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How is it that out of the blue an amazing track appears in my midst? The other day, one of my friends tweeted this track and claimed it to be the greatest recording ever recorded. I just had to check this out, first because I had never heard of this track before, and secondly because I live by the assumption that he has a good taste in music. He plays guitar, and although I’ve never met he resembles Bob Dylan.
How is it that I’ve never heard this track, or anything by this band? Could it be that growing up in the U.K. and being surrounded and blasted by 90’s Britpop (thanks, Jarvis) isolated me from what was really happening in the world? Could there be musical talent beyond Britains green and pleasant land – but… but.. I thought our 60’s invasion took care of the fact that British music will never be matched? What happened is that the British invasion sowed the seed, then took root in the American Heartland and has born fruit many times over.
“The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory” is really something – the quality of the record is poor, but it is intentionally so. Guided By Voices went very lo-fi on this recording and gained much praise from their contemporaries by doing so. The lyrics are surreal – and my guess is that the only the author of those words knows what they mean. It’s as if they were pulled from a dreamlike state, one that is very haunting. Does this mountain spirit away his old friends, transforming them into different people, rendering them unrecognizable from their former-selfs? Does the mountain hold a promise of wealth, but once taken in by it, gives you back only evil and desolation ?
She runs through the night as if nobody cares
She screams and she hides and ignores all their stares
She wants me to come, but I’m never going there
The goldheart mountain top queen directory
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Now that’s some cool music… I wonder if our library has anything by them.
September 29th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I was able to get the album (Bee Thousand) out of the library and finished giving a listen to it this morning.
Unfortunately only this song and another called “I’m a Scientist” were any good. On an album with 10 tracks that wouldn’t be so bad, but this album had twenty.
Going intentionally lo-fi someitmes has its benefits (like with the Fleet Foxes), however it just seems like an attempt (a poor one at that) to disguise an utter lack of quality.
Many of the tracks sound like portions of rehearsal tapes with some of the songs slamming to a halt and falling on top of the next track. This technique has been used to good effect by Brian Wilson (with Smile), Def Leppard (one song transition on the Euphoria album), Todd Rudgren (I think the album is called Liars), and if I remember correctly Sufjan Stevens did some of this on his notable album. However it utterly fails on this album.
To given them an extended chance I also started to listen to their 2002 release “Universal Truths and Cycles”. I couldn’t get past the 2nd track. I like exploring music and I like uncovering gems or having them pointed out to me (Thanks, Gareth!). However I think the only one I’m going to find here is the song posted above.
October 9th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Yes. I would have to agree with you there Paul – I listened to the remainder of the Bee Thousand album (considered to be their best and most appealing album), but I found it very hard to listen to. It reminded me of listening to a bands outtakes – and the bad ones at that! You’d have to be a real fan of this music to give this band more air time.