I like bands that expand the limits of my musical imagination. Sadly, there aren’t that many bands that have that effect on me, but since I’m practicing the whole “glass half full” nonsense – it is so joyful that there are bands that do! One of those bands is Massive Attack, which, like all my favorite musical acts from Britain, have the uncanny ability to sound different and always reinvent themselves. Each of their albums has something different for me, something that has become a mental landmark that I find myself revisiting over and over again, no matter how much time goes by.
For today’s bit, I’m not going to drag you from “Unfinished Sympathy” through “Angel” to “Flat Of The Blade” (although I’m tempted, and I probably will, later). I’m going to focus on the one-man show that “100th Window” was, because in some ways I find its blend of introspectiveness and experimentation fascinating.
Here is song number one, “Antistar”:
The first thing that strikes me about this song is that it has texture. The intro makes me imagine a jam session where Brazilian musicians and modern electronica virtuosos come together and let the music build itself; I could easily imagine throwing an Arabic tenor chant on top of those pulsating admixtures. The concept of pulse is very pervasive in this song and the next ones I’m going to talk about – the feeling that the space around you is not static, but instead it is vibrating in a multitude of frequencies. I like it because it breaks the monotonicity that is endemic to so much of contemporary music, and instead boldly declares – the world is multidimensional, reality is as rich as your sensibilities allow for you to experience it.
Similar ideas permeate the next song in the sequence, “Future Proof”:
I have always had an idea to write a novel about a guy who sees the world differently, for whom colors, shapes, and everything else just looks different. The intro to the song is how I imagine that guy going down the street on a cloudy afternoon, looking at the buildings, seeing them vibrate in a different colors and sounds, seeing the people in the street as multidimensional superpositions of their past, present and future. If only I could hit my head the right way, so I could see all that too… 🙂
In closing, I present you with “Small Time Shot Away”:
Here, again, is the flow of life, the spread out consciousness that takes in from multiple angles and perspectives, the drive, the symbiotic coexistence of deeper meaning and just a sense of wonder at the possibility of beauty. This is music in which I can always find new meaning, and which can always stretch the limits of my esthetic understanding, so that perhaps I gain an extra dimension or two myself.
I hope you enjoy this little selection. Best to listen to those songs with nice headphones, btw.
ruslandimov 