Originally posted by the church puddle:
Although it feels like pre-Cathedral Oceans, I would describe it almost as the anti-Pleasures of Electricity.
That's a very interesting analysis, and I have to agree. I've listened to this album a lot since getting it, and having got past my initial music/imagery hurdle, I've discovered a very dark and album indeed, that is quite claustrophobic in places.
I think because I have associated that particular image with
The Pleasures of Electricity and
Urban Motets for so long, I expected it to be more electronic and less vocal, with the kind of 'city' feel that TPOE,
Shifting City and even
Tiny Colour Movies gives you, when it is actually quite the opposite.
So while I still don't feel cities in the music, I do find it a very organic and textured album. It really is like the 'dark side' of Cathedral Oceans. No birdsong, so morning sunlight. Just darkness, wet stonework, brittle woodwork and that kind of damp, cool air you get when you peer down a well, through a crack in a wall or long empty railway tunnel.
The music makes me think of all sort of thing, and forgotten rooms riddled with overgrown plantlife. There are some open spaces in the album though, particularly on tracks like Barbican Brakhage; those vast echoes remind me of that feeling of smallness when you look up at the ceiling of a grand cathedral.
There is a sense of isolation or solitude in some of the music too. "Holywell Lane" reminds me of walking empty streets at night in the Autumn, when the ground is covered with soft fallen leaves.
It's almost like you have to burrow through that modern city on the cover to get to what it was built on. There's a great sense of nostalgia, with a hint of sadness.
Does this make sense, or have I lost the plot?!
