this week's heartbreaker

[vixnix]

this song is making me cry, this week. Apparently it was on Rectify but I don't recall. I guess it's that kind of song, though.

[vixnix]

I love that the album this is from, is called Wait Long By the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By.

I just love these guys at the moment.

Anybody getting their heart broken by anything this week?

[redbreegull]

mama see the swirly mountains sigh there
how in my dreams I climbed them high
to the land of milk and honey
that the people had turned to mud
I know a creek that runs from way up there
wish it could tell me the sights and sounds it saw
because for water there are no borders
or so I thought until I dried

[vixnix]

I can imagine how that would be particularly meaningful for you...interesting Biblical themes running the whole way through - even down to the wind whispering love, knowing that ruah has so many meanings. The harmonies are a cool mix between traditional (as I know it, anyway) Jewish folk ones, and more contemporary American style folk ones. And after hearing you and pave describing the kibbutzim you stayed at I feel I can picture the landscape. It is so sad.

I have him playing now on youtube...

I had a go at transliterating the Hebrew relying on my dodgy memory of letters and came up with GBO ALVN haha. Kind of close. I thought the last two letters were vav and a final nun but maybe that's how a modern final nun is written? I couldn't think of anything that was just a straight stem, like that.

[redbreegull]

yeah, the straight line that descends below the floor of the other letters is a final nun. You are correct that the letter before that is a vav, but vav usually goes "oh" or "ooh." Not sure if it actually ever makes a V sound. The bet/vet confusion is the fault of Hebrew because the two letters are not differentiated, you just have to know from context. Technically bet should have a dot in the middle.

it's interesting, I have found that a lot of Israeli/Palestinian music evokes images of the landscape there in a way I can only compare to how American country paints rural American landscapes. In general the people there have a more spiritual connection to the Earth. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it. The cultures themselves are more invested in the physical land and their perceptions of spiritual heritage through the land than any culture I can think of in the US where we tend to be really disconnected from the physical land. Israelis and Palestinians have sort of a more "outdoor" focus in their cultures.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by vixnix

this song is making me cry, this week. Apparently it was on Rectify but I don't recall. I guess it's that kind of song, though.

gotta love that squelched up neil young guitar sound

[redbreegull]

yep I dig that shit 2nd listen is better

[vixnix]

I wonder if it's kind of embedded in the language there, too, they're fairly ancient languages still in use, so there's a stronger, perhaps subconscious cultural connection to an ancient agrarian mindset?

[vixnix]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

yeah, the straight line that descends below the floor of the other letters is a final nun. You are correct that the letter before that is a vav, but vav usually goes "oh" or "ooh." Not sure if it actually ever makes a V sound. The bet/vet confusion is the fault of Hebrew because the two letters are not differentiated, you just have to know from context. Technically bet should have a dot in the middle.

it's interesting, I have found that a lot of Israeli/Palestinian music evokes images of the landscape there in a way I can only compare to how American country paints rural American landscapes. In general the people there have a more spiritual connection to the Earth. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it. The cultures themselves are more invested in the physical land and their perceptions of spiritual heritage through the land than any culture I can think of in the US where we tend to be really disconnected from the physical land. Israelis and Palestinians have sort of a more "outdoor" focus in their cultures.

It's been so long, that I forgot a vav doesn't make a v sound. how embarrassment...

[vixnix]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

yep I dig that shit 2nd listen is better

I love the words. He has a good fist for lyric writing, I reckon. But the guitars are good, too.

See the albatross up in the windy lofts
He gets to beating his wings while he sleeps it off
I hear the jettisoned cries from his dreams unkind
Gets to whippin' my ears like a riding crop

I mean that's just crazy. I never hear anything like that. The image of these albatross cries falling from the sky and past his ears so forcefully that they sort of bend the pinnae as they go past is just so....arresting for me, for some reason. Such a bizarre way to describe it but at the same time, it makes complete sense to me. I find coastal places very assaulting in general, as well as being healing. Because the senses can be totally assaulted by these forceful winds and noises.

I think I have a sense of dread about the ocean, and of loss. It's so often depicted as a place of leisure or luxury, but it's actually quite deadly and dangerous and unforgiving. It's a good approximation of life, I guess, which can be so confronting. So him associating this despair, loneliness and neglect and rejection with the sea is somehow heartbreaking and comfortably familiar at the same time, for me.

[vixnix]

I would look up some of your threads to compare the gayness of them with this one, but I can't be bothered.

[buzzard]

Originally Posted by vixnix

I love that the album this is from, is called Wait Long By the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By.

I can't get enough of this album, lately.

"The Best You Can Believe In" is almost permanently stuck in my head and I find myself listening to it often enough that I'll put headphones on just to prevent the neighbours from thinking I've gone a bit weird. The middle section of "Locust" is bliss, too, and I only wish they kept it going for a few minutes before breaking it all apart.

Although I ended up abandoning my Rectify viewings due to boredom, it has my thanks for the band introduction.

[vixnix]

<3 <3 I wonder if Gareth Liddiard does such a good job of conveying feeling tortured and beaten down because he grew up in Perth...

I watched the first two seasons of Rectify and I'll check out the third when it's on Netflix. I'm a real sucker for those sexless romances like the one between Tawney and Daniel, it's embarrassing.

[Elijah Moon]