Mary Ocher – The Rubaiyat Medley
Among the seemingly least important things that a high school student is taught and then gets quizzed on are poetry and organic chemistry. One of them, at least, will be used by some of the students to manufacture illegal drugs. Now, that’s a living! But what about poetry?
In Sommerton, Australia, a man was found dead on the beach. He was lying there in his best suit, a half-smoked cigarette pursed between his lips. In his pocket was a page torn out of a book of Persian poetry, “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám.” All these years later, amateur detectives are still looking to solve the murder and understand the book of poetry.
And poets can be a dangerous bunch, make no mistake about it. Recently, Slovenia’s extremist prime minister got shot by an aging poet protesting the politicians’ anti-immigration nonsense. Francois Villon nearly got hung. Before Jean Genet was immortalized by David Bowie, he was a frequent lodger in French penitentiaries.
Keep all of that in mind when you listen to Mary Ocher’s “The Rubaiyat Medley,” an expressive, experimental piece. Like poetry, it’s not trying to deliver any news but to make you understand that those kinds of modern reports aren’t of much interest. Ocher is led by her own inspiration, as well, judging by the images used in the video, a love of Sergej Parajanov-like visuals, a man who, like the great poets, suffered for his art, went to jail, and let us into his dreams. Mary Ocher deos the same here.
Cate Kileva – A Melancholy
The Satanic Panic leads to manuals on Dungeons & Dragons being burned like in the dark days of 1930s Berlin. Much in the same way, the rise of synth-pop bands up the charts in the 1980s made many want to organize and start strategic attacks on the shops that sold these demonic synthesizers.
Synths were about to destroy the world of real musicians. They were going to steal jobs away. A very similar outrage is being developed right now, and the synths have been replaced by AI. Is it time to cower in fear?
Sure, if you like. But when was the last time you heard a musician playing an analog instrument? Today?
Also, remember all of the things that real musicians cannot do largely because they are too busy staying real. They can’t play simple, hypnotic patterns. They can’t be simple. And they rarely serve the mood of the songs.
Bristol-powered trip-hop understood the constraints of playing guitar solos. Instead, they focused on sound textures and mood these created. It is what Cate Kileva does so well in “A Melancholy.” It’s not music meant to be heard and shouted over. It’s a song meant to take over your imagination and suggest unexpected places of where it can go next.
