It's Taken By Trees week here at One Man in a Small Room productions. Get excited. Today, Victoria Bergsman's National Geographic feature, tomorrow the world. Or maybe just a Dan Lissvik profile.
Editor's note: Admittedly, this video has already been posted on a number of other blogs, and, yes, I realize that this is hardly groundbreaking stuff. However, it's not intended to be. This is simply my way of counting down the days (seven and a half, to be exact) until the release of East of Eden, a release I believe will be counted among the year's best. Between this album, The Very Best's excellent Warm Heart of Africa and Fool's Gold's self-titled debut, it's shaping up to be a very global fall. Who knew?
Admittedly, I would have been interested in this project even if it had not taken form/flight in "the world's most dangerous nation." As I've previously noted, I am a huge Dan Lissvik fan and have pretty much enjoyed everything he's ever done (from Studio, to his excellent remix work, to his eponymous solo project, to The Crepes (his recent band with The Embassy's Fredrik Linson)). However, there is something I find so endlessly fascinating about the notion of recording an "indie" (whatever that means) album in a place as wild and seemingly hinterlandish as Pakistan. Who does this sort of stuff? Apparently two Swedes with a love of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and nary an interest in recording in a cold, clinical studio space.
The whole story of the making of this album is so completely transfixing, so singularly exceptional, but not in that typical rock 'n roll, Behind the Music, "we were so smacked out (insert drug-specific dazedly confused-related derivative here), we had no idea what we'd recorded" sort of way. This record seems to be as much about place as its principals (perhaps the inspiration for the title), or perhaps, more specifically, the effect of place upon its principals. These days, given the rise and proliferation of increasingly convenient, portable recording technologies, it's rare to hear an artist make a big deal about where an album was recorded. Perhaps this is what I find so fascinating about East of Eden. In a world full of records that could have been recorded literally anywhere, it's refreshing to hear an album that truly sounds like it was recorded somewhere (and somewhere very specific, at that).
The whole story of the making of this album is so completely transfixing, so singularly exceptional, but not in that typical rock 'n roll, Behind the Music, "we were so smacked out (insert drug-specific dazedly confused-related derivative here), we had no idea what we'd recorded" sort of way. This record seems to be as much about place as its principals (perhaps the inspiration for the title), or perhaps, more specifically, the effect of place upon its principals. These days, given the rise and proliferation of increasingly convenient, portable recording technologies, it's rare to hear an artist make a big deal about where an album was recorded. Perhaps this is what I find so fascinating about East of Eden. In a world full of records that could have been recorded literally anywhere, it's refreshing to hear an album that truly sounds like it was recorded somewhere (and somewhere very specific, at that).
From the sound of everything I've heard, East of Eden is a gigantic step forward from Victoria Bergsman's (ex-Concretes/"Young Folks") spare, monochromatic and, frankly, pretty dull debut, Open Field. Seriously. When's the last time National Geographic interviewed anyone, let alone a largely unknown artist, about the recording of her forthcoming album? I suppose this is what happens when you stop being polite and choose to record in Pakistan. Behold. Music without borders:
No comments:
Post a Comment