(written by Islander)
Welcome to Part 19 of this nearly-finished infectious song list. Although I’ve had some “organizing principles” for the most recent installments, I can’t say I had one for the grouping of today’s three songs, apart from the fact that all three of these got stuck in my head the first time I heard them and they have remain rooted there ever since.
To check out the 53 songs preceding these 3 on the list, use this link. Continue reading »
The image on the cover of the debut album from the Finnish duo The Bleak Picture is striking. It shows a group of people paused in their normal daily movements (except, perhaps, for the police) and staring at a dark hunched figure, or maybe two of them, on the precipice of some catastrophe, lost in either horror or mourning or both. The origins of the devastation are hard to decipher, but the ruination is apparent.
Gazing at the image, it does seem to connect with the title of the album — Meaningless — but the exact nature of the connection, even though it feels right, is as mysterious as the exact nature of the catastrophe in the cover image.
Well, it would have been an interesting question to ask composer/instrumentalist Jussi Hänninen and lyricist/vocalist Tero Ruohonen what that image depicts and why they chose it, but alas, the thought came too late. But maybe it’s for the best, because there are mysteries in the music too — and catastrophes and mourning and something like a search for meaning. Continue reading »