It has that intrigue and innate beauty to it.
But I don't understand it.
Fortunately, you don't need to 'understand' music: just let the swell of sound wash over you and glory in its harmonic and rhythmic complexity. It's high brow, anti punk forged in academic minds that make no concessions for mass appeal.
Its musical antecedents are not clear to me.
I hear Soft-Hearted Scientists and I can hear the dizzying array of literary, geographical and musical influences [for example: Lear, Bethesda & the Incredible String Band] that help shape their music.
I listen to Glow and I suspect that people like Aphex Twin and squarepusher, as well as a retinue of modern classical composers have informed their music. The thing is, I never get very far with any of the artists I've just mentioned. I need a bit more humanity in my music.
Glow humanise the experimental and electronic. The horns and guitar arpeggios give the blazing digital invention a human face. Then there is Ben's spidery vocal lines singing lyrics that are naked and vulnerable. He is not an Anti Christ, he is not The Resurrection, I suspect that he doesn't lay claim to having Ice Hockey Hair, either. He doesn't hide behind braggadiccio or quirky metaphors. He is a sensitive and intelligent young man in a world that frequently chastises men who dare to be sensitive and intelligent.
This is an album of ambition and great bravery. I think it is one of the greatest musical achievements of any Welsh band, ever. I'm prone to hyperbole, I know, but I do think that 'I, Yeah!' is truly special: a celebration of excellence and originality at a time when insipid conservatism still appears to define who gets the media's attention. But for all its ambition, it's an album that never forgets to keep an emotional heart beat pulsing away in the background.
Some people will hate it. They might level the 'prog' accusation at it, but that's no criticism in my book, necessarily. As long as Glow don't perform it on ice, that is.
And whilst it is all of the words that I have over used and chosen badly: intelligent, inventive, progressive, original, it's never pompous. In fact, it's an album of profound modesty. The production, for example, is full of wonder and incredible craft, but it is never showy. A multitude of instruments make appearances, but they don't appear out of nowhere like attention-seeking toddlers. They grow out of the sound around them and you're gradually aware that something has changed. It is beautifully done. Beautifully.
These tracks will become great friends over the months.
That is this album's greatest achievement.
Hell, yeah!
[ buy it for £5 at http://fablesofglow.com -- it's the best 5 quid I have spent in eons. I'm sodding off to listen to it again. ]
©Adam Walton
2010
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