Upcomming Reviews...
- A Flurry of Flower Kings
- A Can full of Kings X
- Tuppins for Thom Yorke
- Talking about Talk Talk
Get ready!
The Underground Railroad - The Origin of Conciousness
This review first appeard on December 16, 2005 on Blogcritics.org
Progressive Rock is probably the most misunderstood genre of popular music around, with the possible exception of Polka. Progressive Music invokes images of dragon slaying costume wearing primadona singers, elaborate stage sets and lengthy songs that have no hooks or discernible pattern. Fans of Progressive Music are often looked down upon as greasy haired pimple ridden pseudo-intellectuals with little or no social skills to speak of who build detailed representations of scenes from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings using pewter miniatures.
I am here to tell you that it is all true. What you think about Progressive Music and its fans is all true. We are geeks. We like to think. We read fantasy novels, and philosophy. We don't like to be around too many people, and people don't generally like to be around us. But you know what? We've grown up. We are hiding right now in your server rooms and libraries, making sure you have access to the data you need. We fix and sometimes read your email, but never say anything about it because your lives are so different from ours that we don't even know how to relate. We're listening to our odd time signature music as we're making sure your data is encrypted when you log on to your bank or Amazon. You need to thank us, and you need to pay attention to our music, at least a little bit.
I offer that tongue in cheek introduction as a means of easing you into thinking about Progressive Music, and the artist that I want to talk to you about. The Underground Railroad, Fort Worth, Texas natives, have been around the Prog scene since the mid 1990s. They broke into the national spotlight after their debut recording Through and Through, and their later performance at NEAR Fest. This four piece band is a tour de force of sound and progressive experimentation. They push the limits between jazz styling and phrasing and rock. They are an intellectually stimulating band to listen to, make no mistake. Some people, however, might be like the Emperor who said to Mozart "Too many notes!" and this is understandable. Music is taste driven. Still, for me, their taste is sweet.
The Underground Railroad's latest offering The Origin of Consciousness (not available from Amazon.com yet, I'd get it through their website link above, or click HERE.), is nothing less than ear shattering and mind altering music of the highest order. The subject matter, Julian Jaynes groundbreaking book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind is heavier reading than most people would attempt to read outside of a college assignment. Still, it seems to make for good progressive rock subject matter. The band says that only tracks 1, 2, and 8 are a part of this theme, but I think I see glimpses of it in some of the other tracks on this 8 song album also.
The core sound of The Underground Railroad is found in the keyboard talents of Kurt Rongey, and the guitar stylings of Bill Pohl. However, the supporting talents of Matt Hembree (bass) and John Livingston (drums) cannot be discounted, for Bill and Kurt would not have anywhere to stand were it not for the solid foundation laid down by these two talented individuals. John Livingston's stellar ability to keep up with Kurt's odd time signature demands, is to be commended. In addition, anyone who can keep time with Livingston, Rongey and Pohl, and maintain a solid bass line, deserves a medal, or at least a drink.
I have yet to find a weak track on this album. Track one, Julian Ur, starts out strong, but slow, in the first track, where we are introduced to our subject matter via the minimalistic lyrical feelings set down by Kurt (who also doubles as the primary vocalist for the band). This track moves effortlessly into the next track, Julian I, where we are bombarded by Keith Emerson-like keyboard strains, a killer bass line, and some nice crunchy guitar licks. The over arching vocals seem to imbue us with a sense of mystery with their descant-like cadence.
Next we are treated to a lengthy instrumental, Love is a Vagabond King, where Bill Pohl spreads his guitar strings and flies through measure after measure of incredibly wonderful and technically accurate playing. His unique guitar sound is something that I find myself often craving like some sort of gourmet delicacy. It's a rare and rich treat. During the whole instrumental, he is backed by his band mates with more energy than anyone should have at their age.
With shades of Yes, the next track, Halo, opens slowly and delivers one of the most beautify sung songs on the entire album. Kurt's voice has grown, and this album has a better sound overall than their previous album. This song, particular, is a testament to the upgrade to their studio equipment, and the growth of their talents.
The album then moves quickly through the intricately played tune The Canal at Sunset which is about as close as I've ever heard this band come to writing a love song. They still do have their place in prog, you know, even if they mention singularities in space-time. After this we are treated to Metaphor, which will likely be heralded as The Underground Railroad's Yyz or Ytsejam. You know what I mean; that song that is mostly an instrumental, but comes to define the sound of the band. It has all the elements that this band is known for, or will be known for. Next up is Creeper, the lengthy continuation of the story and concept behind the song The Doorman on their first album, Through and Through. This song has some great moments in it blended together with some very odd and absurdist sounding lyrics. Finally, we wrap up the album by going back to our Julian Jaynes theme in the final track, Julian II. This final track almost becomes a time for each of the band members to take a solo riff, much like a jazz band will lay down a beat, and several instrumentalists will stand up and deliver a solo over the rest of the band. But it isn't quite as blatant as this, ending up with John Livingston delivering some of the finest drumming on the entire album as the song winds down.
This album is a treat to listen to, and it intellectually stimulating all around. I would recommend this album to people who were fans of old school prog like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, or even fans of new prog like 5uu's or Marillion. Of, better yet, buy this album for that prog head in your family who already has all the Lord of the Rings pewter miniatures he needs. It'll rock their world.
The Underground Railroad - Through and Through
One of my favorite progressive rock bands is The Underground Railroad, so I thought it fitting that I start off by posting my reviews of their two albums. Here's my review of their first album. I wrote this some years ago. Enjoy!
This review appeard on Friday, October 01, 2004 on Blogcritics.org
The Underground Railroad - Through and Through
This is the sound of neo progressive rock, this is The Underground Railroad. Their debut album, Through and Through is by far one of the most prized CD's that I own. I can't wait to hear their second album The Origin of Consciousness, out sometime this fall.
Through and Through starts out starts out with the dissonant and jumbled rhythms of the song May Fly. This song, while I feel it is the weakest on the album, still displays the talents of the crew of four in song writing, lyrical writing, and musicianship. No stranger to song writing, Kurt Rongey's vocals and overdubbed harmonies, along with those of Bill Pohl's, flesh out this first song. The accurate and sometimes subtle drumming and solid bass work of John Livingston and Matt Hembree (respectively) prepare us for the rest of this ambitious album.
The second track, The Comprachicos of the Mind, likely takes it's name partly from Victor Hugo's, The Man Who Laughs, which says:
"The comprachicos (child buyers) were strange and hideous nomads in the 17th century. They made children into sideshow freaks. To succeed in producing a freak one must get hold of him early; a dwarf must be started when he is small. They stunted growth, they mangled features. It was an art/science of inverted orthopedics. Where nature had put a straight glance, this art put a squint. Where nature had put harmony, they put deformity and imperfection. The child was not aware of the mutilation he had suffered. This horrible surgery left traces on his face, not in his mind. During the operation the little patient was unconscious by means of a stupefying magic powder."
The "of the Mind" portion of the title, is most likely derived from Ayn Rand, who stated:
"The production of monsters--helpless, twisted monsters whose normal development has been stunted--goes on all around us. But the modern heirs of the comprachicos are smarter and subtler. They do not hide, they practice their trade in the open, the results are invisible. In the past this horrible surgery left traces on a child's face, not in his mind. Today it leaves traces in his mind, not on his face. In both cases the child is not aware of the mutilation he has suffered. Today's comprachicos do not use narcotic powders. They take a child before he is fully aware of reality and never let him develop that awareness. Where nature put a normal brain, they put mental retardation. To make you unconscious for life by means of your own brain, nothing could be more ingenious. They are the comprachicos of the mind. They do not place a child into a vase to adjust his body to its contours. They place him into a school to adjust him to society."
With these two quotes in mind, we are lead on an interesting musical and lyrical journey. Starting with a screeching keyboard intro, the song winds its way energetically through the first two verses, one of the most powerful lines is:
Sliced up into fragments of a life
Dissolved,We can never untwist this tangled web
It continues down the chain
Which is likely a poetic description of the way Rongey (lyrical writer) believes we are taken at a young age, and, as Rand says, molded and adjusted to fit in to the mold society has prepared for us. From here, the music slows down, and we have our first Bill Pohl ethereal guitar solo. Bill's sound is so unique, and so flawless, that it defies description. A low, repetitive base line with soft keyboard fills the background as Bill slowly enters the darkness that the music has provided. He enters slowly, and never turns the light on higher than that of candlelight, until he's prodded on by the growing keyboard intensity. The song goes through one more verse, then bleeds into the next song, an instrumental called In The Factory. This song evokes images without using words. It uses harmonic dissonance to help the listener envision grand machines, whether they be physical or metaphorical. It then softens, and lulls the listener into a false sense of uneasy peace, before exploding into a crescendo that seems to carry on forever and ever. Leading us upward and upward toward complexity, and confusion. Then, we seem to be transported to some point above it all, looking down upon the musical landscape that's just been presented to us, and left to ponder and recollect.
It is at this point that we are presented with the next song, The Doorman. It would seem at once that since these three songs are linked together, that they somehow comprise some theme as a whole. While this is possible, it is not completely apparent. Comprachicos and In The Factory can certainly be seen as two parts of a larger story, but The Doorman, while it could loosely be part of the over arching story of the two earlier songs, is more of an enigma.
Again, we are treated to the lush keyboards and flowing guitar riffs of Kurt and Bill. The soft yet solid bass lines of Matt Hembree and the subtle and but accurate drumming of John Livingston are more present on the fusion inspired introduction to Doorman. We are also treated to our first listen to Bill's softer and raspier voice during certain passages of this tune.
The story of this song, as I have said before, could possibly be treated as a final treatise on the theme of Comprachicos, but I'm not certain, and cannot make the assumption. It seems to be the story of a community of artists, or of a singular artist. It is possible that they have been forced to hide, because they feel they do not fit into the larger societal mold, the one that they feel they have been forced into since childhood, as is described in Comprachicos. It would seem that, in the story, one of the community, or the particular artist, has been lost, we aren't sure why or where. But we are assured that the artist will be welcomed back to the community, or welcomed back to wherever they've left from. This comforting to all of us who feel we don't fit in and yet have tried to go off and do something in a world we don't understand. Comforting to know that there is somewhere we can go and be accepted. I don't know if this is the proper interpretation of this song, but it seems to fit the themes in the poetry/lyrics of the song. It also fits the imagery of the music as well.
The next song is a break from the bleed together format, signifying to me an end to the grander theme of the three previous songs. This song, simply called Mars, is well written, and beautifully sung. Lyrically it is a simple song about the possibility of ancient life on Mars. It was most likely prompted by the finding of possible fossil evidence for such. It is a poetic look at how a new explorer from earth would feel, standing on Mars, being the first lifeform to touch the surface of that planet in several million years. Some good lyrics from Mars:
That's the way it was when I arrived
Only the sand
Sometimes the wind would blow it up in clouds
Uncovering another fossil
But I was there
And life was there again.
The title track, Through and Through, rounds out the last twenty minutes of the album. It begins orchestrally, slow, low and dissonant. We are treated again to the perfect blending of keyboard, bass, drum and Bill Pohl's ever present fluid guitar. The music grows, ever so slightly, with each passage. We are given what seem to be glimpses into the ideas behind the music, but they present themselves as changes only, and continue the progression of harmony, keyboard, drum, bass, and guitar. Sometimes keyboard takes the lead, sometimes guitar. Bill and Kurt seem to play off each other like they are of the same mind.
The story of Through and Through, isn't clear to me. I've heard Kurt explain it as a story about losing one's religion, and I suppose that can be seen in the lyrics. Who better to describe it than the writer I suppose, but let's deconstruct anyway, shall we?
The first stanza:
Through a life of growing older
Gathering motes within a whirlpool
Displacing droplets from whatever lives above
"From whatever lies above".. is he describing the evolution of mankind here, and our dreamy nature to ascribe what we do not understand to what is beyond the sky? Possibly.
The next stanza:
Warm and protected in a cloud
And through it all
Reclining in my corner of a liar's amorphous plan
These lines seem to indicate a sort of opiate is at work here, on the unsuspecting public. Could it be religion? It has been described as an opiate in the past. An opiate would make a person feel good, like they are protected.
Next:
Tagging behind the millions
It held me so softly
I couldn't escape without vanishing
Sometimes, when we want to leave a religion, or better still, a denomination or cult, we have to do so by severing all ties to that religion, denomination or cult. We die to the people who are still inside, we vanish. These lines would suggest this sort of imagery it would seem to me.
And:
Looking up into the perforated ether
I saw myself swaying like a leaf
I followed beneath and cradled.
A deluge of the rest of everything
A universe and maybe more
With one leap I had shot ahead
A famous scientist once said something about education, specifically education in the sciences, causing religious students to either question their god, or at least force that god to be even bigger than they had at once believed. It was then that they realized that these students no longer believed in the god of their parents, but in something even bigger, if even at all. This is the impression I get from these lines. The writer is looking up into what he once believed was perforations in the sky, letting in light from heaven, as is an ancient belief, and realized a universe, "maybe more", was waiting on the other side. Whether this describes one person, or the whole of mankind does not matter at this point. It can be applied either way. Once this knowledge is known, it cannot be unknown. We leap ahead in understanding, and realize even deeper and more disturbing questions await.
And skipping ahead a bit:
By hunger within was I flooded and freed
I wanted to lift a whole populace
The writer, or person experiencing these epiphanies, naturally wants to teach others, and lead others to this magnificent understanding. To understand that the world is so much more than we had at first thought it was.
But these lines:
Thrusting up into a fertile heaven
I pulled for a second then I left it to itself
I opened the box and looked on.
Seem incongruous to the rest of the work. I'm not sure what to make of them. Is the writer trying to grasp at his religious past one last time, only to give up in the end, or am I missing something else here in the literary device of the box. I'm not sure. I'll have to defer that one to Kurt himself to explain.
Taking cues from jazz, fusion, rock, and classical traditions, these guys don't fail to produce some unique and interesting tunes. Drawing us in with unique use of dissonance, rhythm, and meter, they never fail to present anything less than quality musicianship. I highly recommend this CD to anyone who has an ear for good Progressive Rock.
Buy their album at their website, here:
www.theundergroundrailroad.net
Welcome
Hello everyone. Welcome to this new venture I'm calling Cantus de Animus. This title, obviously a creative bow to my friend A. Scott White of Caveat Emptor, can be loosely translated Singing/Music from/of the Soul/Mind/Spirit. Thanks Scott, for help with the Latin translation.
So, why. Why another blog? Why Cantus de Animus? Robert Salsbury, of the blog The Unbearable Bobness of Being mentioned once that he thought my writing gift was music reviews. I've also noticed, of myself, that I tend to use lyrics in my posts, and in my writing. Music is a big part of my life, it is my art of choice. Some go to Art Museum openings and shows, quietly revering, with glass of champagne in hand, the latest work from some avant guard artist or old master. Others listen to poetry readings, espresso steaming, in dark wood paneled coffee houses. Still others enjoy sitting under a blanket by a fire on a rainy day, Earl Grey steeping, and reading high literature. I have done all of these. I enjoy all of these greatly. But music is the art that drives me the most, I have to admit. It is poetry, imagery, prose and literature, all in one. It impacts all my sensibilities at once. I can be just at home in a concert hall, listening to high opera, as in a smoky bar, watching a strange Absurdist Musical display.
And so this is my place to share this with you all, should you decide to join me from time to time here. At this blog I will do music reviews mostly. I will do them a bit differently than other reviewers, as I will input the images that come to mind and the thoughts that I have while listening to a piece of music. I've done this from time to time on my other blog, but I intend to develop that a bit more here.
Also, I'll try not to be so excruciatingly serious about all of this as it seems like I am currently. Music, art, and all of that is, in the end, supposed to bring us either a message, or joy. I'll try to yuk it up accordingly from time to time. However, Scott and Bobness are much better at that sort of thing than me. So, while you might get a smirk or chuckle from me, if you're looking for a guffaw, go see them.
Anyway, welcome everyone. I hope you enjoy the posts I put out here, as I have time to post them. I suggest you grab the rss atom feed of this site, so you're notified when I post something here, as it is not my primary blog.
