We need to play. We need to create. We need to be brave. We need to be fearless.
We need to be loud, noisy, sloppy, funny, theatrical, dizzy, and sexy. We need to laugh. We need to explode. We need to deliriously tear each other apart to see what’s inside. And when we are finished, we will rebuild ourselves from tinsel, paste, popsicle sticks, finger-paint, macaroni and yarn.
We will love and it will be epic, wide-screen and thunderous. When summer ends and youth takes leave, it will turn hushed, whispered and autumnal.
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With the assistance of (and vocal contributions from) Koushik Ghosh, Dan Snaith crafted one of the most joyful releases of last year – Manitoba’s Up In Flames. It was a meticulous creation, the result of tireless crate-digging, break-building and untold hours of digital solitude. Traditional instrumentation played a large role in its assembly, but at it’s heart, it was a celebration of found sound. The DNA of musicians long since past (and oft-forgotten) gave the album a sense of context and connectiveness that only sampling can provide. The finished product was a euphoric rush of sound that belied it’s labourious creation.
Last night I witnessed Up In Flames’ startling transformation from sampler to stage. Dan’s live re-creation of his bewildering album felt like an absurd piece of Dadaist theatre presented by the Children’s Television Workshop. Sporting masks that were miniature doppelgangers of Darko’s Frank the Bunny, the threesome (Snaith, Ryan Smith and Peter Mitten) basked in the power of waves of guitar noise, sheets of metallic bass and really, really fucking loud twin drum-kits. And it was all delivered with the disarming confidence of a band that has been honing this show all year and knew just how good the evening would be. The music’s hypnotic pull was furthered heightened by the playfully subversive projected imagery (puppets, children’s drawings, super-8 mini-movies) produced by Dublin Animation company Delicious Nine. Even though we were in a small darkened downtown club, the feeling was that of being at an open air event – grass beneath our feet, blue skies above our heads and sun on our faces.
Manitoba provided the noise, the heart, the heart-ache, the joy, the melancholy, the hope; in short, the transcendence, that we all of seek in music, art and life. It was also a night of beautiful sonic revelations, as threads were drawn and connections made between Neutral Milk Hotel, My Bloody Valentine, Constellation Records, The Bomb Squad, Stones Throw, the Avalanches, Brian Wilson, RJD2, Madlib, Elliot Smith, The Flaming Lips and DJ Shadow.
It was a celebration of wide-eyed possibility. A night of friends and siblings, discussions of family and children, acts of recklessness and daring, dancing with people you’ve only just met (or doing a funky little shuffle with your own bad self) and walking home later, feeling elated at the wonder of it all.
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Manitoba – Every Time She Turns Round It’s Her Birthday (192 kbps mp3/10.8 mb download)
Jacknuggeted (Quicktime Vid)
Skunks (Quicktime Vid)
