Skip to main content

10 favorite albums of 2010 - #9: Going Places by Yellow Swans

This album is not for everyone. There, I felt that would be an important preface to my acclaim for this album. Going Places isn't so much an album of music as it is an album of sonic ideas. It is ambient noise that wants attention. It washes over you in undulations of sound.


This is noise music. There is a lot of atonality, a lot of fuzz, a lot of dissonance, and lots and lots of subtle shifts in the noise-scape. It's this subtlety that immediately turned me on to the album.


I knew I was truly in love with it one night as I was listening to it while going to bed. I had let myself become fully immersed in the music and I felt as if I were being carried away by something.


Each track is a unique experience; listened to properly, I'd say that is what Going Places really is - a collection of little experiences. Noise music is something to be experienced, after all. 


Noise music has, until Going Places, carried a negative association in my mind. I couldn't feel a great deal of appreciation for it. I suppose I thought that the idea of noise music's aesthetic was far more relevant than the aesthetic itself. This album changed my perception. If you're interested in the psychological sway music can have on an individual, have a go at Going Places.  

Comments

Unknown said…
I listened to this today.... really liked their stuff. :)
January 27, 2011 at 10:15 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Many Will Enter Heaven?

Check out this quote I found online: "[C]onsider this fact: fewer than 20% of people actually think they are going to hell. And yet, in answering that question, Jesus says in Matthew 7 that FEW pass through the gate that leads to eternal life. 80% doesn't sound like few to me... do some of us have the wrong idea?" There are a number of problems with this quote. First of all, you it is assuming that "few" refers to the current ratio of professing Christians to non-Christians. What's to say that Jesus isn't referring to the entire population of all the earth over all time? In that case, it's entirely plausible that 80% of people now are really Christians, as long as there are still few total Christians when all is said and done. Maybe it applies only to the people in the crowd listening to Jesus. Or, it could refer to something else entirely (as I believe). Jesus was talking to a specific people living in a specific time. We cannot decontextualize his ...
11 comments
Older Posts »

Jesus, Lover of my Soul

An old friend and spiritual mentor of mine left a comment on my last "Religious Conversation" Post . It provoked so much thought that I wanted to share it with everybody, because I know quite a few of my religious friends are reading this, and I know quite a few of you who would make a similar statement. Here it is: There is an element in this conversation that is being overlooked (at least, I presume). There is an aesthetic beauty and, more, an affection, which Steven appears to have for God. This is not illogical; in fact, all human beings exhibit it for something. It may be subjective, and it is not conclusive, but it is completely logical. And I can't imagine an argument that would refute it. It is something like a man saying, "I love my wife. I appreciate her many virtues and charms; I believe her to be the woman most worthy of my affection and lifelong commitment." If I say this and someone were to say to me, "But EVERY man says that of his bride!...
9 comments
Older Posts »

An Experiment In Honesty

This last week has been emotionally unsettling, and since I've been unoccupied all day (I'm at my dad's place until I leave for San Francisco), I'm feeling it in a strong sort of way. To sort it all out, I thought the best thing to do would be to start writing about it, so here it goes. This summer has been very influential in my development - I suspect more influential than I can really understand at present. I had to leave many new-found friends and watch as friends left me. The people at Yellowstone helped me to see what I want socially. There were few Christians (besides the anomalous Campus Crusaders) who were more than nominally religious (and I mean religious in the way that we see American Evangelicals or Catholics - there were many 'mystics'). I could talk honestly about questions of death or a god without fearing that evangelical backlash I'd get at Sterling College or The Master's College. In fact, I just enjoyed being able to hang out with an...
7 comments
Older Posts »