http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnE8dxbonDQ
Massive Attack has this wonderful control over their tone and timbre — they are a band that could make me believe in magic, I think. It's hyperbole, but it's all I've got to describe the sound, immersive and full of quiet, subtle power, bass and strings and swells and releases. The lyrics are a mystery, unpredictable and full, warm and cool and breathless, about things bigger and more important that human love and hate, and yet inextricably tied to them. I love it so much, but I don't know what it's about. The lyrics are poetry, to be felt and heard, not understood.
Showing posts with label massive attack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label massive attack. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Psyche feat. Martina Topley-Bird — Massive Attack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8yaVSLJVLA
Early fall 2011, I am studying for my SAT IIs, taken entirely too late. I find a cold, impersonal cafe up in Columbia, at 120th and Broadway, too far north for the hustle and bustle; it's enclosed, warm; it has food. But it has very high ceilings and large dangling sharp metal sculptures; the chairs are uncomfortable and the people are awkward. I sit there from 9:00pm to 12:00pm most nights for a week or two, studying; there's no internet for non-Columbia students. I go over old physics I really should have known; old algebra tricks, trig and some precalc, graphing by hand; none of it hard, but all worth a look. Occasionally I'll text someone, the human contact is reassuring. This is my music — like the environment, it is functional. It is of human design, but it exudes a sense of robotic efficiency, like a professional businessman in a cafe in Germany, perhaps — all business. I forget that my bed is just a few blocks away, and the isolation gets me to work.
Early fall 2011, I am studying for my SAT IIs, taken entirely too late. I find a cold, impersonal cafe up in Columbia, at 120th and Broadway, too far north for the hustle and bustle; it's enclosed, warm; it has food. But it has very high ceilings and large dangling sharp metal sculptures; the chairs are uncomfortable and the people are awkward. I sit there from 9:00pm to 12:00pm most nights for a week or two, studying; there's no internet for non-Columbia students. I go over old physics I really should have known; old algebra tricks, trig and some precalc, graphing by hand; none of it hard, but all worth a look. Occasionally I'll text someone, the human contact is reassuring. This is my music — like the environment, it is functional. It is of human design, but it exudes a sense of robotic efficiency, like a professional businessman in a cafe in Germany, perhaps — all business. I forget that my bed is just a few blocks away, and the isolation gets me to work.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Help I'm Alive — Metric
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoK63Bk7pgw
I won't write an essay here on the topic of gender in music — I'm not nearly well-versed enough, and, frankly, it's been done. I will say that the few female vocalists I do enjoy are generally either Jazz, Trip-Hop, or Rock'n'Roll. There are some genres where I know female vocalists exist, but I don't enjoy them (modern pop, rap, alt-rock, etc). I can probably name only a few female vocalists off the top of my head, actually... Ella Fitzgerald, Blondie, the woman from Fleetwood Mac, Metric (above), The Go! Team...
Oh my god, is that all I can list? I know the names of male singers from named bands (Thom Yorke — Radiohead, etc) but rarely the names of female singers from named bands (... — The Decemberists? I know Colin Meloy.) Oh! Imogen Heap. This still isn't that many.
Doesn't Massive Attack have female vocalists? Guest vocalists. And, uh, Morcheeba, Portishead! All the associated trip-hop acts.
Oh dear.
I won't write an essay here on the topic of gender in music — I'm not nearly well-versed enough, and, frankly, it's been done. I will say that the few female vocalists I do enjoy are generally either Jazz, Trip-Hop, or Rock'n'Roll. There are some genres where I know female vocalists exist, but I don't enjoy them (modern pop, rap, alt-rock, etc). I can probably name only a few female vocalists off the top of my head, actually... Ella Fitzgerald, Blondie, the woman from Fleetwood Mac, Metric (above), The Go! Team...
Oh my god, is that all I can list? I know the names of male singers from named bands (Thom Yorke — Radiohead, etc) but rarely the names of female singers from named bands (... — The Decemberists? I know Colin Meloy.) Oh! Imogen Heap. This still isn't that many.
Doesn't Massive Attack have female vocalists? Guest vocalists. And, uh, Morcheeba, Portishead! All the associated trip-hop acts.
Oh dear.
Monday, March 11, 2013
It's A Fire — Portishead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZlEVAhhhVw
About a year ago, I made a playlist of entirely female vocalists. Somehow, I don't have a lot of music with women on vocals. Something about the timbre, or inherent patriarchal bias, whatever. I actually struggled to find fourteen songs with female vocalists, and by the end, they were almost entirely trip-hop.
Trip-hop is a genre of electronica, based on trip (dub, reggae, techno) and hip-hop, often with rap, sampling, guest stars, and other features of hip-hop. It came out of Britain in the 90s and 00s, mostly through bands like Portishead (above) and Massive Attack.
Portishead and especially Massive Attack fall into that genre of music I so revere, the sort which defies description. To call it ambient, drum-based, processed, dark would be a start, but it's more... immersive. It paints the whole world in shadow for the duration of the song. Very wonderful stuff.
About a year ago, I made a playlist of entirely female vocalists. Somehow, I don't have a lot of music with women on vocals. Something about the timbre, or inherent patriarchal bias, whatever. I actually struggled to find fourteen songs with female vocalists, and by the end, they were almost entirely trip-hop.
Trip-hop is a genre of electronica, based on trip (dub, reggae, techno) and hip-hop, often with rap, sampling, guest stars, and other features of hip-hop. It came out of Britain in the 90s and 00s, mostly through bands like Portishead (above) and Massive Attack.
Portishead and especially Massive Attack fall into that genre of music I so revere, the sort which defies description. To call it ambient, drum-based, processed, dark would be a start, but it's more... immersive. It paints the whole world in shadow for the duration of the song. Very wonderful stuff.
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