the dead will rise again

Song(s): beautiful alarms, emergency (the latter is available from the label)
Artist: Wilderness
Days: since tues 3/2/6

Its odd that an album by a band that I rank among the least summery would finally make sense to me doing summery things.

Wilderness's debut was perfect winter music: dark, somewhat cold, but with an irresistable, precise beauty (to continue with the winter metaphor I'd say "like ice crystals forming on a window pane" but that's a touch too purple for me to include non-parenthetically). It still baffles me that the fine folks at Jagjaguar continue to release their music in the spring.

Late on tuesday night, I was biking back from a collective meeting. To me it was a quintessential summer moment. The air was damp but warm after a brief rain and I could comfortably be out late while the city went to sleep. It always reminds me of the thrill of staying up late as a kid. Like somehow the city and me, we're getting away with something by defying the wakeup-work-eat dinner-sleep logic of life. Its why my favorite pavement lyric is when steven malkmus sings "out on my skate board, the night is just humming" in "Range Life".

And I was listening to the newest Wilderness album.

On previous listens I had missed the sparse, stately geometry of the meandering guitars, rumbling toms, and bass counter melodies. The new album feels less formed. Its looser, almost as if it were just written for guitar and vocals. What I came to appreciate on tuesday and what has stuck with me since is the looseness of these 2 songs. (The rest of the album is closer in tone to the earlier album, sometimes excellent, sometimes harrowing, other times just alright) The guitar lines dance about a tonal center instead of settling themselves into riffs. With these two songs there's even a syncopated, dareisay 'jaunty' quality to the music, and a triumphant stateliness takes the place of the regal, detached statiness of the the debut. If these qualities make the songs less perfect and beautiful, they also make them more welcoming and approachable.

Which is what spring is all about.


Honorable mentions: "We Ate Sand" by Karp; "The Other Side of Mt Heart Attack" by Liars (Apparently it's "bands whose names are nouns but don't use a definate article" week)