Quick Before it Melts

Saturday 15 May 2010

QBiM SPiNS: Holy Fuck Latin

Yesterday’s post on Old World Vulture got me thinking about instrumental music, and my feelings about it in general.  I think it’s definitely harder for a band who solely work in the instrumental realm to make a connection with your typical music fan because the instrumentalists don’t share the same common language with their audience that a band with vocals does.  Let me explain a bit further:  your typical music may or may not have any real music background (in terms of understanding who it’s written or performed) other than their experience as a listener.  Unless they’ve been exposed to genres like classical music and jazz, most of your indie-loving street kids have typically connected to music via lyrics and words.  From there they may go on to develop an appreciation and understanding of the musical accompaniment, but it’s usually the lyrical content that catches the ear first.  So, when you remove that common language, by recording music with no lyrics, you remove an access point for some listeners to get into the music.  Am I making any sense?

Even though I like to think I have a bit broader perspective than your typical music fan, I fall into that category of listener who can’t a) make music, or b) read it and understand it.  My appreciation of it comes strictly from the execution.  It’s taken me a while, but I can hear the subtleties of how arrangements and dynamics effect certain songs, and wgile I may not be able to pinpoint the technical aspect that makes a song so great, I know when I feel it in my bones and being that a song has transcended the barrier between us and found a way to communicate with my soul.

Okay, Holy Fuck may not be sending my spirit text messages, but their third LP Latin has certainly managed to cross that language barrier and connect emotionally without having to say anything to me directly.  I almost didn’t write this review because I wasn’t sure of exactly what I should say, but I think I’ve been able to work it out by comparing Latin to their first disc, LP.  I liken the songs on LP as spunky teenagers, full of attitude and naivete; gregarious jump-abouts that slyly wink at their elders and say, “You know you want in on this.”  The shift on Latin is that the teenagers have been around the block a few times, and naivete given way to a defensiveness, a protective  “don’t-fuck-with-me” layer that keeps the listener at bay for fear of getting too close and toppling the house of cards.  The band is still enjoying what they’re doing, but now it feels more like a performance and less like an invitation to join in the festivities.  That’s not completely a bad thing I think, but now you have to invest a little something of yourself in the music to get something out of it.  You have to allow your own ideas about what the songs are about guide you, and formulate your experience with them.  Am I making any sense?

The nine songs on Latin are a cohesive and tightly knit sonic experience that sounds more mature and studied than its predecessor did.  It has certainly grown on me over the last few days, as its wordless musings allow me to weave my own storyline through the key changes and tempo-shifts.  For me it’s an album about writing your own language, telling your own story in a new way and yet still being able to communicate it with the rest of the world.  You just can’t get that from dum dee dum dum la la la.

MP3: Holy Fuck “Latin America”
Myspace: Holy Fuck

by J. Di Gioia | 2 Comments »

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 15th, 2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under QBiM SPiNS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.