And then

I decided to vaguely ripoff my good buddy (and all around good guy) Jimmy (of James' Shelf and other music projects fame). I linked to his blog in the links section and it is well worth a click-through even though he hasn't updated in a really long time. Anyway, suffice it to say, he is certainly worthy of ripping off... he tends to post albums and I've decided to (for now at least) post a track that I'm really interested in. The track is: Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan – Sis Around The Sándmill (Reverse). It is from the now infamous album released recently entitled Pullhair Rubeye. In case you haven't heard, the entire album is reversed.. it's all backwards music. I like to hear it but I don't like to listen to it (many music fans, I hope, can understand that hearing and listening are two different yet equally important experiences.) Anyway, inevitably, many people (myself included) have reversed these songs digitally so that they can hear them the way that they were recorded and in that form I very much enjoy listening to them. Now the Tiny Mix Tapes review of this album points out the interesting philosophical ideas that are evoked through this exercise. Is the song backwards when it's frontwards considering that the artists released the track in a backwards form? Are the backwards and frontwards versions two different songs or extensions of the same song? Whatever the answer, I really love this song in its' frontwards (backwards) form.

Kria's voice gives it kind of a twee sound (which to me is a positive rather than a negative aspect) and the acoustic instruments evoke a mellow and friendly vibe. It almost sounds a little bit tropical in a disjointed kind of way. Avey's backup vocals don't sing words but rather act as a harmonic instrument perfectly complementing the lead vocals which have words (even though I can't understand very many of them). As the song reaches its' conclusion it begins to turn into a drone piece (which isn't too surprising since Avey is from Animal Collective and Kria is from Mum) however I think that this is one of the most organic sounding drones ever put to tape. Immediately, I begin to question how a drone could sound organic.. I mean the word drone tends to connotate mechanical images. However, once I listened to it again I was sure that it was an organic drone. After the track finished, I stopped the album from playing and contemplated the after-silence. Suddenly I was able to hear the wind blowing through the trees and the constant insect noises and the sound of my breathing: these were all organic drones. I think this track helped me to rediscover nature in a way. I am awakened and it's really very beautiful that music still has the power to awaken me. What's most interesting about this piece is that when it's turned backwards (frontwards) it immediately sounds like electronic music and turns the organic drones into mechanical ones as if to reaffirm my belief that being awake is what would happen if you were to sleep backwards... Enjoy.

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