Light On Dark Water

This music is not for everybody. In fact, it’s probably not for very many people. In fact, I don’t think anyone I know, either face-to-face or online, with the possible exception of Jesse Canterbury, would like it.

So why mention it? Because I like it so much, and because it’s always possible that somebody who might otherwise never have heard it will read this, find the description interesting, give it a try, and find that he or she likes it, too.

This could be described as ambient music, or sound, but it seems to be based on electric guitars rather than synthesizers, and there is nothing remotely new-agey about it. It’s not so much music as a residue of music. Extract the shimmering guitar noise from the music of a group like Slowdive or My Bloody Valentine, and leave everything else—the melody, the beat, and the lyrics—behind, and you have something like the basic material of October Language. There’s nothing but a slow blurry chordal movement in a bed of damaged guitar noise. Yet it’s somehow haunting. It’s gotten under my skin and I’ve kind of fallen in love with it.

I had already formulated my view before I read this description of it, which I think is very good. I didn’t know the artists were from just down the road in New Orleans and would not have associated the music with New Orleans, thoughts of decaying buildings, etc., but all of that certainly fits; that is, the sound supports such visualization. And no doubt many others.

Try the samples, and if you like them try the title track. Listen to it three times and if you like it get the whole thing. That is, if you have an eMusic account. And if not, why not? This is, by the way, another instance of a recording which I like very much and would never have heard if eMusic hadn’t given away a free track from it.

Here, to go with the samples, is a New Orleans image taken by my wife a year or so ago.

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