A LIFE, A SONG, A CIGARETTE – Black
Air
(CD, LP – siluh)
Life is good and everything is
fine. The young collective A Life, A Song, A Cigarette, right here from my
very own city Vienna can do nothing wrong. Quite contrary to the
contradictive and darkly connotative album title the sun is shining for this
band, and everything seems to be coming their way. So much at least they
start this album with faux applause from a small club crowd. Which, by the
way, are the best crowds to play in front of. And why not, sometimes some
people deserve a little fudge. Happy melodies and uplifiting harmonies
dominate the whole album, even those songs that insinuate lost love and
lovesickness. Even those that thrive on a lonely violin in the back. Even
when the lyrics are “The touch of your hand could kill me with ease” or
the likes. Nothing will get us down, not now, not this time. There is a
secret source for optimism around somewhere.
It is remarkable how in this
country and especially this town so much positive vibrations could have been
summoned and transferred into this record. The summer was nice, all right,
but with the elections coming up and then the results of them later on and
all the current news there is not much to be excited about. Moreover, this
city has invented half of all known psychic disorders and being angry and
grumpy is the most common state of mind. And in the midst of all this A
Life, A Song, A Cigarette fall into a bouncy, old-time country 1/2-beat that
I haven’t heard ever since Die Brüder – another legendary Viennese band
that played in a similar vein in the late Eighties but has been gone for
over a decade now – fell into “Time is the killer”. But then ALASAC
are much more professionally recorded and produced, play better, arrange
more focused and yet more lose and at the same time in the full spectrum. A
wonder, in a lot of ways, but very good to know to be around. We definitely
need a few good songs around here.
I am amazed at how this band
can do no wrong. Every song evolves from a start, feels compact and organic,
as if it couldn’t be played any other way. Song number five on the album,
“Marie”, has a melody Paul McCartney couldn’t have written much better
with the help of John Lennon. Next they fall into the old country waltz
rhythm and even do a little “da da da daam” vocalising in there. A lot
of bands from Austria have the unavoidable urge to show off the latest trick
on their instrument or how much they have practised playing tricks between
album one and album two, which usually makes album two daft and boring to
listen to. The main thing in songwriting lies in the song, the melody and
the compactness and fit of all elements. That can mean nothing more than two
chords or three chords, but used at the right time. Take for instance the
best songs by Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen. I know, who I am mentioning here,
but ALASAC have probably understood one more important thing: you have to
reach for the high fruits in art (in economics take all you can get). A song
is only worth being written and recorded if you have the feeling you will
play this song in ten or twenty years still and it will still be a good
experience to play and listen to it. Anything else is useless, a waste of
time. On “Black Air” the band is starting to tackle the big issues. One
word song titles show the line “Devil”, “Truth” or even “Tears”.
Personally, I take the track “Simmering” more to mean slowly cooking
than the local district of Vienna, even if the lyrics go “this town is
driving me nuts”. Especially in this district there is always something
boiling lowly in the underground. I can feel it.
Why listen to the new album by
Conor Oberst if you can have this one here on your record player? Seriously,
why? “Black Air” is the second album on Siluh in short progression that
will both make it into my top-list at the end of this year and that I am
convinced are enough to spend a few nice afternoons with. The other one
being the new album by Killed by 9Volt Batteries. It is such a big step
forward. By the way, looking at what starts to be forming my top list in
2008, I see at least five or six albums by Austrian acts. Maybe some reason
for optimism here as well?
