as sparks fly upward (A Silver Mt. Zion @ the Middle East, 6/26/06)

"Our schools look like prisons, and our prisons look like malls"

Horses in the Sky -- A Silver Mt. Zion

I saw A Silver Mt. Zion with Black Ox Orkestar at the Middle East last Wednesday night. An amazing show. My review for Bostonist should post later today or tomorrow. I'll link to it when it's up.

If you don't know, A Silver Mt. Zion was formed by Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Efrim Menuck, Sophie Trudeau and Thierry Amar out of a desire to compose a more lyrical, song-based music (with vocals) in order to "harness the protest song traditions of folk, punk, and avant rock." I must confess that, as much as I love Mt. Zion's music (not to mention GSYBE), I've never been a big fan of Efrim's vocals (that's to say his strained, thin singing voice, not the lyrics). But it really didn't matter seeing the group perform live. The music was so powerful, the band's interaction so precise and charming, and Sophie's vocals so strong that it was easy to overlook (or forget) Efrim's yelp-sing.

The collective kicked off the show with "God Bless Our Dead Marines" from their most recent album Horses in the Sky. The piece starts with a mournful, simple melody, driven by a steady pulse of plucked strings before slowly exploding into a whirling two-step Roma stomp propelled by frenetic percussion, handclaps and thundering drumbeats. Then the track settles back into another simple melody ("the vulgar kings on their dirty thrones"), which slowly builds again GSYBE style. The composition ends with a painfully beautiful vocal, sung initially by Efrim, Sophie and Becky as a round, with most everyone else joining in by the end: "When the world is sick, can no one be well? But I dreamt we were all beautiful and strong." Phenomenal. Exhilarating. A bit draining. But incredibly moving.

And the show had just begun . . .

So here's a sample of A Silver Mt. Zion, starting with "God Bless Our Dead Marines." I've also included "C'mon Come On (Loose An Endless Longing)" from 2001's Born Into Trouble As the Sparks Fly Upward, which is perhaps the most GSYBE-like track on the album (although it clocks in at only 8 mins). Highly recommended (the hauntingly beautiful, string driven "Tho You Are Gone, I Still Often Walk w/ You" and "Could've Moved Mountains..." alone are worth the price of admission).

God Bless Our Dead Marines -- Horses in the Sky (2005)

C'mon Come On (Loose an Endless Longing) -- Born Into Trouble As the Sparks Fly Upward (2001)

BONUS:

Blind, Blind, Blind -- recorded live at Leeds, June 2006

I was also very excited to hear Mt. Zion's Thierry Amar and Jessica Moss' Black Ox Orkestar project -- which opened the show. Because I had none of their albums (and this was the second time they had played live in the U.S.) I had never heard them. So my "weekly music pick" write-up for Bostonist was based on website promo material and album reviews. I wrote (and paraphrased): "The four members of Black Ox bring politically-charged Yiddish texts to traditional Eastern and Southern European Jewish folk music that is played as punk, klezmer, avant-rock, folk, and free jazz (sometimes all at once). Bringing a little bit of John Zorn's Radical Jewish Culture series to Constellation Records." Which is somewhat accurate, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear how traditional many of their tracks were:

Ratsekr Grec -- Nisht Azoy

Bukharian -- " . . . " (2006)

Black Ox Orkestar

purchase A Silver Mt. Zion | purchase Black Ox Orkestar
more of my photos of the show may be seen here (Silver Mt. Zion) and here (Black Ox Orkestar)

Dead kids don't get photographed. God bless our dead Marines. Vulgar kings on their dirty thrones. When the world is sick, can no one be well?

peace

UPDATE: Bostonist review now up and posted

p.s. i've rearranged the music blogroll on the sidebar. in particular, i've grouped all of my fellow Boston-based music & mp3 bloggers into a separate section: "Boston represent." So check out all these fine blogs: aurgasm | bradley's almanac | ::clicky clicky:: | exitfare | Hello Gina | noise for toaster | obey the time | Onward Charles | rbally | the riddim meth0d | sQuare productions | wayne&wax
. . .