DIRGE

fountain EP

CD/Download, autres directions in music

Stripped to the soul, music bares its core-notes and sounds. Dirge go straight for the center pieces, then repeat those over and over again until a song arises from the heap that is as beautiful and shining as the new morning. That way, beauty can arise from dimness and heavy hangovers. With a slight air of detachedness from the world as the afterthought to a night out, when the world seemed to be small and easy to take, and the realisation that it is actually the other way around on the dreary morning after, the doors are wide open for melancholia and world-weariness. That is the state of mind that seeps through all the songs on this fabulous EP, from the saddest drums and violins at the beginning to the full-grown-band sound at the end. It is hard to imagine, that this EP will grow slowly into your heart, because it will place itself in such a big frame from the beginning, that growth seems almost impossible – yet it happens. And that is the good news finally: good things do happen.

This little CD-R came to me by surprise and it took a place close to my stereo and to my heart in no time. As far as I can say now, this EP will make it into my top 10 for this year (if the Decembrists don’t win out, but there might be more than enough place for the two anyway) because I like to put records in there by artists I have discovered that year. Or at least re-discovered. Just plain good is not good enough to make it into my annual list of great moments in music; there has to be a special private moment of myself with that record to make it something special. The “Fountain”-EP by Dirge has made that. At first it surprised me by coming from autres directions in music, who I have great respect for what they are doing, i.e. a web-label with all music free for download but also with high quality levels, and at the same time also liked their other releases (e.g. by Harpages and Depth Affect), and Dirge was so unexpectedly different than the others. And musically even better, or rather: to my taste. Then I played the CD over and over again for a few times, a thing I rarely ever do, because I have so little time and I always have the urge to listen to as much music as possible in the time I have. But the effect of Dirge is different. More important, I felt this music strike a close connection to my inner self within seconds. True, my disposition might be just as necessary to reach that effect as the music playing, and at some other point in time the effect wouldn’t have happened, or other music would have managed to do so (and other music has), but be that as it may, the fact is, that it happened.

This is music that makes time go by slower, that makes the view of the world shift, even if just a little but enough to realise that it is possible to make a moment last forever, eventually. If you can make a moment last twice as long as it is, then why not double that? And then double that and ever so on until eternity. The ephemeral, sleepless yet dreamy state of consciousness that evolves from a track like “phone”, with the strange sounds in the back and the slightly distorted (in sound and tone) voice in the foreground, reminds me of the grey zone of the consciousness when waking up in the middle of a dream. You know that it is a dream, yet the thoughts are as clear as if puzzling over mathematical riddle or some logistical problem. The next moment it is gone. I know that there is a name for that state, but I have forgotten it. I should write them down, I know. Or a track like “lois”, with its un-melody, drawn strings in the background accompanying a plucked guitar and other instruments, slowly growing into a wall of sounds, and the voice mixed maybe a little too much into the foreground. But when music strikes a chord within the listener, such production-details have to step into the back or remain unnoticed at all. There are three more great tracks on this EP, but I won’t spoil you the pleasure. I’ll suffice it to say, that the other songs go a little more into an alternative country meets postrock direction, that a lot of people like in other projects. From this I would have guessed that Dirge come from Canada. They are from Rouen in France.

The timelessness of Dirge’s music sets a few interesting motions free. There is the fact that these songs could all easily be any length the players chose at just that moment they are playing them. There a certain marks and signs that give the players directions on the way, but apart from that everything seems to be free and possible. Like the sea or the tide, the music moves back and forth, changes and evolves ever so slowly. There are also the themes the singer / speaker sings / talks about. With taking the liberty of interpretation some of them might be: shitty Christmas parties, hangovers, shame and deliverance, relationships, being lost and then the finding, the everyday, even some politics creep in, the NME also – the variety is quite wide and deep enough to dive into, even when they are being drowned by a distorted guitar that rises up from the background. Again it is the track “lois”, a loose ramble about headlines, issues, sights from the window and the shallow taste on the mouth that comes with alcohol being digested during sleep. The pulse is low and being alive is a great feeling, even though it hurts in ways hitherto unimagined. I am on third listening of “fountain” again now, and I get the feeling that the world stands still by revolving. I am but a small speck, yet endlessly important. Life is naught, but it is all there is. The everyday routine will finally kill us all, but right now it is the only thing that keeps us alive.

As usual, you can download music and artwork from the website www.autresdirections.net and burn it onto a CDR or 3”-CDR or order it for 5 Euros post-paid from autres directions in music c/o Stéphane Colle, 18 rue du capitaine corhumel, 44000 Nantes, France.

05/2004