Rose-Coloured Brainpan II

"Felt So Lonely in Your Company"

[This is one post in a series about my music mixes.  The series list has links to all posts in the series and also definitions of many of the terms I use.  You may wish to read the introduction for more background.  You may also want to check out the first volume in this multi-volume mix for more info on its theme.

Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

It’s time for another installment of my nostalgia-tinged mix, Rose-Coloured Brainpan.  There’s not a whole lot of deviation from the general theme, although perhaps there’s a touch more sadness this time out.  But the amazing thing is: there’s not a single repeat artist here on volume II.  I can’t think of any other of my mixes that can make that claim.

Our volume title this time, in case you didn’t recognize it, is from the mega-popular¹ “Somebody That I Used to Know,” by Belgian-born Australian-raised Gotye (the female vocal is provided by New Zealander Kimbra).  And it’s probably the main reason I think this volume has taken a small dip towards the more depressing end of the spectrum: Gotye’s plaintive wail speaks of real heartbreak, and some of the lyrics, such as his admonition that his former lover didn’t have to “have your friends collect your records and then change your number,” can awaken a pain that most of us have also felt.  But I do feel there’s a weird sense of nostalgia even here, that the narrator is remembering the relationship as somehow both better (“you said you felt so happy you could die”) and worse (“I’ll admit that I was glad that it was over”) than it probably actually was.  I absolutely feel there’s some selective recasting of past events going on in this song, and that’s really what this mix is all about.

We have a couple of songs from soundtracks here: “Hideaway” (by Karen O and the Kids, off Where the Wild Things Are) and “Calling All Angels” (by Jane Siberry, off Until the End of the World).  Soundtracks tend to be mixed bags in my experience.  Sometimes they’re just good collections of already extant songs (like Reservoir Dogs) and sometimes they’re instrumental snippets that are useful in certain very specific mix situations but not that consistent overall (like Four Rooms) and sometimes they’re a bit of both (like Beetlejuice or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).  It’s pretty rare for a soundtrack to consist of all great songs that you mostly can’t find anywhere else ... off the top of my head, only Pretty in Pink and The Lost Boys spring to mind.  These two soundtracks fall into the first camp: there are a few good songs sprinkled on them, but these are pretty much the stand-outs.²  “Calling All Angels” in particular is emotionally stirring, with its gorgeous vocals by Siberry and k.d. lang, neither of whom I find particualrly musically compelling under normal circumstances.  But this song is beautiful.  Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs³ did all the songs on Spike Jonze’s bizarre-but-fun Where the Wild Things Are (except one) and this one is the clear winner for me: it’s a slow burn that never really builds to a crescendo, with some beautiful cymbal splashes and the soft plink of what might be a xylophone or glockenspiel.

And, speaking of the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, the Psychedelic Furs are here too, with what I’ve always thought was their best song, “The Ghost in You.” In fact, I draw on my love of alternative music in general and 80s alternative in particular quite a bit here: there’s tracks from R.E.M., the Cure, a bit of a chilling tale about the birth of the atomic bomb from House of Freaks, another amazing vocal performance from Alf Moyet singing with Vince Clark’s synths as Yazoo,⁴ and a pretty tune by one-hit wonders Danny Wilson, who exist in the company of artists such as Jethro Tull, Harvey Danger, Franz Ferdinand, Rilo Kiley, and Tashaki Miyaki: no, those “people” don’t exist; they’re just band names.  There’s also a beautiful tune from Naked Eyes, who are weirdly unique amongst one-hit wonders of the 80s.  To start with, they’re more like two-hit wonders: both “Promises Promises” and “There’s Always Something There to Remind Me” were huge in the 80s.  Other classic 80s one-hits had multiple albums in the 80s: a-ha (“Take On Me”) had 3, the Outfield (“Your Love”) also had 3, and Big Country (“In a Big Country”) had 4—and just in the 80s.  All 3 of those bands continued releasing albums through the 90s and beyond ... hell, they’ve all released at least one album in the last 10 years.  But the entirety of the Naked Eyes output is one blockbuster album from 1983, a disappointing follow-up from the following year, and a few compilations thereafter.  Half the band (a duo from Bath, England, which was itself half of an obscure band called Neon, the other half of which was Tears for Fears)—a.k.a. Rob Fisher—died in 1999, so they don’t even get to participate in all the revival tours that their contemporaries are enjoying.  And this is a shame, because at least that first album (Burning Bridges) is brilliant: a glittering synthpop masterpiece, easily comparable to Upstairs at Eric’s, Some Great Reward, or the stand-out from their old bandmates, Songs from the Big Chair.  Nearly every song on it is good at a minimum, and some are beyond great.  “Could Be” is probably the synthpoppiest of my 80s choices here (which range from the jangle-poppy ”(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” to the goth-poppy “In Between Days” to the folk-poppy “Dark and Light in New Mexico”), but it’s a quiet, contemplative track, dripping with synth and drum machine, backed by the sounds of rain and distant traffic.  The others are all great too, but probably only the Psych Furs selection comes close; “The Ghost in You” seems to reimagine a time long ago when “angels fall like rain,” and ain’t that just like rain?

From the 80s, we move backwards a little bit to pick up our opener, the soft “Dog & Butterfly” by Heart (“we’re getting older; the world’s getting colder”), and forwards a little bit to recall the unfairly forgotten “Naked Rain” by This Picture, a one-hit wonder whose one hit was barely a hit, but I remember it vividly: hearing it on WHFS⁵ and marveling at its backing strings that were more Celtic than classical, and galloping drums that were somehow still understating Symon Bye’s soft, high voice who describes a woman who was

... warm, willing, deep and giving,
She is cold, chilling, painfully forgiving ...
:
:
Every branch of your body has broken;
Every arch of your body has spoken.

And if that’s not some rose-coloured nostalgia, I don’t know what is.⁶

Rose-Coloured Brainpan II
[ Felt So Lonely in Your Company ]

“Dog & Butterfly” by Heart, off Dog & Butterfly
“Mary's Prayer” by Danny Wilson, off Meet Danny Wilson
“Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye, off Making Mirrors
“Naked Rain” by This Picture, off A Violent Impression
“Hideaway” by Karen O and the Kids, off Where the Wild Things Are [Soundtrack]
“Calling All Angels” by Jane Siberry, off Until the End of the World [Soundtrack]
“Bring the Mountain Down” by Carmen Rizzo, off Looking Through Leaves
“Could Be” by Naked Eyes, off Burning Bridges
“Alayi” by Kim Robertson, off Wood, Fire & Gold
“Only You” by Yazoo, off Upstairs at Eric's
“(Don't Go Back to) Rockville” by R.E.M., off Reckoning
“Dark and Light in New Mexico” by House of Freaks, off Monkey on a Chain Gang
“The Ghost in You” by the Psychedelic Furs, off All of This and Nothing [Compilation]
“Chandelier Lake” by Tilly and the Wall, off o
“In Between Days” by the Cure, off The Head on the Door
“Please Speak Well of Me” by the Weepies, off Be My Thrill
“Write in Water” by Love Spirals Downwards, off Ardor
“In the Silence” by Jami Sieber, off Hidden Sky
“Veronique” by Pink Martini, off Hang on Little Tomato

Total:  19 tracks,  76:34

As I mentioned last time, songs on this mix don’t have to be slow.  While several that I’ve mentioned so far have been mid-tempo, there’s only one track here that I would call upbeat, and that’s “Chandelier Lake” by Tilly and the Wall, who are surely unique in the world of indie pop for having a tap dancer instead of a drummer.  Tilly can craft some alternapop gems at a level higher than anyone else I can think of (save perhaps Fountains of Wayne); this is the first we’ve heard from them, but you can bet it won’t be the last.  This track explores the place “where the water meets the land”:

Chandelier Lake is a mysterious place,
And the ghost of the woman who sleeps beneath its waves ...

It’s quite haunting.⁷  “Chandelier Lake” slides nicely into the more-or-less peppy “In Between Days” (“yesterday I got so old, it made me want to cry”) and thence into the Weepies, who we’ve also heard from a few times.  They had a slinky tune on Slithy Toves II, and a much prettier, almost aching one on Tenderhearted Nightshade I.  “Please Speak Well of Me” isn’t quite that sad, but it does have a touch of that downbeat emotion, noting that “you did what you did and that was that” and wondering “could I have been blinder?”

And, while we’re here, why not throw in some layered, dreamy tracks from Love Spirals Downwards and Carmen Rizzo?  Unsurprisingly, we heard both of these groups before on Smokelit Flashback and Shadowfall Equinox,⁸ because that’s the sort of music they normally produce.  But they have softer sides as well, and I’ve always felt “Write in Water” (by LSD) had a lyrical grace that was pining for something, and of course Rizzo’s promise to “Bring the Mountain Down” for you is nothing if not tenderly nostalgic.

We can also enjoy a harpist—the almost wordless “Alayi” from Kim Robertson—and a cellist—“In the Silence,” by Jami Sieber, now making her fifth appearance in these mixes, and still not a repeat.⁹  I can’t recall where I first heard Robertson, but I’ve had a lone MP3 of this excellent tune in my music directory seemingly forever, and I finally picked up the album it’s from (Wood, Fire & Gold) on CD last Christmas, because I couldn’t find it available digitally and I was tired of looking.  Sieber of course is another Magnatune find.¹⁰

Finally, our closer here is a rare tune from Pink Martini not sung by one of its two amazingly talented female vocalists,¹¹ but rather its occasional male vocal contributor, Timothy Nishimoto.  “Veronique” is a dreamy, jazzy song, somehow simultaneously torchlit and rain-drenched, with lyrics like

The letters I write, I never shall mail
The world is gray, wrapped in a veil ...

It’s the perfect way to end this volume of contemplative, nostalgic, and, yes, occasionally a little sad, songs for quiet times.

Next time, we’ll cross dreamy with mildly disturbing and see what comes out the other end.

⇐ Rose-Coloured Brainpan I

Rose-Coloured Brainpan III ⇒

__________

1 According to Wikipedia: “It has topped charts in the US, UK, and Australia, as well as 23 other national charts, and reached the top 10 in more than 30 countries around the world. The song has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling digital singles of all time.”

2 Also, as mediocre as they are, it’s probably the case that both soundtracks are still better than their respective movies.

3 O is another one of those one-person diversity stories: half Korean, half Polish, born in South Korea and raised in New Jersy.

4 Who we’ve heard from on such disparate mixes as Darkling Embrace, Totally Different Head, and Cantosphere Eversion.

5 I’ve talked about the importance of this DC alternative radio station before, most extensively on Salsatic Vibrato I.

6 Although I couldn’t find a digital source for you for this album, you can (of course) listen to the song on YouTube.

7 Pun mostly not intended.  Okay, maybe a little.

8 Spefically, Rizzo on Smokelit Flashback IV and Shadowfall Equinox IV, and LSD on Smokelit Flashback V and Shadowfall Equinox I.

9 Sieber formerly appeared on Shadowfall Equinox IV, Numeric Driftwood II, Smooth as Whispercats I, and Dreamtime I.

10 I told the story of how I discovered Magnatune back on Rose-Coloured Brainpan I.

11 They would be China Forbes (who is a cousin of John Kerry, I just discovered) and Storm Large.