33 rebellions per minute
"Cuz we ain't got school in the morning"
1997
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, BARAFUNDLE
I've noticed, writing these reviews, that while I do use words like
"attractive", "pretty", "beautiful", and "gorgeous" to flatter a piece
of music--- indeed, enough so that I really need to think of some
synonyms, especially since they aren't interchangeable but more like
succesive points on a continuum--- there always seems to be a catch: I'm
describing 5 songs out of 19, or one element of a sound that otherwise,
one can quickly assume, is vile cacaphony. But when a maximum-prettiness
diet is what I want, I listen to BARAFUNDLE. This could, on close
examination, seem to be the failed exception that proves the rule. After
all, you might think, there have to be pretty records that don't include
tracks like "Merion Wyllt", where the bassist twice interrupts with his
best imitation of Cliff Burton (in Cliff's days of being alive and with
Metallica, that is) while the electric violin is switched to "screech".
You might insist that some pretty albums don't have "Miniature
Kingdoms", where the brass fanfare that opens and ends has little to do
with the folky interpinnings, and the march for overcaffinated men with
broken feet comes out of nowhere (and what's that dissonant bass rumble
you can just barely hear, anyway?). And "Barafundle Bumbler" has those
classic-sounding ominous chords for a brief appearance or two.
Frankly, though, you're being too picky, focusing on exceptions. This is
a truly lovely record, strongly influenced by Robert Wyatt and by
PRESERVATION SOCIETY Kinks but tracing its origins back to many eras
before that. Classical and folk guitar, not rock; brass and woodwinds
and violins, piano and tambourines, gently harmonized vocals, a
synthesizer set at shimmery and whooshy settings. To a music scholar,
the eclecticism's got to be stunning, a hundred year range of pop
stylings when it's not reaching further back than that, and advertising
had already developed fully enough that fashionable people in 1928 were
fully qualified to sneer "Ugh! How 1922!". Then again, it once was
obvious to the educated classes that Bach and Mahler were polar
opposites, but today both of them sit with Andy Partridge and Stephen
Sondheim and Steve Kilbey and Tom Petty among my Mom's favorite
composers and I, stuck with my generation on po-mo replay, think "Not
bad for an old lady, I guess". Still, even _I_ can tell that if you
start and end a song ("Pen Gway Glas") with a minor-key early choral
arrangement, it's not supposed to switch to pedal steel, then a jaunty
bit with pounding drums and noises a la the BBC Radiophonics Workshop.
Nor does any of that connect to "Cursed, Cloned, Crucified", which
sounds like a baroque composer trying to land a 2:27 single in the 1963
pop charts, and all of this seems removed from the frequent lightly
Broadway vibe.
Nor does it have to connect; it's all, um, pretty. Really, really
pretty. I might have doubts about artistic intent: a sweet lyric like
"and if you really want to kiss her, then go ahead and say. Isn't it a
lovely day?" seems a bit sabotaged by immediately bringing in guitar,
doubling the speed, and starting to sing in rapid Welsh. And I dare
suspect sarcasm in "Diamond Dew", where the loveliest arrangement of the
whole year goes with "Awake, awake, to love and work, poppies in the
sky. Fields are wet, diamond dew, what a way to cry. Child comes home,
home from school, singing melodies. Love is warm, perfect room, house by
the sea. And we'll think it all again", the suspicious last line kicking
off a hard-charging country-rock chorus with harmonica, a sproinging l
ike a field recording of music made by and for a tribe of rubber bands,
and lyrics referencing "interring corpses", "Mom is high" and
"disobeying child". But of course, since when did I object to
smart-alecks? And if you do object, then relax, enjoy the music, and
don't think. It's such great music to not-think by.
Links to other sites on the Web
© 1997 bokonin@hotmail.com
Get your own Free Home Page