Deeper Into Music Blog

I freely admit it.  I have a number of guilty musical pleasures: songs and bands that I would be slightly embarrassed that anyone knew I adored or enjoyed sneaking a listen to from time to time.  One of those passions is for classic prog rock, or at least, a subset of it.

Now, Deeper Into Music doesn’t feature a lot of prog rock – yeah, there’s a little Genesis and a couple of Yes tunes, but it’s certainly not a staple.  However, in the mid 70s when I was about 14 or 15 I began a secret love-affair with prog.  It started with Styx and Kansas (both of which I can no longer bear to listen to) but in time journeyed beyond to Yes, early Genesis, a few select Rush tunes, then Gong, and King Crimson.  The complex rhythms, the sci-fi over- and undertones, the lack of pat 3-minute expressions was transporting to my young ears.

When punk came along I didn’t feel the urge to tear down this pomposity, I felt these musics could co-exist and there was a time when I’d play a Ramones album and follow it with “Supper’s Ready.”  Yet, I was rather publicly quiet about my secret.  It wouldn’t do to be progger at college radio!

These days when I listen to prog, it’s normally out of nostalgia more than anything else.  I’ve tried to listen to modern prog bands (and there are a slew of them), but I often feel like they’re .. well… trying too hard.  They are often too full-on prog and forget to slap in a melody or allow a song greater depth via quiet passages.  That’s  overgeneralizing, yes.  But, thus far, I haven’t had a great deal of patience with neo-prog.  I really felt my prog days were over and the sort of thing you come back to when you remember high school, or something…

Starcastle - Fountains of Light

And, so, it was a surprise to me when I logged in to Napster the other night to take a look and listen around to some tunes that I decided quite by chance to check out Starcastle.  I knew there were sort of B-level 70s prog band from around Chicago often compared to Yes but I’d never really spent much time with them.  I’d read that “Fountains of Light” was considered among their top works.  So, I clicked on it.

As the sounds spewed out of my speakers, I could not help smiling.  It did sound like a “great lost 70s” Yes album in many respects.  And it’s better than B-level.  It’s not for everyone and I’m sure that some of you are rolling your eyes or shouting out your disgust.  But, for me, at least, this is a warm-fuzzy discovery and it brought back a little of the nearly overwhelming joy that I used to experience when I’d find a new sound when the worlds seemed fully of new sounds.

Now, I still hear new sounds that are awe-inspiring.  But, there’s something about discovering or re-discovering something that feels at once familiar and fresh.  Like finding an old photo album of your childhood.

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In Philip Gröning’s 2005 documentary Into Great Silence we spend almost three hours in the company of monks who’ve taken a lifelong oath of silence in a Swiss monastery. This lush beautiful film gives us a fleeting sense of a life of profound, ascetic quietude.

It’s a paradox, of course, for a sound medium to talk about silence. Simon and Garfunkel famously sang about silence – the poetically contradictory construct of the sounds of silence – in their 1965 hit.

The other side of this are those songs that remind us about sound, words and listening. “That’s the sound of the men, working on the chain gang…” The backbeat of the song is driven by a kind of simulated hammer and stone sound, punctuated by the narrator/singer who tells us what those men are longing for, “You can hear ‘em saying, hmmm, I’m going home…”

The Cascades’ 1962 hit “Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain” begins with the crash of a thunder clap and the rush of an ensuing storm as the backdrop to a lover’s lament. The lyrics suggest that the sound of the rain might be more important than any words the singer has to say, that maybe there’s some information in that non-verbal sound that we could all benefit from.

Context is everything. When Gladys Knight sings that she heard it through the grape vine, she’s framing that, while she does have a certain amount of information, she heard it through secondary and tertiary sources. She sings directly to her lover, needing to hear it directly from him: “How much longer will you be mine?”

In the Beatles’ “Do You Want to Know a Secret” (1963), Paul McCartney first instructs, then queries his listener: “Listen – ooh wah ooh – do you want to know a secret – ooh wah ooh – do you promise not to tell…Oh…Closer – ooh wah ooh – let me whisper in your ear…” It’s a song about longing, telling and listening, specifically whispering, and even more specifically a wish to whisper in the most anatomically auspicious site, the location where the softest whisper has the highest probability for maximum reception: the ear.

Even seemingly simple lyrical constructs remind us that someone is talking (or singing) and we’re listening, such as when Ray Charles raucously rhymes “Hey, hey,” with “that’s what I say…”

More currently, a band called Thursday has produced a lovely echo-chamber dirge called “In Silence,” which accompanies an odd, flickering, black and white animation. Neither the video, nor the tune itself, exactly points to something obvious about silence, or sound, for that matter. But on another level it is perfectly articulate about itself and is somehow broodingly true.

The National - High Violet

Unafraid of dynamics, the ebb and flow of music, The National’s “England” from their recent release “High Violet” delivers a pastoral expanse that lives up to its name.  Tension and release are key components of music that seeks to lift itself above the dance floor and this song overflows with it.  A winning combination of smart lyrics and tight structures elevate this swagger of a song beyond just about anything heretofore released by The National.  Timeless, towering majestic cathedral sonics disperse a quiet despair.

You can hear the professionalism documented in a recent New York Times review of the band.  The layers and exacting studio mastery impact the experience of this song.  The song segues interestingly with Kate Bush’s “Oh England My Lionhart” and XTC’s “Desert Island”.  Here it’s the American looking across the ocean, there it’s the countrymen looking inward.

Someone send a runner
Through the weather that I’m under
For the feeling that I lost today
Someone send a runner
For the feeling that I lost today

The National have been making albums for just under 10 years, having formed in 1999 in Brooklyn, NY.  Perhaps the coattail effect and wide acceptance of Coldplay have helped these American songsters find an audience.  It has been certainly seen a well-deserved Top 5 Billboard album ranking.  This strong song is in heavy airplay now at Deeper Into Music.

I hope to add more material from The National in the weeks ahead.  The more I listen to their body of work the more impressive it gets.

What are your thoughts?  Leave a comment.