Galaxie 500 - "Strange"

Do you get the sense, like I do, that this song was recorded in a really tiny room; the three members of Galaxie 500 squished together, struggling, for lack of space, to move their hands, their fingers, their feet, to nod their heads?

How can something so standardly composed (G, D, and A minor, over and over again) - and without any instrumental virtuosity in its execution - sound so completely original? It's more than that rattly cymbal and it's more than the reverb soaked vocal performance.

This song is about alienation. About having been in your room for two days, reading and talking to yourself, and finally going outside where you're met with the bizarre, incomprehensible world. "Strange" sounds original because it manages to speak across time (1989 (could you tell?)) and place, from one inaccessible island to another. From their small self-contained solitude (world) to ours.

"Isn't it strange out there?"
"Yes. Thank you for noticing."

It should be noted that this Galaxie 500 is not the same as
the contemporary Quebec band of the same name. It should also be noted that if you're in the process of coming up with a band name, names which have been taken by famous and great bands (The Beatles, etc.) should not be considered. [Buy]

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Ornette Coleman - "Lonely Woman"

Is "Lonely Woman" like a Virginia Woolf novel

???

After a few false starts the bass settles into a stilted, crying lament. The drums push it forward "c'mon, we hafta keep moving." But the bass's pain is unfolded and expanded by Coleman's sax and Cherry's trumpet. Harmonic complexity is displaced by melodic clarity. Coleman breaks free of Cherry and into a raunchy blues. Cherry likes this wallowing indulgence and lets out a "woo". This dispirits the drums. They slow down, "Ok. If it's too hard we can stop for just one moment. But we have our duties and we must carry on."

"Lonely Woman" is an internal struggle. It's a brief, self- indulgent escape from life. It simultaneously wants to push forward and to stop and feel sorry for itself. And when at the end of the song, the bass reaches the end of its sniffling rise and falls back down to its cadence, we get a sense of resolution and finally, reconciliation to carry on. [Buy]

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Tomorrow: something (really) old and something (relatively) new (somewhat borrowed and a little bit blue).