Clearing Rust From Tired Ears

Thursday Buck 65‘s “463” single and A Silver Mt. Zion’s (The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band) Born Into Trouble As The Sparks Fly Upward album came into my possession.

The Buck 65 single contains mostly songs I’ve already heard. “463”, in remix and album forms, is on the disc, as are “Eldorado” (a song released to B.A.M. this month), “Out of Focus” (the new song) and “Phil” (live). “Out of Focus” is a decent track, but doesn’t strike me as one of Buck 65’s best songs lyrically. It’s a good single, but you’d be better off saving your change and putting out the money for the full Talkin’ Honky Blues album, as this single’s really only for completists and those of you who haven’t yet heard Buck 65’s brilliance.

Born Into Trouble As The Sparks Fly Upward is beautifully packaged in the standard paper sleeve of A Silver Mt. Zion’s releases. The texture of this packaging alone speaks of the uniqueness of this project. The front cover is a textless, red scaled image of a black bird of a wire and the reverse shows a drawn black bird carrying a sing stating “Please Believe.” away from a large electrical tower. On the inside is an image of a man performing mouth-to-mouth on another man. In the right sleeve is the CD, which features a purple scaled, bound child. In the left sleeve was a piece titled “On The Failure of One Small COmmunity In Achieving Its Own Ill-defined Dreams and/or Goals…” printed on long paper, telling of the failures and modern decay we live with.
The music itself is beautiful, haunting and somehow dangerous (in the sense music like this needs to be). Sweeping and soaring, crashing and rusting orchestrations abound on this album, forming moving pieces that call up many emotions. The vocal utterances, especially those of “Built Then Burnt (Hurrah! Hurrah!)”, were striking and beautifully crafted poetry. Even Efrim’s out of tune vocals are beautiful in their imperfect state when coupled with absolutely beautiful instrumentation.
If you are searching for beauty, filled with truth and troubles, this is an album you will treasure. It’s a haunting and very
relevant story of our times, that I sincerely believe needs to be heard by everyone. Here’s another recording to bless you, so seek it out when you can.

On the Arts & Crafts message board Deidre of Valley of the Giants posted the lyrics to her song “Westworld”. I’d been having some trouble making them out and writing down the lyrics myself, so it was definitely nice to see the official lyrics. Valley of the Giants are a wonderful band, so be sure to check them out. I can never stress how much they have impressed me. The lyrics to “Westworld” are below for your enjoyment.

In my entry about the history relevant to the Valley of the Giants song “Bala Bay Inn” I did not make mention of the history of Louis Riel, who was included in the lyrics of that song. I’d like to make a short addition here.
Louis Riel was a very important leader in Canadian history. He was a champion of the Métis (a nation of people with mixed Native American and European ancestry) and believed he was divinely chosen to lead these people. There was also speculation that he was a legitimate prophet (I haven’t discovered much on this, so if anyone has some other information they can share, I’d love to read it). Louis pushed for recognition of the Métis as a distinct people who deserved rights equal to other Canadians and he also pushed for French language protection for Manitoba. He lead two Métis rebellions against the Canadian government and was sentenced to death for treason after the second. Louis Riel was a facinating and noble man who gave his life in defence of human rights, and should be recognized by all Canadians as one of our true historical heros. I highly recommend reading about this man at the link I shared, and also seeking out other knowledge.