LIGER – crash symbols
(CD – beatismurder)
Two things seem certain after
listening to “crash symbols”: first, Jamie Stewart may be the new Morrissey in a few
years if he keeps at it and if you believe in love you also ought to be
believing in god and finally start to hate both of them, mainly because of
the desperate inevitability of escaping one of them. Townes Van Zandt once
said to his son “I am really trying to, but it’s a bitch man, it’s a
bitch.” Liger would call that “emotional barriers”, but apart from the
more elaborate wording they mean the same thing: being doomed to failure and
still fighting. Who said we should imagine Sysiphos as a happy man? I
don’t remember, but he probably has “crash symbols” on his ipod while
rolling that rock up that hill.
Musically this has nothing to
do with rock. The two core musicians behind Liger, Dino Spiluttini and
Gernot Scheithauer, are classically trained musicians who have studied all
kinds of modern variations of playing. Within Liger they apply a wide range
of instruments, from toy pianos to vibraphones and from computers to
autoharps, to add layer upon layer into their songs. They have also invited
a big number of friends to play and sing on the album with them, like Eva
Jantschitsch (Gustav) or Br’er. Fascinatingly, this ends up in big, almost
orchestral arrangements that flow with a slow but impressive wave of energy
and make for something much bigger than it sounds from the start or this
description. In their songwriting they wander the borderlines between
classical structures and dynamics and modern song composition. For instance
towards the end of “there’s no brighter light than mine” the stop a
big wave of multiinstrumental playing to start a bridge that has a big
string section that sounds straight from the Sixties shmaltz reservoirs but
sets the song and the listening heart straight. Next they end the song on
some modernist plink-plank-pling melodiousness. In other words, the
songwriting is a mix between old and new Scott Walker.
The singing of Spiluttini also
mimicks some of the idioms of Scott Walker, though, of course, it doesn’t
have the control, technique or power of Scott Walker, but then who has?.
Saying that the voice reminds me of Marc Almond whenever things get big and
theatralic (e.g. on “young nudes with a knife”) is already a very good
thing, right? I bet half of the reviews this record recieves will remark
upon the singing and call it “polarizing” or even “needs getting used
to”. Actually, Spiluttini sings as if he has something in his throat that
makes him feel bad and he is about to start to weep at any moment. The
fragility of his voice, a little quiver here or there whenever it gets
softer, also adds to the impression of the singer being close to tears out
of bitter frustration and desperation. And what can you say about that other
than it fits to the music and to the issues these songs deal with.
“You are blessed and I am
blistered, I am burnt.” (From “Me Protools, you Jane”). Rarely will
you hear an album with so many indirect and direct variations of lost love,
broken love, frustrated love, dead and dying love, desperate love and bleak
and terrible love. They music counterpoints these sentiments at times with
uplifting spirits and big chord changes, but then also underlines it with
small implements set to impressive use. And then it ends with a line that
also runs counter to what modern media companies and marketing try to tell
you all around: “sexuality is embarrassing”. Maybe it is all just a way
of two young music students to release their sexual frustration to the
world. Maybe it is much more than that, like a call to the gods to rejudge
the situation they have put mankind (and women) in and maybe change some
basic things (Whoever actually, apart from Armin Assinger, said that
monogamy and having children are the main reasons for the existence of
humanity?) and if not, then go fuck off.
