Tír Na HiFi

Sloop John B wrote: ↑Fri Sep 07, 2018 6:37 pm Giving this a listen with an open mind.



Roon is showing a track gain of -16.9dB so there is not much dynamic range available which rarely presdipsoses me an album.

On first listen it certainly isn’t execrable and has a certain charm.

.sjb

Must say I was impressed with McCartney's prior release 'New'.

My God.  My first listen to Kath Bloom with the new Jadis and the experience is quite overwhelming.  Her cracked, lived-in voice literally expands from the speakers and moans deep into my heart.  The sheer heart-deadening anguish of her vocal and the utterly empathetic guitar obbligatos  by Loren Mazzacane Connors on The Breeze (one of the most perfect songs ever) has never been more forcefully communicated to me.  This is emotion cut deep to the quick and literally poured into a microphone and I find myself eavesdropping on something uncomfortably private distilled into the most vital, pure, potent of essences.

Perfect, just perfect.

"It's so hard to come home,
I've told so many lies to you,
when the wind was slashing me,
and the ice is melting all around me,
and the sun is too bright for my eyes."

- It's So Hard To Come Home

Beautiful, authentic, genuine.  An amazing talent whose intense, soul-searching show at Vicar Street last month just blew me away and lives in my memory as one of the finest I have ever attended.  The best of her generation whose unlimited potential excites me like few others.  Her conversations in song with herself and her God recall to my mind the self-excoriating intensity of Judee Sill and I can accord her no higher praise.

"The emptiness is just a lesson in canvases."

"All my prayers are just apologies."

"There is nowhere I can hide from your humiliating grace."

Listening once more tonight to that extraordinary artist, Judee Sill, whose music takes on a more melancholic resonance this evening.  It was 39 years ago today that this prodigiously talented songwriter took her own life.  The discovery of this woman's music has proved to me to be of lasting and permanent significance.  In my life there have been passing musical discoveries which have proved to be intense but brief but which gradually exhausted themselves and then there is Judee's music, that rarest of jewels, which continues to replenish and nourish and has taken on a sustaining power that is apparently unquenchable after more than ten years of exposure.  

I honestly forget how many times I have listened to this woman's music but I still find myself craving it now more than ever.  The sheer intensity of expression that lies at the core of this music remains overwhelming and possesses a cumulative emotional force that is unique, to my mind.  Every one of her songs broods and burns and simmers with this redemptive urge, this cry to her God to redeem her and release her and the ever-present fear that her sins did not deserve redemption and that she was forever damned.  It is hard for many people in this increasingly secular world to empathise with such intensely religious language but one of Judee's greatest gifts was her simplicity of expression, a desire to pare her songs down to the bare essentials and concentrate simply on communicating her profoundly human hopes and fears in songs that would simultaneously resonate in the heart of the listener whilst also providing a cathartic salve to her wounded soul.

This is music that I have previously written on at length on this forum and continue to passionately recommend to my friends and acquaintances.  I find it impossible to overstate the importance of her music to me.  And tonight, dwelling on her tragic and untimely death and listening once again to these wonderful songs that I know so very well, I find the same familiar emotions re-kindled within me and the music hits me in the gut harder than ever.  And yet the only possible response is to hit the repeat button and return once more to the songs that meant so very much to her.  More than ten years of close listening to Judee's music has revealed levels of complexity and depth that I never suspected were present upon my initial introductions to these songs.  In her lifetime, she wrestled so very hard with herself and her demons and these songs endure as incredibly potent testaments to her angushed struggles.  "May you savour each word like a raspberry", as she put it in the liner notes to her first album.  

Listen to her music.  With all my heart, listen to her music.

That was beautifully expressed Paul. She obviously means a lot to you. And as always the rest us, like Orpheus, sleep on our backs dead to the world (around us). But there's always the faint hope that He sings of the promise tomorrow may bring. I'm obviously (mis)quoting another very much misunderstood artist who's own music still manages to enthrall and challenge my own perception of this funny old 21st century world.

Heart Food indeed.......

As ever, Dermot, many thanks for your kind and empathetic response. I sometimes think that I express too much, that I feel too deeply, but I really do love my music and writing these words allows me to make sense of my internalised response to the music that inflames my passions and kind words such as yours are so very much appreciated. Music really does make sense of this crazy world we are living in. My greatest failing in my life is my relative lack of discipline and I have the utmost respect for those creative artists who, in their lives, are provoked and frustrated and sorely tested by their daily circumstances and yet find the discipline within them to put down something of lasting substance and for that, I have to say repeatedly, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for enriching all of our lives.

You're so welcome Paul. Actually after I read your piece something stirred inside me and suddenly I was acutely aware of passing time. The hourglass. Then I remembered her and I found what I had been searching for this while and more. I give you two pieces below which I'd never seen before but had listened to late last night. I was in for a surprise as the music took over my whole being. For once I wasn't judgemental as I normally am when listening to her and that moment will stay with me for another wee while yet. Thank you Loreena......

"Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory."

Thanks, Dermot.  It is so very important to approach music with an open heart, as a receptive vessel that is uncluttered by the mutterings of "the cool school", whether that may be Rolling Stone in the Sixties and Seventies or NME in the Eighties and Nineties or Pitchfork in the current age.  All of these publications have had something to say about artists that they favour and much that has proved to be detrimental about those artists that don't quite fit into their narrowly proscribed perception of popular music.  And, unfortunately, many listeners never really grow beyond this "acceptable" musical canon and really engage with a piece of music on a personal level and truly ask of themselves, "Am I moved?  Does this music in any way stumulate my mind and/or move my heart?"  

And so it is with Loreena, an artist that has simultaneously been recommended to me by friends whose tastes I trust and denigrated as soulless and faceless by journalists writing for many of the above publications.  On my initial listening to these tracks, my first thought was of Van Morrison's Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart, an album that initially left me cold with its swathes of synthesised sound which appeared to be a far cry from the more naturalistic Common One and A Sense of Wonder.  To truly appreciate Inarticulate Speech, it was vital to discard any previous preconceptions I may have had of Van Morrison and approach this album anew as a blank slate and to listen sympathetically without recourse to casual judgement.

And so it is with Loreena.  Beneath the layers of Romantically inspired lyrics and densely textured electronica, there is a real depth of emotion here.  She is evidently not a literal writer and appears to prefer to express her emotions metaphorically.  Such an approach does take time to fully absorb and I am not surprised that it took so long for this music to seep into your heart, Dermot.  The important thing, however, is that you did remain open and receptive to the possibility of it finally making an impression on you.  I sometimes think that something is implanted and gestates over time in our subconscious when we are exposed to interesting music that we are unable to assimilate immediately and our progressive understanding of the music is a combination of active listening and something that occurs on a more subconscious level.  There are always two opposing poles at play here - our personal understanding of the music at any given time and the music itself as a discrete object - and what sustained listening over time does is to bring those poles together and take us closer to the music as it formed in the mind of the musician.

Dermot, your mention of the hourglass also triggered a recollection for me of one of my favourite films, Death in Venice, a film I watched in my teens and was obsessed by and which proved to be very influential for me.  Upon viewing the film, I made a point of reading the original novella by Thomas Mann and then many of Mann's books which I devoured and adore to this day.  The film's soundtrack draws upon the music of Gustav Mahler, specifically the exquisite Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony.  I was entranced by this achingly elegiac piece of music which matched the visual side of the film perfectly and I also began investigating Mahler's glorious music which fascinates and inspires to this day.  

And what of the hourglass, you might ask?  Well, there is a particularly moving scene in the film where the main character, Gustav von Aschenbach (one of Dirk Bogarde's greatest performances) reflects on the passage of time, how it appears to move imperceptibly slowly when we are young and as we grow older, it seems to rush away from us.  

“I remember we had the same hourglass at my parents in olden times. Sand pours through such a narrow neck that when you turn it upside down, it appears that the sand level of the upper part would always be the same. It seems that the sand is waiting for the very last moment to seep into the globe underneath. It goes so slowly that we have time to think about it. At the final moment when it eventually runs its course, there is no more time to think about it anymore – and the hourglass is empty.”

These lines have stayed with me for years and they tug at my heart like few others.  The fugitive and ephemeral nature of time has rarely been so eloquently and succinctly expressed.  I think it's time to re-read Death in Venice.

mcq wrote: ↑Sun Nov 25, 2018 4:10 am Thanks, Dermot.  It is so very important to approach music with an open heart, as a receptive vessel that is uncluttered by the mutterings of "the cool school", whether that may be Rolling Stone in the Sixties and Seventies or NME in the Eighties and Nineties or Pitchfork in the current age.  All of these publications have had something to say about artists that they favour and much that has proved to be detrimental about those artists that don't quite fit into their narrowly proscribed perception of popular music.  And, unfortunately, many listeners never really grow beyond this "acceptable" musical canon and really engage with a piece of music on a personal level and truly ask of themselves, "Am I moved?  Does this music in any way stumulate my mind and/or move my heart?"  

And so it is with Loreena, an artist that has simultaneously been recommended to me by friends whose tastes I trust and denigrated as soulless and faceless by journalists writing for many of the above publications.  On my initial listening to these tracks, my first thought was of Van Morrison's Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart, an album that initially left me cold with its swathes of synthesised sound which appeared to be a far cry from the more naturalistic Common One and A Sense of Wonder.  To truly appreciate Inarticulate Speech, it was vital to discard any previous preconceptions I may have had of Van Morrison and approach this album anew as a blank slate and to listen sympathetically without recourse to casual judgement.

And so it is with Loreena.  Beneath the layers of Romantically inspired lyrics and densely textured electronica, there is a real depth of emotion here.  She is evidently not a literal writer and appears to prefer to express her emotions metaphorically.  Such an approach does take time to fully absorb and I am not surprised that it took so long for this music to seep into your heart, Dermot.  The important thing, however, is that you did remain open and receptive to the possibility of it finally making an impression on you.  I sometimes think that something is implanted and gestates over time in our subconscious when we are exposed to interesting music that we are unable to assimilate immediately and our progressive understanding of the music is a combination of active listening and something that occurs on a more subconscious level.  There are always two opposing poles at play here - our personal understanding of the music at any given time and the music itself as a discrete object - and what sustained listening over time does is to bring those poles together and take us closer to the music as it formed in the mind of the musician.

I really couldn't have put it better myself. To actually see it in print from someone I respect
is another thing entirely. It reminds me of a time when some cool dude in my company one night denigrated the music of Cliff Richard. I said to myself "Here we go again!" Alas I didn't have the guts to say that I still listened to his early stuff with the Shadows and thought the music/sound was, and is, still fantastic. Such production values. Such performances. Capturing an innocent age. Buried so deeply in our psyche never to be forgotten. But we do conveniently forget. So now in the future and especially so after reading your enlightening piece above I will most definitely have no fear of appearing 'uncool'. In fact I have a saying on the landing wall given to me by a former colleague which states most emphatically: "Do Not Subdue The Truth For The Fear Of Being Unpopular" Aye there's the rub : we always want to appear 'cool' just like the hacks from the journals you mentioned above. Whether we're vinyl snobs or think the avant garde/experimental/improv is only for those few in the know. We all do it. I do it. So for me to even admit that I actually can listen to wishy-washy Loreena or even Cliff for crying out loud is a huge jump and just another step into the swamp of fools. As someone once said about an open mind being ok but not for everything. Well I disagree with that. The only true way of being receptive is to have an open mind always no matter what. Not easy I know! As you said yourself Paul one day comes along and suddenly your mind frees up and is more receptive to music you thought wasn't 'cool'. In Loreena's case it's the emotion, genuine honesty, purity and a heartfelt love of her muse that strikes you dumb. I also believe that the better hi fi gear allows all of that to burst through umimpeded. And I'm not denigrating so called inferior set ups. No way. It's just that you get that bit closer to the real message that the artist is trying to convey when the system suddenly synchronises with our unpredictable human emotions. Which dovetails neatly into your own last lines above....I think I'll shut up now lol!