four. [THEME: buildup]

[cabaretlights.livejournal.com]

AOD
Artist: 65daysofstatic
Album: One for All Time [Japanese Release]
Year: 2005
Theme: Buildup
♥: When I was in high school, I used to fall asleep with music on every night, all night. My parents hated it: "You can't get a good sleep if you're listening to music; it will infect your dreams/your head/your genetic biology," I don't even remember; I didn't care because I listened to music 24 hours a day, literally -- it was my heartbeat. The thought of sleeping without it was essentially inconceivable (though I'll concede that they were right about the weird dreams).

I can't pinpoint when that changed, but probably around the time I started downloading music instead of listening to it on CDs. My headphones were always unwieldy and really awkward to sleep in, so gradually I grew out of the habit. Still -- every now and then, I will have a desperate urge to put on my huge Sennheisers at 2am and hit "shuffle" on my iPod. This urge got really strong around spring 2009, when I was trying anything -- anything -- to pull myself out of my emotionless funk. This, you may or may not remember, is the same time I was watching season one of Being Erica on my iPod at 4am -- all part and parcel of the same chant in my head: I can't keep living like this, I can't be this person, I can't understand where the person I used to be went. Anything to distract? Maybe.


I had my headphones on one especially bad night in March. I can't tell you, though I'm sure you understand, how horrible it is to listen to music without feeling even a twinge of emotion. I fell asleep with the Sennheisers on, trying to feel something, anything: nothing.

In the middle of the night, I woke up -- or perhaps the music woke me up -- at one of the most gutwrenching moments in my entire music library: 
1 minute and 24 seconds into AOD.

My heart fucking leapt out of my chest, in that way it only does when you are experiencing something sublime while half-asleep -- I sat straight up, choking back sobs I'd been ignoring for days; this song pulled them out of me. I had never heard anything like it. I had never felt anything like it; I haven't since. It was something indescribable, maybe even primal: it was the hope that I wasn't broken, that maybe there was something else, that I would get there. Eventually.

The emotional catharsis of that experience is mirrored in the structure of this fucking beautiful instrumental. It starts slow, with 65dos' trademark mathrock beats dinging around, a little distortion, nothing exceptional, quietly building to that xylophone, which in turn quietly builds to some synths, then some cymbals, and then that shift at 1:24 into a completely different universe, still retaining the structures from the first bit, but pushing outwards, upwards, reaching towards some kind of sky -- but I find that every time I listen to this song, that sky is a different colour. When shit starts going down at 3:33, it's like bombs are dropping but it still feels consonant, it still feels alive. This song, I think, is a throbbing representation of a life, starting off slow and pushing through all the bullshit and chaos, but holding that throughthread of consonant melody, somehow, and ultimately winding up safe, sane, quiet, but unable to forget everything you've experienced. A minute left. Still breathing. Still seething. Still alive.

You take that knowledge and you run with it. It doesn't fix you right away; nothing ever does. I was no less broken the next morning, despite that out-of-body musical experience, BUT:
sometimes the memory of a catalyst is just enough to keep you going.

four (theme: build-up)

[amethysting.livejournal.com]

Scarlet Fields
The Horrors
Primary Colours
2009
Build-Up

I love The Horrors (despite the fact that whenever I tell people their name they respond with, "The Whores?  What the fuck are you talking about?").  The first time I listened to this album, I was sitting at my desk in my old room in front of my computer.  I played the album from beginning to end without really doing anything else.  The music made me feel dizzy, off-kilter, a little sick.  I listened with my eyes closed, let my head drop.  Even if it makes me sound a little wacky, I think it was the first time that, behind closed eyes, I could actually SEE the music as this real, defined thing.   

This song relates to this week's theme in three ways:

1) I associate it with the the days leading up to the end of Stage number three.  Counting down the days and getting so close to numbers that seemed real and possible...numbers like 4, 3, 2, 1.  I saw The Horrors at Petit Cafe Campus a few days before the end of Stage.  When it finally came time for the concert, the built-up anticipation had transformed me into this crazed, intensely excited person.  I listened to the album every day walking to and from Stage; when I listened to Scarlet Fields this morning I could picture myself walking through the park behind my mom's house, feet stomping on the ground that had just begun to freeze.  The concert was on a weeknight.  I stood, shivering outside Cafe Campus waiting for my friend to meet me when the band exited the building and stood in a little knot in front of me.  I remember thinking, my goodness, they have such skinny legs, and pale skin, and black hair!  The lead singer was carrying one of those black, old-fashioned doctor's bags and they all wore shrunken leather jackets and had their hands shoved in their pockets.  Going to the concert was a reminder that there were still things I enjoyed.  There was life outside of teaching.  There were still things that made me feel something other than anxiety or depression.

2) The music itself builds-up to a wailing, nauseating swirl.  I like the steady dependability of the drumming.  There is a build-up to the end of the song, but also to every round of the chorus when that wailing synth joins in and the drums intensify.

3)  I also associate this song, and the album, with the build-up to what was probably an unavoidable, but awkward moment.  The day of the concert, Tina and Peggy came over after work for tea.  But not really.  Really it was just an awkward confrontation that kind of changed everything.  This song is so inextricably linked to that time and that moment, but I'm okay with that.

When the sun sets
On dark silhouettes
Collapse into dream
Collapse into dream