Album du jour #15 - MYcapslockisBROKEN

Mission of Burma - ONoffON (2004)

Prior Relationship to Album: Only vaguely aware of Mission of Burma as an 80s band, Josh insisted that I familiarize myself with what Mission of Burma was doing since their reunion. He meant the upcoming Obliterati in particular, but I got ONoffON as well to check it out. I've listened to a few songs, but not most of it, and definately not all the way through.

High Point/Low Point:

The problem with working from a pre-set template to these ADJ posts (a style I ripped off from the AVClub, in particular their "Commentary Tracks of the Damned" section) is that there isn't always something that fits each category well. I intended the "What I Learned" section to list the relevation I had about the music while listening to it - an invitation to the hope of an epiphany, even for music I had heard a great number of times before. But it doesn't always work like that, and when I lack any profound advancements in my musical understanding to share, I tend to fill that space with random trivia or whatever.

But in this case I've found that the categories I can't go about picking are the High and Low points...I tried to think of songs that I liked more or less than any others, but there really weren't any. It was like listening to a dial tone - each song has the same chords, the same horrendous vocals. The only song that sounds even remotely different from the others was #08 "Prepared,"...which goes for a different sound, but that sound is itself so bland, it is just another shade of beige. I need swells and dips and eventfulness in my music; sharply constrasting patches of light and shadow.

What I Realized/Learned: Two things:

1. I need to listen to Obliterati again - I remember vaguely liking it, although I haven't played it much. Either I have vastly different opinions on these two recent MoB albums, or I didn't pay much attention.

2. I have a closer association of music and colours than I thought; compelling and gripping music to me seems prisimatic by its very nature. I am very visceral about my art - there is a reason that two of the artworks I have up in my room are very elemental (Bachelard-ian) works on color -

Chariots of the Gods:

Four Meditations:

This connection between light and music, of a music that enacts the clash of color tones, and of visual art that evokes musical tones....I call audiochromology (because I love to invent pretentious terms for experiences I'm not totally sure I'm really having), and I shall have to dwell on it later. Perhaps the common element lies within the common term, and we have a kind of supra-senuous sense or "tone" that can manifest itself throughout different sensory mediums - hue and pitch? How about smell, touch, taste? Or are the three "bodily" senses distinct from the two more mental senses?

Future Relationship to Album: Not totally certain. I used to feel the same way about a lot of indie rock before I warmed to the genre. I might revisit it at some point to see if I can find my attention captured by something in here....but prospects for that seem as dreary as the current Nor'easter weather.

Bonus Link du Jour: On a completely different note, check out this person who turned a stuffed beaver into a computer case!!!