imPermanence Series, on music, personal experiences, personal work, Put It Directly Into My Veins

Put It Directly Into My Veins – 6

Posted by fernand de Beauvoir on
«I discern a subtle stream
Converging in the quiet
Just behind the silence
My mind has slipped inside it »
from the series imPermanence — Kyoto, Japan 2013
[ photo by fernand de Beauvoir ]

it is inevitable that at some point it gets dark– arguably, there is more songs of the ilk scattered about. well, there is this notion that Joy Division is depressing, and I see it as poetic and introspective. this grouping is set off by “She’s Lost Control”, which Massive Attack into a darker atmosphere, while Crystal Stilts stays within the confines, and That Petrol Emotion takes the motorik aspects and blows it up.

songs affecting one listener, in no particular order,
just grouped whimsically, yet with some intuitive connection:
either historically, situationally, or for the groove of it all.
  1. “Group Four” : could Trip-Hop go “here? regardless of the tracks before this most magnificent album, and the presence of Elizabeth Fraser, I did not expect this turn (and end). all of a sudden, there was a straight line from the warm/cozy atmosphere of how Joy Division resides in my mind to this song… and it came from Trip-Hop? I wanted to hear more like this, which was not abundant, but Sneaker Pimps did deliver soon after, and Exploded View more recently. other Post-Punk band did deliver in aspects of Joy Division’s indoctrination, though not like this. (there is Modern English‘s first album, Elizabeth Fraser‘s Cocteau Twins, Wire… but nothing arrived like this song does — indeed, this at times feels like a great distillation of Wire‘s 154 and Joy Division‘s Closer.)

  2. “She’s Lost Control”: OK, there it is. arguably my favorite group. the impression is that Closer has been played about once per week (on average) since it was acquired, and yet this is the only song in the entire list. Why? well, the band’s small output was devoured within a short amount of time, thus the impact of all the dynamics from Joy Division are immediate— unlike Wire or Tindersticks, which was over a longer period of time, and many songs would expand the naturalness of my listening tastes. this song is chosen, because I did not want to mull this over all the songs that can be here, and it was to point a direction that New Order would take.

  3. “Converging In The Quiet” : in the 2010s, there were a few groups that really rekindled the spirit of what dives deep into the visceral experience from music. Crystal Stilts were one of them, and this was the first song that latched as “this is important”. not only it brings a memory trigger of Post-Punk, but also a way to find an appeal of many 60s bands.

  4. “Blue To Black” : The Who had the use of synth (or wattevs) run through “Baba O’Rilley”, back at the beginning of the 70s. yet, That Petrol Emotion makes it hum, and explode in this track. at the time, I was not familiar at all (in the music I listened) with the concept of sampling. this was phenomenal. but where to turn? Massive Attack, and in some ways Drum ‘n’ Bass would point the way to other very appealing uses of sampling, culminating in the migration of The Notwist into the usage of samplers — and doing it live, which was superb. live, this song was all kind of intense. wow.

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