Defoe & Pronai – Whisky For Breakfast
I like hearing about people who do brave things. I like reading about people who do the kinds of things for which they receive praise, but things that I would never do myself. No, I do not concern myself with their safety or the soundness of their decision-making. After all, I don’t write letters of complaint to lion tamers or firemen either.
Rock n’ roll is full of these kinds of stories. Rock n’ roll is populated by people who drink poisoned whiskey and have the strength to steal their neighbours’ wives before driving out to the crossroads to make a deal with the devil. Rock artists are people who take incredible risks and never pay the price. Defoe & Pronai are looking to be those kinds of people.
The first step is to assume a different identity, one of mysterious psych-rockers, the kinds that can create mesmeric soundscapes in which nearly everyone who listens will fall bewitched. The second is to boast. “Whisky for Breakfast” feels like an old blues lyric about drinking booze all day long mixed with the eeriness of gentle psychedelia. It’s a mighty brave thing, and not something to be tried by mere mortals.
GranSylvan – Waltz Pitch Black
Most of the best stories of the greatest artists end with them making some colossal mistake forced upon them by their ambition, arrogance, or the sheer force of their ego. People like to listen to these stories and wag their fingers. People, typically, wish that they could be in the shoes of these artists, that they could have so much and the bravery to waste it all.
It is said that all the greatest artists are a little mad. That’s not true, of course. What they are, instead, is people confident enough in their work to allow themselves to go mad with love for it. GranSylvan, a moody folk-rock duo from the South of Norway, embody those characteristics.
In the hands of a different, less convinced group of artists, a piece like “Waltz Pitch Black” would merely be a slow folk song about things fading into oblivion. But GranSylvan care too much to let this happen. The duo infuses the song with the kind of energy that could move mountains and turn daytime into night. It’s moody, witchy and made to feel like the only thing that is still true in this moment. With this kind of energy behind it, how could it not be?
