Throwback Thursday – “Dawn Escapes” by Falling Up

As the oppressive heat of summer in the South shows no signs of relenting, I long for crisp and cool autumn nights.  This album takes me back not only to that glorious season, but also to a year in my life which began a personal renaissance.

I guess I can start by saying that this album isn’t actually among my favorites.  I would probably only rank it three out of five stars.  But as with much music, it’s about the memories and feelings it evokes, not necessarily the material itself.  Dawn Escapes was originally released on October 25, 2005.  This landed it squarely in the fall of my sophomore year of college, one of the first times I felt free to explore and express myself.  For various reasons, my freshman year of college was somewhat of a throw-away year, particularly when it came to personal growth.  So, freshly returned from summer break and unencumbered by the anchors of the past, I dove headlong into college life that semester.

I remember driving over to Rocketown with some friends to see Falling Up perform some of the new material.  This was perhaps a couple of weeks before the record dropped.  Upon hearing the new songs, the ethereal tones and guitar parts didn’t surprise me, but what did catch me off guard was the amount of piano and keys that were featured.  While their debut offering had scant keyboards and programming, this release leaned on them heavily.  Front-man Jesse Ribordy even mentioned from stage that they had tried to make a more pop-accessible record, which was disappointing to me as a blooming emo-kid.  To this day I wonder if label pressure was the reason for the shift.  Still, I enjoyed the show and looked forward to the album, even pre-ordering it, if my memory serves me correctly.

Despite the changes from its predecessor, Dawn Escapes is by no means a bad album.  It contains all the core elements from Crashings, and there is nothing simplistic about the songs or composition.  Despite the electronic base, there is also a bit of edge; it’s a far cry from The Postal Service.  Ribordy’s clear voice delivers cryptic lyrics over distorted guitars, synthesizers, and crashing cymbals, as well as pianos and percussion loops.  Best of all, they didn’t include any rap vocal cameos this time around.  Despite their young age, I still believe that Falling Up was writing mature music compared to their peers, even if they did borrow some elements from well-known mainstream acts.

Uncharacteristically, I don’t have a connection with many of the words on this album.  Instead, it is the spacey atmosphere that takes me back to driving around Nashville with the windows down, cool and crisp air flooding into the car to match the ethereal sounds.  I savor the memories of that season, which was in many ways a time of rebirth and renewal for me.

You can find the electronic and keyboard-infused rock of Dawn Escapes on Spotify or Amazon.

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Throwback Thursday – “()” by Sigur Ros

Sorry for the long delay between posts.  First I was off traveling for a couple of weeks, then getting back into the swing of things.  Finally, entries resume.

This week instead of reminiscing about summers past, I’m remembering an album that calls to mind freezing temperatures and short days.  It’s not that I’m ready for the dead of winter by any means, but a song from this album came up on shuffle for me recently, and I recalled that it was the album that first made me fall in love with epic, instrumental post-rock.

I’ve never talked to anyone who knows what the title of this album is.  Some pronounce () simpy as “Untitled.”  This makes it very hard to search for, but naming an album with empty parentheses is likely an artistic statement which Sigur Ros intended to make.  What that statement is, I’m not sure.  I do know that this is one of their darkest albums, sonically speaking.  Some have posited that it represents the emptiness felt by members of the band during that period of their lives, a hypothesis which I believe has merit.  All but a select few moments on the album are brooding, ethereal, and even ominous.

While the album was released in 2002, I first came across it as winter approached in late 2009.  Early nightfall was perfectly accompanied by the ambient, yet deeply emotional sounds of this album.  As with other seasons of my life, mistakes and relational situations weighed heavy on my heart.  The shortening days didn’t help my mood, but this album connected on a level deeper than words could describe.

As with most of Sigur Ros’s work, the vocals are not the feature.  Or they are, but no one can understand them.  In fact, on this album, they’re mostly indiscernible noise, but in a beautiful way.  Some have said that front-man Jonsi is singing in a made-up language.  While that may be, track after track, his haunting falsetto captures as much emotion as could be expected from words which can’t be understood.  In this regard, it’s odd that I love this album as much as I do.  Typically, lyrics are a huge part of what makes a song click for me.  In this case, the music is so good that it happens not to matter.  Discernible or not, the intent is clearly conveyed in the vocals.  Part of me wishes there were profound lines to accompany the instrumentation, but I realize that in this case, that isn’t necessary.

As is common in the genre, tracks routinely reach the ten-minute mark.  In fact, not a single song is under six minutes.  This is music that needs to be mulled and digested, not tossed on the radio for a quick hit and a few bucks.  Still, this particular album is dynamic enough that I wouldn’t consider it background music.  The final track (affectionately labeled as “Untitled 8”) builds from somber vocals punctuated with toms to a furious, aggressive finish, including the most powerful drumming of the album.  I remember lying on the floor at my duplex on Battery Lane, listening to the track through the 1970s stereo my dad gave me as the darkness outside quietly fell around the house.

The album would go on to typify that freezing and lonely winter with its somber and atmospheric sounds.  Today it reminds me of the power of music in and of itself, apart from lyrical content.

You can find the layered and emotional post-rock of () on Spotify and Amazon.