I had big dreams, when I created this blog, of filling it with music for you to discover and enjoy. As I’m still enjoying the blog-birthday indulgence of rediscovering my archives, I wanted to share his post with you. It’s the second musical post I did. The first was Falling Slowly, but I hid that one in the archives. I haven’t become technically adept enough to install a jukebox in our wee café bistro yet, but please explore the links in this post if you weren’t around this time last year. If you were, please bear with me, or join me on a meander through memory lane! I still adore ‘Fleet Foxes’.
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Fleet Foxes
I have a strange, intense relationship with music. It affects me so much that there are periods where I choose not to listen to any at all.
Some music from my past is so special that I deliberately avoid it; I don’t want the potency of the memories eroded by constant exposure.
Other albums, tracks and voices can unlock memories so dangerous and painful that I prefer them to stay locked up in deep, dark, distant caverns, never to be visited again.
If I listen to new music during moments of intense emotion, it will be coloured forever by that moment. So I like to be alone, to choose where I am and what I’m doing the first time I listen to a new CD.
I enjoy music on the radio because the playlists are out of my control. Music comes and goes as the charts change. I take the good with the bad and the DJ banter. But sometimes, I hear a track that makes me want to rush out and buy the whole album.
That happened with the single ‘Mykonos’ by Seattle band, Fleet Foxes. I now own the CD, the eponymous ‘Fleet Foxes’.
‘Mykonos’ is haunting. It made my ears prick up the first time I heard it; so unusual, so uncommercial, refreshing and different. It had a unique haunting ’sound’ of its own, a distinct colour that had nothing to do with the lyrics. To be honest, I didn’t even register the lyrics. The harmonies and travelling rhythms made it a soundtrack for a ‘road trip’ movie yet to be made!
The CD hasn’t disappointed me either. More weird, unusual, difficult to define tracks that connect straight to the soul and bypass the brain. Guitar pieces reminiscent of early Leonard Cohen; a whisper of pan pipes; effortless, vibrant vocals and harmonies that reminded me of Gregorian chants, church spirituals, Neil Young, Aztec Two Step, Blue Grass music, British folk, the Beach Boys and something poignantly late 60’s early 70’s. Folk rock, bluesy ballads, a bizarrely timeless and eclectic yet somehow contemporary symphony.
Some of the sunny, soaring choirboy vocals and harmonies feel like they have…halos!
What can I say. It’s the first time in months that I’ve been moved to blurt to my husband “I’m going to get their album!” before even listening to sample tracks. He bought me it to celebrate my blog launch.
Maybe I’m way behind everyone else here, but I just wanted to share it with you in case it’s new for you too.
Please give it a try. You can listen to sample tracks from the Fleet Foxes album or download it on MP3 here You can also download ‘Mykonos’ for free here. Just scroll down to the ‘listen to samples’ section.) I’d love to hear what you think.
I’d also love to know what your last spontaneous ‘must have’ music buy was!
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I need to fix my headphones (or buy new ones), so I can listen to this song. In some ways we are alike Janice, I too am affected strongly by music. Unlike you however, I have to listen to music.
Music inspired me to write my Phantom of the Opera post, and the Rhydian Roberts one. I should do some more like that.
Thanks for giving us another peek in your archives Janice.
Marc´s last blog ..How to Add the Amazon Showcase Plugin to Your Blog
Hi, Marc. I loved your Rhydian post last year and your effortless use of the technology of embedding music. I’ve also noticed the subject of your latest post in Comment Luv and you can rest assured that as soon as I get over my
jetoverland&ferry lag I’ll be checking it out! I’m longing to do more music and book reviews this year and make this blog more like the café bistro I originally envisaged.Hi Janice .. very evocative music .. and I loved the song. I’d love to know more about music, but have no sense of rythym and I can’t sing or remember what I’ve heard – mostly ..
But I do love music .. and sometimes I’m quiet and sometimes I just need something going on in the background.
Thanks for this and your thoughts .. your hubby is kind!!
have a great weekend – and enjoy everything .. Hilary
Hilary´s last blog ..Fancy a Cornish Cream Tea? In Cornwall, in Tokyo or at home?
Hi Hilary,
Sorry I haven’t made it over to your fascinating and informative blog for a while. I’m intrigued by the Cornish Cream tea, and will check it out as soon as I’m feeling up to a slow but sure catch-up.
If I manage to do what I’m aiming to, there’ll be a juke box on my blog where you can check out all kinds of music. “Evocative” is a word that captures the spirit of a lot of the music I listen to.
Hi Janice.
I loved this sound within the first 5 seconds of hearing it. Wonderful. I HAVE to buy this. It’s been so long since I bought any music, I can’t even remember the last CD I bought. Thank you. My favourite line in this post was “the potency of the memories eroded by constant exposure.” I so understand what you mean by that. This is the first post I’ve read this morning as I s.l.o.w.l.y catch up on reading. What a great start!
Davina´s last blog ..Are You With Relationship?
Hi Davina,
I’m thrilled that you want to buy it! I went through a drought phase, too, where the only music I seemed to listen to in the car, for example, was the radio or CD’s my kids had bought. Having said that, though, my daughter has amazing taste in music and an eclectic collection and she’s made me great playlists for my MP4 and let me upload some of her CD’s. Any time you want, drop me an email and let me know what’s in your CD collection and I’d be happy to send you snippets of CD’s you might like to explore. That’s what we’d be able to do if we were able to meet for coffees and chats at home or in a real café. My musical tastes have evolved weirdly over the last few years, but there again, so have I.
I’m glad you liked that line from the post; it’s one of my favourites, too. My family don’t understand why I like to keep some memories potent, but now that I’m having the odd age-related memory blip, I’m so glad I’ve accepted the possibility that my memory may appreciate ‘triggers’ when I get older. I loved this post when I rediscovered it; I wrote so much better last year and need to do the work that’ll get me back to that place.
By the way, Davina, did you have a chance to check out the Falling Slowly post I linked to in this post? Once is a fabulous music-filled film you might enjoy. The music won an Oscar.
Reading your description of sounds and styles makes me wish you were offering a music appreciation/’hearing’ course, Janice!
Thanks, Connie! That would be so much fun… I experience so much of my world through music, lyrics and rythm. It would be a very self-indulgent course though… you’d be able to meander through a life-symphony that would require you to learn Greek and submerge yourself in Middle Eastern belly dancing rythms, as well as tap your feet to blue grass banjo and Blue Ridge mountain music and fiddles and haunting music from the Scottish islands. I also have Céline Dion in French, Gloria Esteban in Spanish and a collection from Portugal, Paris, Argentina and Chile.
Thanks Marc, Hilary, Davina and Connie. Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond, but a spontaneous cheap holiday in France turned into a traumatic travel tale as we got stuck because of the volcanic ash and had to make our way back overland. I’ll be posting about it soon, but I just wanted to let you all know what a pleasure it was to log back on for the first time today and find you here.