Monday, September 7, 2015

Song of the Day #194 - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Nomadic Revery (All Around)

And I just need an evening with someone nice me to hide me...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWDgvrTjacs

Song of the Day was on a break 'cause up at my cottage with no internet. It was very nice and peaceful. I read a lot and wrote a lot and played Final Fantasy IX and listened to this album like a dozen times. I have waves of obsession with it, I don't think I'll ever stop listening to it, and I can even foresee some day where it becomes basically the only album I'll want to listen to. There's many subtle truths that the album holds that have yet to reveal themselves to me. I can feel them out there.

It's an amazing album, but it's one that I hesitate to recommend wholeheartedly to others. It's one where, if you can be moved by it, it will be on deep, personal levels, and you can never be sure that there's anything really "objectively" "correct" or "moving" or even "great" on the album, it has that sensibility of not requiring any sort of established system or context to create it, so that you can never be sure that you're actually hearing something amazing or if you and Will Oldham just have the exact same strain of delusion and depression.

Okay well I mean that would all be true if it weren't for this song. This song is so undeniably well crafted and powerful that waves of confidence pour out of it and shore up every aspect of the album. The genius of every other choice in the album becomes obvious in the context of this unrestrained virtuoso display. If you've listened to it I think you'll agree that this is more understatement than hyperbole.

Most of the rest of the album might fall flat on normal happy people but the emotions here are so raw and explosive that you have to take notice, even if you're socioemotionally stable. Geez, even if you can't understand English, I think you could tell something very important was going on here. Even if like... you just looked at a graph of this song, like some sort of complex line graph that showed the emotional development of the song, you'd be like, "sheesh, I've never seen something escalate quite like that". Even after all my repeated plays, it still catches me off guard. When you think it's gonna peak it doubles down, and when you think it's gonna decay, it struggles a little more.

What's it actually about, though? I dunno man, that's kinda beyond me. It's more just about that this song comes from "A Minor Place" and into the title track, which are absolutely miraculous songs that manage to speak about an entire dimension of emotion in a way that feels both completely universal and individually intimate. This one, I think, is not an explanation of the emotions, but the emotion itself. I dunno if that makes sense. Sorry if this one seems really mopey too. I'm actually in a really good mood these days. Fun songs returning soon though~~

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