Komorebi-D knows the score. This is Real Estate’s best album. And it’s not even close. There is a laid-back relaxed vibe that permeates this album. The perfect album for kicking back on the back porch with a nice IPA. You’ve got the Christmas tree lights on and the neighbors are firing up a bar-b-que in the distance. Lightning bugs hang effortless in the air lighting up the backyard with occasional bursts of brilliance. Everything is alright and will be even better with that next beer. These kids are now all grown up and comfortable in their own skin. Confident in THEIR sound. Because they own it. It’s all theirs. And they’re not afraid.
This is my go to album when I need to chill out. When my mind falls into the trap of believing that some encounter, conversation or action has altered my existence. Like some ridiculous thought like… “OMG! WHY DID I TEXT HER THAT. I NEVER SHOULD HAVE TEXTED HER THAT. I’VE RUINED EVERYHTHING!” I put this on, open up some nice IPA and realize that it’s all just in my mind. That it’s nothing very important at all and will all blow over by tomorrow morning. That there was probably nothing there even to blow over. That in a day I will forget all about it entirely. I laugh at my silly mind, take in these laid back vibes, my Christmas tree lights hanging from my back deck, and just watch the leaves dance on the trees in the mild wind. Nothing important really happened. Nothing important almost never really happens. Our minds are just hyperactive. Ultra-vigilant. Looking out for threats that are not even there. That never even existed. All I need to do is be.
Grade: A+. Once of the best jangle pop albums of all time. And definitely Real Estate’s finest hour (which is saying something.). It’s a very beachy, “everything is going to be alright” album which is just perfect to settle down with. There are some subtle touches of shoe gaze on some songs which add just the right amount of warmth. There’s a quiet confidence in this album. That says “This is who we are, and where we are and we’re cool with it”. And I’m going to follow their lead. And it lazily & confidently moseys along to number eight completely happy to just be itself.
Essential
1. Donovan - A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
2. Mum - Finally We Are No One
3. Townes Van Zandt - Townes Van Zandt
4. The Durutti Column - Another Setting
5. Vashti Bunyan - Another Diamond Day
6.. Harold Budd/Brian Eno - The Pearl
7. Judee Sill - Judee Sill
8. Real Estate - Atlas
9. Bonnie "Prince" Billie - The Letting Go
10. The Fun Years - One Quarter Descent
11. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
12. John Phillips - John, The Wolf King of L.A.
13. Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
14. Gene Clark - No Other
15. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
16. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
17. Real Estate - Days
18. Harold Budd - Pavilion of Dreams
19. Bob Dylan - Self-Portrait
20. Beach House - Bloom
21. Real Estate - Real Estate
22. Deerhunter - Fading Frontier
Andrew Wyeth, Distant Thunder - 1961
Wyeth has always fascinated me, his paintings are meaningful, wrapped in vastness.
and well, the poetry is not mine my friend:
"There is a land not far from the ears of sound
the eyes of sight can't see
it's over the trees
you'll be there by tomorrow's breeze"
Those words are Donovan's ones, the song is "The Land Of Doesn't Have To Be"
beautiful line indeed... _________________ Not Talulah?
- Gosh!
Andrew Wyeth, Distant Thunder - 1961
Wyeth has always fascinated me, his paintings are meaningful, wrapped in vastness.
I LOVE it. Might try to get myself a print. I know just the place it could go. Of course it would be competing with some pretty stiff competition. - my kid's paintings!!!! Nothing trumps those. lol.
pa wrote:
and well, the poetry is not mine my friend:
"There is a land not far from the ears of sound
the eyes of sight can't see
it's over the trees
you'll be there by tomorrow's breeze"
Those words are Donovan's ones, the song is "The Land Of Doesn't Have To Be"
beautiful line indeed...
Oh, I knew that. I meant...
I'm listening to Donovan...a great surprise. It's a rainbow album, charming rainbow of emotion
60's, magic decade, high and passionate hopes, soft reality ever changing
even if I was not there, I like to think those vibes left inscrutable seeds in my heart
like if they were still here and now
Angels can sin. I bet you didn’t know that. But they can. They can take their station next to God for granted. Become ungrateful. Arrogant. And then they fall to Earth. To watch over us. As penance to get back into God’s graces. They don’t know how many souls they have to save. It could be five. It could be five million. There is simply no way of knowing. The grief of no longer feeling God’s radiance is incalculable. He feels empty. Abandoned. Imagine being cast out into the Alaskan tundra after spending your entire life lazing on the beaches of Costa Rica. And you've just begun to scratch the surface.
This album is filled with the grief and mourning of this fallen angel. As he flies above us. Detached and aloof from the souls he has been decreed to save. Because he cannot directly interact with us. That is against the rules. He must guide us in subtle ways. Gently shift our trajectories. So that we can find God’s radiance ourselves. The radiance our banished angel has lost.
His grief at letting down God is palpable. The songs are full of his repentance. His cry to God to please forgive him. That he will atone for his sins. That he has been humbled. But also his reverence. For God. For his home. For this is not an Earthly album. It’s celestial. It’s concern is with the heavens. The skies far above. A deep longing to return home. Where he belongs. And he knows he can get there. With patience & perserverance. Until then he watches. And waits. To prove himself worthy of God’s love again.
Grade: A-. If Godspeed You Black Emperor made an ambient album this is what it would sound like. It’s massive. It's beautiful & plaintive. But the greatest thing I love about it is how it gives you the impression that you’re flying. That you’re one with the clouds above looking down far removed from the trivial ongoings of day to day life. Its pressures and its strife. That instead you are content to just contemplate the heavens above. And wonder and ponder how to get there. Just like our fallen angel. And it flies up to number 17.
Essential
1. Donovan - A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
2. Mum - Finally We Are No One
3. Townes Van Zandt - Townes Van Zandt
4. The Durutti Column - Another Setting
5. Vashti Bunyan - Another Diamond Day
6.. Harold Budd/Brian Eno - The Pearl
7. Judee Sill - Judee Sill
8. Real Estate - Atlas
9. Bonnie "Prince" Billie - The Letting Go
10. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
11. The Fun Years - One Quarter Descent
12. John Phillips - John, The Wolf King of L.A.
13. Harold Budd - Pavilion of Dreams
14. Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
15. Gene Clark - No Other
16. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
17. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
18. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Winged Victory for the Sullen
19. Real Estate - Days
20. Bob Dylan - Self-Portrait
21. Beach House - Bloom
22. Real Estate - Real Estate
23. Deerhunter - Fading Frontier
Shake the dust off of your wings
And the tears out of your eyes (TVZ, To Live is To Fly)
Go ahead. Read the rest of the lyrics to “To Live Is To Fly.” I can wait. I got all the time in the world. I’m going to singe those lyrics into my brain. Write them on my hands. On random peaces of paper. Because there is a whole lot of wisdom in those lines. Perhaps the key line is ….
But it don't pay to think too much
On things you leave behind
We all spend way too much time in the past. And all that thinking & regret & second guessing ruins this very moment. It can ruin the future. And It can ruin the rest of your life if you let it. What’s gone is gone. What’s done is done. It only pays to move forward and let go.
If TVZ’s self-titled album kicked you in the guts and left you hungover in some alley gutter with vomit on your shirt and urine down your pant leg, High, Low & In Between picks you back up again. It extends its warm, encouraging hand, pulls you up from the vomit and the pist filled streets, pats you on the back and buys you a beer. And says “Don’t worry, brother. It’s going to be alright. I’ve been there myself a time or two.”
While there are one or two songs that are bit “Low”, most of the album is concerned with the “Highs” - good time rollers, spirituals, and even a fun, light-hearted goof (No Deal). This an album that puts a smile on your face and shows you the way back onto your feet. With humor, dancing, singing, some drinking, and just a bit of the good Lord’s help.
Grade: A+. This is pretty much the counterpoint to TVZ’s self-titled album. A wonderful album about enjoying life TODAY no matter what happened yesterday. About how there is always second chances and comebacks. As TVZ says,
We all got holes to fill
Them holes are all that's real
Some fall on you like a storm
Sometimes you dig your own
The choice is yours to make
Time is yours to take
Some sail upon/dive into the sea
Some toil upon the stone
So I’ll be throwing away my shovel and diving into the sea. And I’m going to take this album with me as I jump into that cresting wave all the way to number 12.
Essential
1. Donovan - A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
2. Mum - Finally We Are No One
3. Townes Van Zandt - Townes Van Zandt
4. The Durutti Column - Another Setting
5. Vashti Bunyan - Another Diamond Day
6.. Harold Budd/Brian Eno - The Pearl
7. Judee Sill - Judee Sill
8. Real Estate - Atlas
9. Bonnie "Prince" Billie - The Letting Go
10. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
11. The Fun Years - One Quarter Descent
12. Townes Van Zandt - High, Low and In Between
13. Harold Budd - Pavilion of Dreams
14. John Phillips - John, The Wolf King of L.A.
15. Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
16. Gene Clark - No Other
17. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
18. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
19. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Winged Victory for the Sullen
20. Real Estate - Days
20. Bob Dylan - Self-Portrait
21. Beach House - Bloom
22. Real Estate - Real Estate
23. Deerhunter - Fading Frontier
Last edited by Repo on 05/23/2017 12:38; edited 1 time in total
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
Somewhere else in the universe - exactly where I do not know - there is a planet and civilization not unlike our own. They’re busy with jobs and making ends meet mostly. But they are also vastly curious about life. Chiefly whether they are all alone in this vast universe. Whether the entire universe exists just for them.
So just like us, they built a space program. But this being science fiction and all, theirs is a bit more advanced than ours. And they built and coded this amazing android. It is capable of learning how to create any and all languages, dialects & tongues. Given enough time it would be able to communicate with any creature in the entire world. No matter how big or small. How complex or simple. Insects, humanoids, birds, amoebas... you name it. Essentially, if a life form, or even another droid, can communicate, this droid will learn how to communicate with it. The people on this planet - let’s call them Clusterferians just for fun - were naturally quite proud of their creation. And they built a moderate sized space vessel such that their droid could comb the universe looking for any sign of life to communicate with. And then report back to them.
To give the mission the best chance of success, the Clusterferians gave this robot something new. Something they had never encoded into a robot before. A strong message that this mission was critical. Vital. In a word they gave it Desire.
Time passes. Millions of years. The droid performs its tasks and tries to carry out its mission. Sending out signals. And waiting for a response. Sending out more signals. Trying to communicate. To connect. To anything. It creates endless variations of sounds. But nothing ever comes back. Just the vast emptiness of space. And him.
And then the unthinkable happens. The unimaginable. He develops feelings. After eons and eons of trying and trying to fulfill its mission with that strong desire encoded in him, he starts to grow sad. This desire to connect to something, ANYTHING, overwhelms him. The years of sending and sending, trying and trying and getting nothing back in return changes him. He becomes what we would call depressed. He preservers on with his mission of course. He’s a robot after all. But a shade of loneliness, of mourning now pervades the sounds he creates. A lament. The lament of being lonely. Of being human.
Grade A+: Cluster makes sounds better than anyone. Eno enhances sounds better than anyone. So together this is a dream team. And they amply fulfill the promise such a collaboration would suggest. This is one of the greatest dark ambient albums of all time. Considering its pedigree, I’m quite surprised it’s bit undiscovered. Don’t let it stay lonely anymore! Seek out and connect with this major ambient gem. There’s a lonely robot just waiting to hear from you. And this LP hurdles through space all the way to number 11.
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Essential
1. Donovan - A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
2. Mum - Finally We Are No One
3. Townes Van Zandt - Townes Van Zandt
4. The Durutti Column - Another Setting
5. Vashti Bunyan - Another Diamond Day
6.. Harold Budd/Brian Eno - The Pearl
7. Judee Sill - Judee Sill
8. Real Estate - Atlas
9. Bonnie "Prince" Billie - The Letting Go
10. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
11. Cluster & Eno - Cluster & Eno
12. The Fun Years - One Quarter Descent
13. Townes Van Zandt - High, Low and In Between
14. Harold Budd - Pavilion of Dreams
15. John Phillips - John, The Wolf King of L.A.
16. Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
17. Gene Clark - No Other
18. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
19. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
20. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Winged Victory for the Sullen
21. Real Estate - Days
22. Bob Dylan - Self-Portrait
23. Beach House - Bloom
24. Real Estate - Real Estate
25. Deerhunter - Fading Frontier
This is my third time trying to review this album. My first review started with…
It’s sorta ironic that this was viewed as Dylan’s comeback album after the supposed debacle of Self-Portrait. Because Self-Portrait towers of over it and makes this album feel sort inconsequential & light-weight. Self Portrait teems with life and ideas and unpredictability whereas this sounds like the standard fare country/California rock that was popular at the time.
Well I quickly realized after a few more spins the error of my ways. I was falling quite enchanted with the variety & relaxed vibe of the album. I concluded that my impression was just plain daft. That it was just a different sort of album and that my expectations after the brilliant, mercurial mess that was Self Portrait were just too high. That this was a different affair entirely but totally lovable & cuddle worthy.
So… My next review started with…
This is a mediocre Dylan album. This is an AMAZING album.
I thought it was kinda funny & perhaps even a little witty. Pointing out that Dylan is sort of a God and that even his lesser albums are treasures. I think Mercury summed it up best in a PM to me with …
Oh and yeah I totally agree on "New Morning" it's not peak dylan, yet it's so warm, natural, unassuming, and just unegotistical, so that gives it all that offhand beauty. Even lesser dylan is DYLAN and so is amazing! (but lets not speak of godawful dylan, sad!)
BUT, then something funny happened. This album took over my life. I got the crave to play it every single morning while I fixed my morning cup of coffee for WEEKS. I’ve easily listened to this fifty or so times in the last two months. And I realized something. This is not lesser Dylan. This is peak Dylan! This is Dylan at his most relaxed and unassuming. Just having fun and letting all his influences show and imbue this laid-back country rock record. And I’m a huge fan of country rock from this period. And this easily stands with the best of them.
So I learnt something crucial. Something that I knew well back in the days when I didn’t have every single record ever recorded available to me at the push of my finger. Back when I was teenager. Life way before Spotify existed. And Napster was not even a thought. That’s there’s a great benefit to just plunging into one or two records at a time. Unveiling their layers. Living with them and letting them become a part of you. Instead of being constantly driven to find that next record. Less can truly be more. And in the years since Napster dawned, I forgot this. I forgot how magical those records I bought in the 80s and 90s became for me because I would play them constantly. Over and over again. Until they became a part of me. And I a part of them.
Grade: A. This is yet another five-star Dylan album! It’s a different animal than a lot of his other highly touted albums. Why? Because Dylan’s happy! So it’s warm. It’s playful! Dylan was clearly at peace with himself and that peace comes across in the relaxed vibe of the songs and feel of the album. What stands out again is Dylan's love of music. All kinds of music - ragtime, blues, jazz. The stuff he grew up with and listened to probably on one of those old-time radios with one crummy speaker. But this time in a very cohesive manner that flows just perfectly. There’s great variety among the tracks here and each one is delivered with love, care and the utmost attention to detail that is revealed upon repeated listens. So let this album become a part of you. Let all albums become a part of you. And this album becomes a part of my chart all the way up at number 15.
Essential
1. Donovan - A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
2. Mum - Finally We Are No One
3. Townes Van Zandt - Townes Van Zandt
4. The Durutti Column - Another Setting
5. Vashti Bunyan - Another Diamond Day
6.. Harold Budd/Brian Eno - The Pearl
7. Judee Sill - Judee Sill
8. Real Estate - Atlas
9. Bonnie "Prince" Billie - The Letting Go
10. Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
11. Cluster & Eno - Cluster & Eno
12. The Fun Years - One Quarter Descent
13. Townes Van Zandt - High, Low and In Between
14. Harold Budd - Pavilion of Dreams
15. Bob Dylan - New Morning
15. John Phillips - John, The Wolf King of L.A.
16. Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
17. Gene Clark - No Other
18. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
19. Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
20. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Winged Victory for the Sullen
21. Real Estate - Days
22. Bob Dylan - Self-Portrait
23. Beach House - Bloom
24. Real Estate - Real Estate
25. Deerhunter - Fading Frontier
Last edited by Repo on 05/23/2017 12:34; edited 4 times in total
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
Truly a beautiful review, Tilly! And not just cuz its about my bf, or because you mentioned me, or because (I think) I recommended this album back in the dawn of our Tilly to Mercury PM connection. Those all are features that make my heart glow, but even seperate from those, its a nice little insight into how you view music. And there's a lot of truth in it. I have a whole room which I have usurped from my roommate, and along with an old ping pong table, It is the MUSIC ROOM. It contains racks and racks of about 2000 CDs, 100 old tapes (some made by me from listening to the radio, or from making mix tapes for the ladies in my life), and about 300 vinyl records. These were THE important possession of my life. I still adore them and am glad they exist. But back in the day the way I discovered music was a very old school method, I always found the album and listened to it many times on my walkmen or stereo. Etc. I did this for a couple records a week (okay, may 5 on average each week) for about 15 years. Then I discoved apple music. And now I just fon't even fuck with my CDs or albums anymore. And a part of that makes me sad to think about.
Now, more often than not, when I give a whimsical thought to my album collection, its cuz I'm behind on rent or I need money for dates or I am just straight up strapped and I'm thinking of my albums in the context of "How much could I get for those things? Which of them are "rare"?". Then I go on with my day.
It's sad. And now I have millions of gems at my fingertips and the fire isn't quite as strong for music anymore. Its not a scarce commodity, so I don't remotely "adore" or "cherish" my apple music account a 100th as much as I did my 500 albums I had when I was 16. Its weird.
Long response ends in 3... (again awesome write up...) 2... (you're amazing with this lil diary)... 1! _________________ -Ryan
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