Words & Music
Few weeks back I saw the TO experimental classical combo Toca Loca play an amazing piece called “Coming Together.” It’s written by Frederick Rzewski (who I believe Toca Loca described in the evening’s program as “Salieri to Steve Reich’s Mozart”) & it’s built around repeating phrases both musical & spoken-word. Forming the latter is a reading of excerpts from letters written from Attica by inmate Sam Melville, who was killed in the 1971 riot at the prison. It’s just a few sentences about how Melville is coping with prison life, but the text keeps going back to the beginning & starting over, which becomes an increasingly powerful expression of the monotony & dehumanization of Melville’s situation, while the music ramps up the agitation.
Here’s a performance of the same piece by the classical group Eighth Blackbird, though I must admit I prefer my memory of the Toca Loca version a little, since the vocal performance that night seemed less sensationalized & therefore more unnerving.
(Buy some Eighth Blackbird here.)
And here’s something from Paddy McAloon’s album I Trawl the Megahertz (with thanks to Trevor for hipping me to this a while ago). McAloon is the ex-frontman of 1980s poppers Prefab Sprout, and the story goes that a few years ago he was suffering frm vision problems & got heavily into shortwave radio. This album is the result; the haunting title track marries an impressionistic short story read by a female voice with a lush orchestral backdrop. I’m listening to side 2 of Bowie’s Low as I write this, and this & that would go together not badly at all.
(Buy I Trawl the Megahertz here.)
Here’s a performance of the same piece by the classical group Eighth Blackbird, though I must admit I prefer my memory of the Toca Loca version a little, since the vocal performance that night seemed less sensationalized & therefore more unnerving.
- Eighth Blackbird, “Coming Together” (runtime 18:57)
(Buy some Eighth Blackbird here.)
And here’s something from Paddy McAloon’s album I Trawl the Megahertz (with thanks to Trevor for hipping me to this a while ago). McAloon is the ex-frontman of 1980s poppers Prefab Sprout, and the story goes that a few years ago he was suffering frm vision problems & got heavily into shortwave radio. This album is the result; the haunting title track marries an impressionistic short story read by a female voice with a lush orchestral backdrop. I’m listening to side 2 of Bowie’s Low as I write this, and this & that would go together not badly at all.
- Paddy McAloon, “I Trawl the Megahertz” (runtime 22:08)
(Buy I Trawl the Megahertz here.)
posted by DW | 30.4.06
1 Comments:
D,
I would agree that the backdrop is lush orchestral, but the whole spoken word thing just doesn't do it for me. I like my lyrics to be wallpaper. When I hear spoken word, my brain insists on processing the wallpaper. And as we discussed last night, with this song, there just isn't any payoff. "You, a hostage of crazed hormones,...blah blah blah." Pfft.
When the Waterboys did "The Stolen Child", it ruined my love affair. Yeats is greats, but gimme "How did he come here, who gave him the key" any day.
The tune is lovely, as is all of Paddy McAloon's catalog...I loved Prefab Sprout, and their CDs are still in my rotation. But if I listen to this song more then twice, I will begrudge having been cheated and robbed of my musical payday.
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