Saturday, January 28, 2017

Musical ear rekindled

Two artists have lately seen a resurgence in my playlists - Keane and Bjork. I had liked them earlier, during my college days. Revisiting them led in liking turning into love. Chiefly, it were the lyrics that got me this time. That which one hadn't noticed before rises up to the perceptional surface on a future revisit, and that is the hallmark of good songs. Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know", and Bjork's "Bachelorette", were the respective tracks which pulled me back to listening to these artists.

On the Keane trail, I learnt that the band had since split, and their lead singer Tom Chaplin had undergone serious phase of depression, but also come back in the scene with a new Album, whose tracks "Quicksand" and "Hardened Heart" brought some terrific new music and lyrics to my ears - especially Quicksand, which I've played on repeat on a couple of outings since. "Somewhere Only We Know" has some of the most sensory lyrics I muchly empathize with.

On the Bjork trail, "All is full of love" was found to be even more emotive than the first time - when I'd mainly fallen for it because of Michel Gondry's music video. The lyrics are very potent, which I only now came to focus on and find (and agree with) - her life experiences put in words make me totally empathize, and I have started internalising Bjork but at the same time dreading falling for a girl like her who will be so complex and all-consuming. "Hyperballad" is another track with lyrics so chilling that they'll stick in the head, and be revisited. She talks of keeping her sanity by throwing objects off cliffs and watching them tumble down to oblivion and wondering about her own fall - a dangerous frame of mind, also so attractive.

Looking for Michel Gondry's newer work (which there's none, sadly), I stumbled into an all-girl band (the connect being one of his ex-gfs who is a bandmember), Warpaint, that makes good music. A nice name, that, too. It reminded of the time I found the Bombay Bicycle Club, another small band, which also got airplay on Indian TV much later.

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