theory of girls / They always seem to leave in the spring / As if they know that it hurts more to carry a heartbreak through the summer." The latter will make you wonder whether the girl in question left the relationship or this mortal coil -- note the references to skeletons, blood and "the kill".
It would be nice to be able to say that Disaffected offers occasional respite from Johnson's depressive moan -- but it doesn't. Yes, he sings "I met a girl who said she loved me" in "Love & Music", but that's followed by "I hadn't heard those words before." He goes on to sing, "All I need is love and music / Love and music 'til I die", giving the impression that he can't wait for that eventuality to come to pass. The gloominess pervades, even when Johnson isn't providing the vocals -- on the title track, Angèle David-Guillou provides a female contrast, but she's singing about being worked to death! "The rain makes me happy," she concludes, as if that somehow turns the mood around.
So yes, Disaffected is depressing -- but it's still worth hearing. Piano Magic capture despair, in all its many forms, with uncanny accuracy; it's fascinating to hear an artist give the emotion such depth. It may be music to slit your wrists by, but at least you'll be humming when you go.
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The Montgolfier Brothers - "All my Bad Thoughts"
01. The First Rumours of Spring
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02. Don't Get Upset if I...
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03. All my Bad Thoughts
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3KRCT7D93WJBU2A94XEQLMSKXP
04. Sins & Omissions
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=078ACTSR3S8AU0PEI6PJG39FVF
05. Stopping for Breath
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0TGB97N0PPA5N3AYDYJXGJUW4N
06. Koffee Pot
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=14APCSSIUZXPT0W2Y4MGSDCXQW
07. Brecht's Last Waltz (Summer is Over)
http://s15.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2A5DUKV9W23IX3PA73HFIJ0SZW
08. Quite an Adventure
http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1KZRZKEQPMJUS2W6EBV4OJ35PU
09. Journey's End
http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=162JUT39AN06Q2RTF1LN3QDKPA
10. It's Over, It's Ended, It's Finished
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The Montgolfier Brothers' "World is Flat" (which I wrote about here, and which you can listen to here,) is an incredibly sad song. It's a song of smiling rock-bottom, of standing at a window with empty hands. And I never thought that Roger Quigley would stay in that unhappy place. It's with some worry, therefore, that I listen to All My Bad Thoughts and find that things have not got much brighter for him. The Montgolfier Brothers are stuck in the bluegrey dawn hours when everything feels hopeless, when everything is painted beautiful. "Journey's End" is a song of horrific loss, of paralysis, of longing. It's the opposite of Xiu Xiu's inward cursing - The Montgolfier Brothers look out, across the town, to where the former lover is sleeping; they look out, around the world, to where the sun is curving to greet them; they look out, out, out, to all the places they've ever gone, they've ever kissed, they've ever felt happy. The piano plays with a sharp loveliness, a circling serenade, but there under its surface is the wreck, the dread, the awful f***ing inevitability of things that have already happened.