In which Alex tries out his idea for this February's fun-a-day project.
NOTE TO READER:
I'm going to try to do a February fun-a-day project by turning my
iTunes library on Shuffle and writing a little bit about whatever
that song makes me think about every day. This is just a test run.
When I do it for real in February, I'm also going to write a short
song/demo every day based on whatever I write about.
To check out my previous fun-a-day projects, click here and/or here.
TODAY'S SONG:
“Down on Your Back
(Live)” by Ida
I remember being
roped into buying this one by the site Insound, which will probably
come up a lot in this series as I bought quite a lot of music from
them. Ida was a band I first heard in high school on a huge 50 song
mp3 “Indie Rock” sampler. The song I heard first was called
“Post Prom Disorder,” which I have not heard in ages, but I remember
it being one of the saddest things I'd ever heard.
Insound had advertised this live record, Angel Hall,
as being “Limited Edition” and having “beautiful packaging.” So I thought, “OH MY GOD THEY'RE GONNA SELL OUT IF I DON'T HIT BUY
RIGHT NOW,” and hit buy, I did.
 |
| Yes, you can now get Angel Hall for a penny on Amazon! |
“Down
on Your Back” has some beautiful slow moving 3-part harmonies, so
strong in melody that you can't tell if the lead is sung by the male or female. Other than a lightly played electric guitar and a
steadily bowed bass, there is an accordion and small eerie string
ensemble backing up the singers. The band is so quiet that you can hear coughing in the
audience throughout the performance.
I
used to listen to this a lot while taking naps cause it was quiet and
pretty. But I remember waking up groggy and confused many times,
probably because of the unusual dissonant yet beautiful harmonies
that Ida typically uses. Also, for such lovely songs (and “beautiful
packaging”), the recording quality is actually pretty poor, like
the engineer just set up a couple mics and called it a day. (Although the video above has excellent sound quality, for your enjoyment!)
