Top Tunes 2011
Did you feel that? I think we just shifted gears. You see, dear friends, the last month of every year is a wonderfully frantic denouement. As the trees shake off the last of their leaves and the little critters fatten themselves up for a long nap, we humans scurry over to the mouth of the Abyss, dropping our wallets in to appease the Beast and then swinging by the Fount of Popular Culture to add a pinch of incense to the eternal Flame of Summation. Presumably, if we don’t do this, we die.
Me, I’m not as sentimental as some. We Nyffelers pretty much gave up on ‘shopping’ and ‘gift-giving’ a few years ago in favor of ‘quality time’ and ‘togetherness,’ but unfortunately I could only manage one trip home this year and I already used it, so I must brave the long, dark month here in the frozen North with only my year-end lists to bolster my spirits. As such, I’ve decided to repeat last year’s strategy of dragging it out as long as I can, posting only one or two Favorite Song blurbs a day (the first—a bit of a cheat—is below) leading up to the Top Albums list after Christmas. It may be an empty ritual, but it comforts me.
Perennial Disclaimer: I haven’t heard everything (and neither have you!) and, while I do feel that all of these are worthy and enjoyable works of art, I also realize that I am not the sole arbiter of beauty in the world. I think we would all do well to keep this in mind over then next few weeks. I hope you enjoy reading about these things I’ve liked in 2011…
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Orcas - “Until Then (Broadcast cover)”
When Broadcast’s Trish Keenan sang of “another world we have yet to conquer” on the original version of this song over a decade ago, the whiny scrape of string samples limped around her in stunted little circles as if the song itself were a scratched record stuck on a single groove. Melancholia was intertwined with a sardonic bite that made “Until Then” suggest more about the word “conquer” than anything about “another world.” Here, on a stately and reverent cover recorded by Benoit Pioulard and the Sight Below (teaming up under the Orcas moniker) following Keenan’s sudden death this January, it blossoms. Thomas Meluch’s gentle voicing lends gravity to Keenan’s principle lesson, that “None of us have anything.” It’s the other side of the insatiable quest for understanding that the song describes: you can go exploring all you want, but as long as it’s still about you (“If I think everything belongs to me / how wrong I’ll be”) it’ll do you no good. Keenan herself was a sharp and relentless musical explorer, who plied her imagination to inventing sonic worlds just beyond the horizon and then shepherding listeners toward them. And so this version serves as an elegiac send-off, too, an arresting nod to the work of a great artist cut tragically short.
16 Notes/ Hide
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christinaert liked this
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lukassuveg said:
Ah yes, what a stunning cover. I found it posted somewhere under their given names; no idea they went by “Orcas.”
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lukassuveg liked this
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imathers said:
“Until Then” might be my favourite Broadcast song, and that is a lovely cover. Thank you!
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imathers liked this
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popcornnoises posted this
