[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

The Dead Texan — “A Chronicle Of Early Failures Pt. II” — The Dead Texan

Few things.  1) The Dead Texan is meant to be bundled with these nifty short films that correspond to the tracks.  Unfortunately, eMusic didn’t make me aware of that when I downloaded the album, so: lameness.  This song, however, is apparently one of the few with no visual buddy, which is odd because …  2) I think the four-chord progression that dominates the latter half is hardwired in the genetics of weepy cinematic scores, if not the empathic sadness architectures of human DNA itself.  The example that springs to mind, embarrassingly enough, is Howard Shore’s composition for The Lord Of The Rings.  This exact pattern rings devastatingly among blinding white rocks just after Gandalf 1.0 is taken down by some demon or other and the rest of the fellowship has escaped whatever that hellish underground place is—yes, I’m what you’d call a half-assed nerd—accompanying like a solid minute of hobbit crying.  And yet the combination of a familiar pattern and a drastic change in scenery makes it one of Peter Jackson’s more effective passages.  It’s like Orson Welles claimed: film is half what’s on screen and half soundtrack, which explains why eye candy from a Bay or Lucas can be so boring while the creepily tight and minimal audio of No Country For Old Men can take a bizarrely plotted movie to heart-stopping places.  Which brings us back to Texas, its dead people, and Dead Texan, aka Adam Wiltzie, one half of Stars Of The Lid, who lays things on thicker and more aggressively as a solo act—the sound is stoned and daydreamy as opposed to ripped on horse tranquilizers and toppling back into the subconscious.  Either are superb for falling asleep to, however.  Also, thing 3) Whether it’s the sandblasted epics of Explosions In The Sky or “A Chronicle … ,” with its wisps of the unicorn vision from Blade Runner—can’t believe I’ve invoked Vangelis two days running—Texas as an idea seems the perfect incubator for post-rock.  Wasteland touches rotting wood brushes up against gloss, plenty of old blood spilled over its sand, strange desert flowers in bloom and a cold night sky like no other.                     

1. blipblip liked this
2. ander reblogged this from thenotes and added:

   song always reminds me...Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works, vol. 2.

3. thenotes posted this