burning books as gifts, the 3rd before the second.
“I think I’ll save suicide for another year”
The preceding album to Frightened Rabbit’s “Winter of Mixed Drinks” called “Midnight Organ Fight”, is a brilliant retelling of the disassembly of love. But the intimacy of the record sometimes feels uncomfortable, as if a person you don’t know is standing too close to you in a room with plenty of space. Interestingly, the record shows Mr. Hutchison’s penchant for using the human body and its workings as powerful reference for human experience and the damage of the human body, or disease, as allusion to negative experiences. There is power in this, even according to Scott Hutchison, “This is how the modern stay scared” as it seems above all, his deepest fear- the same with most of us I wager- is the failure of his own body.
The record is, in simple terms, a violent retelling of a failed relationship. In my own personal experience, some love affairs- especially your first real one- get burnt to the ground and no one is saved. One can not leave that first experience until there is simply nothing left to say, no friendship possible and just something to mourn afterwards. Optimistically, some lessons might be learned, but that is the long and short of the sweet, as opposed to the 10 stories of bitter. It often feels as if there is a near fervent dismantling of everything good about the relationship by the time it is truly done. However, where most artists tend to write songs in review of that kind of experience, Scott Hutchison manages to create the feeling that this record was written within moments of the experience that prompted the song. There is a “live and on camera” quality to the album, especially what one could call the first of 2 chapters in this record.
The first half of the record seems to revolve around the arguments, the constant refrain of make up and break up, the heart wrenching feeling of constantly leaving this person and then angrily returning. The 2nd half, is as if written whilst tired from a make up sex session that ends in regret, the resignation that this person simply controls the songwriter, he is unable to say no. Finally, the end of the record is the last goodbye, or at least hoping that this song genuinely means goodbye and be done with it.
Of course, after all of this, one must go and ask, is the record enjoyable? Is a remarkably visceral, nashing-of-teeth retelling of being heartbroken, losing someone you love so completely, an enjoyable experience? For all it’s shock and pain, you first are drawn to the record as one is a car crash; you simply can not take your eyes (or ears) away from it. Then, thankfully, you’re rewarded with an interesting, surprising optimism a la “Floating Forth”, where the idea of the sea as escape, presented later in “Swim Until You Can’t See Land” in “The Winter of Mixed Drinks” is first introduced. It is here Scott says my favorite line in the whole record, “Take your life, give it a shake.” I just like that, simply. Maybe as it reminds me of a constant instinct I’ve had in my relationships with people.
Frankly though, the music is gorgeous, the lyrics are full of surprises, there little gifts throughout, as if the songwriter is apologizing profusely for having put you through this whole experience. The musicality has interesting and provocative detail; where guitar tracks pan in and out of focus and are continued by other melodies forming from the stereo space as if from ether. The creativity presented in “The Winter of Mixed Drinks” is in its infancy here, where mechanical sounds are sampled (e.g. a car engine or biplane turbine, I can not tell) and the use of electronic elements is beautifully rendered. The keyboards are much more prominent in this record than the following, but still subtle and used as backing for the multitudinous guitars, layered throughout the tracks. For how simple and sometimes stripped down the songs may sound, each track is in fact detailed, layered densely and thoughtfully. The songs are short more often than not, but each one bears many, many repeats.
Again though, there are times where you have to push through the first near teeth-grating emoting taking place in the early songs to receive the entirety of the record, as the album needs to be heard as a whole. The honesty, the self destruction, is almost too much to bear sometimes, but then, there’s this beautiful record mixed in with the guilt and pain and really that’s the genius of it.
Start on track one, proceed from there. But once again, this band continues to surprise, provoke thought, thorough enjoyment and self reflection of my own past and memory, which is, above all the most amazing aspect of the record. My past ties in with a record written many thousands of miles away from where I have laid my head.
keep listening.
_backchat.
P.S. This was yet another gift of music from a particular person, thank you.
