Tunnels under the snow

And if the snow buries my,
my neighborhood.
And if my parents are crying
then I’ll dig a tunnel
from my window to yours,
yeah a tunnel from my window to yours.

You climb out the chimney
and meet me in the middle,
the middle of town.
And since there’s no one else around,
we let our hair grow long
and forget all we used to know,
then our skin gets thicker
from living out in the snow.

– Arcade Fire, “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)”

I was feeling very fluish and antisocial last night, finding some people more irritating than usual, so after getting home I just did a few quick things on the computer and intended to retreat to some far corner with hot drink and good book.

Well, that sort of worked, but iTunes started playing Arcade Fire’s magical “Une Année Sans Lumière” and… as so often before, it grabbed me and I had listen to most of Funeral, once again. It helped, it has that ”this is what is important, ignore that other crap!” quality to it.

It’s a raw, dangerously romantic album, in many meanings of the word. There’s no slick production here, it’s all… strange and emotionally charged. Win Butler sings with an almost primal intensity, with wife Régine Chassagne providing equally charged vocal backing (the chorus on “Laika” being a good example). The mood shifts between almost whimsical vignettes and near walls of sound, with the whole (large) band going all-out with a crazy variety of instruments. The thing that matters most is the very real sense of danger, of people balancing on tightropes that just might break any second, with no guarantee of safety nets. I can’t explain it any better than that, it’s a feeling that the music evokes.

This is what matters. This is what you should focus on.

1 comment »

1. 

   By Marko about 6 hours later:

   
   

   Wonderful and feelings evoking record indeed.

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