Top 5 Songs of the Month - December 2020/Քաղոց 4513 ~ La Scaltra, Tearful Moon, Бумажные Тигры
Final stretch of 2020. We’re almost there! As if the nightmare will suddenly end when the year on the Gregorian calendar changes. Who knows what fresh Hell 2021 will entail. I do think that we should all be grateful to be alive at the end of this year. Never take it for granted. Never take anything for granted. That’s what I learned this year.
Feels like a lot happened this last month. Been falling deeper down the Russian post-punk rabbit hole. I don’t know why the gothic music podcasts I listen to never play that stuff. Is it because of animosity between Americans and Russians? Even if on a subconscious level? I wonder. For some reason music in general just doesn’t really make it out of Russia much, except maybe to neighboring countries. Even their pop music is a lot better than American pop in my opinion. Well, I know where to find it now on YouTube, so you might see it in my Top 3 more often. Maybe I can help get it to a wider audience in my own tiny little way. But this month there is an assortment, only two Russian bands will appear.
Anyway, because I’ve been bombarded with good music this month I am going to do an extra honorary mention this time, because I can. This can be a Top 5 list instead. If I have the same hard time narrowing it down to just three next month I might just make it a Top 5 every month.
La Scaltra - Neverland
This song came to me at a time I needed it. A calming song about escaping this dark, painful world, flying above the world and going to Neverland. Granted, Neverland wouldn’t be my first choice of a fantasy realm to escape this bleak, unjust world to, that would probably be Oz. Peter Pan is kind of villainous when you think about it, and being an adult myself I suppose I would be joining the pirates anyway. I did a blog entry on that subject once. But, being stuck swabbing Captain Hook’s deck would be better than a desk job at least. Ah, to escape reality and be a carefree child again. I am due for checking out more of La Scaltra’s discography. You may remember the track “Astral Kiss” having been an honorary mention on my Top 3 several months ago. Both that song and this one have mystical qualities that appeal to my longing for escapism.
The lyrics in this song are just a nonstop flow. I can’t imagine trying to sing this in karaoke without fumbling the lyrics or stopping to breathe. But, I always find it catchy when a singer can pull something like this off. It kind of reminds me of “Fieber” by Das Ich, just in terms of the quick-paced, continuous singing style. It’s goth rap. The lyrics are very abstract and I have a hard time interpreting them, but I like the lines “I’m a fool to wander into your night, I’m a fool to wonder of your stars.” What does it mean, to wander into someone’s night? There’s some pretty deep and mysterious symbolism going on in the lyrics of this song.
Even though Molchat Doma isn’t on the list this month (do I need to start making these Top 10 lists?) it casts a long shadow on this month’s picks as my gateway drug into this kind of music. I came across this very melodic Russian post-punk song on one of the Russian Doomer Music playlists, and felt inspired to dig up the individual song, finding this unofficial music video above. The band name here is Mazhnyye Tigry, which if their Bandcamp page is to be trusted translates to Paper Tigers (Google Translate says “Major Tigers”, but they’re not always the most trustworthy). And the song title, Mechty, means “Dreams”. I would like to learn to at least read Russian. I don’t think I have time or money to take classes to become fluent in it though. I’m still not completely fluent in either German or Armenian either. But I want to start studying their alphabet and maybe learning some basic vocabulary.
It’s a song for cold weather. A winter song. Some songs just don’t hit the same outside of a certain season. I don’t know if that’s just me, but then again I don’t think that I am the only one who subconsciously categorizes types of music like that. This is one of three Russian songs I know with this exact title, one of which is by Vitas, another of which is below.
And here’s another song about dreams.The name of this band is Electrotsoy, or Electricity in English, and this song is off a little four-track EP titled “Nostalgia” they released over the summer. Their music is relaxing, soothing but still “goth” enough to be up my alley. Kind of like The Cure but with Russian female vocals. Another band I would compare them to is Glaare, who I guess are considered “shoegaze”. Never really understood that genre name. I’ve heard the term “dreamwave” tossed around too, which this might also qualify as. One of the infinite “wave” genres. But Glaare was the first band I heard with this kind of sound. Anyway I like all the tracks on this album about equally. I went with this one due to the song title. I don’t understand the lyrics, but I understand the feelings.
As an aside, I just made a dream-themed mixtape last spring, and now all the sudden I’m finding all these new dream songs. Sigh, such is life.
If you regularly read my blog you might remember this as the first song on my recent mixtape Սեւ Օրեր. This song translates to “In the Blue”, by the Armenian band The Deenjes. The lyrics actually come from a poem by famed Armenian poet Yeghishe Charents which you can check out here if you’re curious. And no, I can’t seem to find it in English right now. As I talked about in my mixtape blog, Armenia’s current troubles inspired me to go through The Deenjes’ discography again, and this song stuck with me most.
The Deenjes doesn’t have a Bandcamp, their music is for free on YouTube, pretty much the only place you can get it.
No comments:
Post a Comment