MIDNIGHT CHOIR

Waiting for the bricks to fall

CD, Glitterhouse

How come there is so much beauty in desperation? Why is the dark and depressing to appealing and the songs about pain and loss so encompassing? I have a few ideas concerning this issue, but to draw them down here, would really burst time and space available. Midnight Choir offer us a master-piece bunch of songs dealing with exactly these feelings. “Waiting for the bricks to fall” will draw you into its pitch-black halo and make you happy at the same time. The highest form of emotional songs are just like these.

The epic beauty of slow melancholia and drawn-out depression is creeping back in again into the epicentre of underground-music. Some might say it has never left, but I remember that there is a big hole between Crime & The City Solution and the new album by Midnight Choir. With “waiting for the bricks to fall” it is easy to draw that line, because at some points these two bands sound so much the same as if they shared the same rehearsal space in the same time and were not at least a decade and 1000 kilometres apart. But they have so much more in common – both are expatriated bands, at least because the emotional background of their music comes from a completely different continent. Berlin and Scandinavia aren’t really that far apart, especially in relation to the US-Midwest. Then there is the basic, electric-band equipment and the melancholia that lies in-between the sounds of a softly strummed acoustic guitar, an electric guitar sparsely hitting notes and long notes from an old organ. Pal Flaata and Simon Bonney share the same tone of voice. Both bands use noise and static of band-machines, amplifiers and field-recordings to add to the lonely and dark atmosphere of their songs, and both find a lot of beauty and elevation in that darkness. And finally there is the cover-version, or rather adaptation of the traditional “(sometimes I feel like a) Motherless child”, which Midnight Choir decorate with samples from original voices.

The differences, of course, are countless. It starts with the fact, that Midnight Choir record about a decade later than Crime & the City Solution did and good digital recording is available for little money (in comparison to the early Nineties) and so Midnight Choir reach a vastness and rich atmosphere that could never have been done by a “small” band back then. Then, at some points, the singer sounds more like Brian Ferry or the Tindersticks, than anyone else. But mostly, Midnight Choir managed to find their very own language, musically and artistically, which makes them stand out from a lot of other releases. From the simple chord-changes to the female vocals added as colour. They have immersed themselves deeply into the history and achievements of American songwriters – the story of how they could play Mickey Newbury’s “American Trilogy” by heart is already a legend – without losing their unique voice. Also, Chris Eckmann, known from The Walkabouts, has done a good job as a producer. He doesn’t force them to be another clone, but rather enables them to position themselves as  a great band. I’d like to know how much of this record is his influence.

There are definite differences to earlier Midnight-Choir-records, that have already been hinted at. “Waiting for the bricks to fall” is less alt.country / americana / callitwatchawanto than their earlier records, but reminds me a lot more of early-Nineties-Aussie-bands from Germany. Maybe this is the version of the blues that is being bred by the urban centres of middle / northern Europe? Or there is a special part within the creative centre of some artists’ minds that are responsible for repeated explorations into their very own and their listeners dark sides? Oh, how I dream of doing a DJ-set on this topic – that would be a night of crying into your beers for sure, but I guess no club-owner will ever let me, because he fears for his revenue if people aren’t feeling happy. But isn’t there a misconception in there. Life is full of dark and bad sides (as there are light and good sides), but you can feel good in every one of them. Feeling dark, melancholic and depressed is not as bad as it might seem. Actually, the only way to get through to the truths of life is to sit yourself down alone and ponder about all the things that go wrong in your life. Being happy all the time makes people dumb (as we have all learned in that famous children’s book with the wooden puppet). And people sipping their beers, unable to move and leave because there are being nailed down by the beauty of the music, also guarantees a certain revenue. What will them club-owners say, if I get out my classical CDs?