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Unwound – “We Invent You”
Leaves Turn Inside You

This mystical and chromatic opener is an appropriate entry point for the beautiful, confident landscape of one of the great “post-punk” albums out there. Yes, that first part lasts for two glorious minutes.The first sound you hear is the distortion from the tape reel spinning up.

Hearing, a most excellent outward sense, “by which we learn and get knowledge.” His object is sound, or that which is heard; the medium, air; organ, the ear. To the sound, which is a collision of the air, three things are required: a body to strike, as the hand of a musician, the body strucken, which must be solid and able to resist, as a bell, lute-string, not wool, or sponge; the medium, the air, which is inward or outward; the outward, being struck or collided by a solid body, still strikes the next air, until it come to that inward natural air, which as an exquisite organ is contained in a little skin formed like a drum-head, and struck upon by certain small instruments like drum-sticks, conveys the sound by a pair of nerves, appropriated to that use, to the common sense, as to a judge of sounds. There is a great variety and much delight in them; for the knowledge of which consult with Boethius and other musicians.

Anatomy of Melancholy

I asked him what he was doing with a basilisk and he said that was his business.

The Name Of The Rose

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Oval – Track One
Commers

Some might hear a track like this and wonder how such a confusion of noise could ever be mistaken for music. I don’t blame them. With Oval, either you hear it or you don’t – but if you do hear it, its unique beauty is without comparison.

And I could not help murmuring: “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair. Thy hair is as a flock of goats that lie along the side of Mount Gilead; thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate, thy neck is like the tower of David whereon there hang a thousand bucklers.” And I asked myself, frightened and rapt, who was she who rose before me like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, radiant as the sun, terribilis ut castorum acies ordinata.

The Name Of The Rose

Really, as far at least as outward appearance and behavior went, there seemed scarcely fifty gentlemen among them; and those appeared ashamed and afraid of their position. ‘Twas, indeed, as though the scum that had risen to the simmering surface of the cauldron placed over the fierce fires of revolutionary ardor had been ladled off and flung on the floor of the House of Commons.

Ten Thousand A-Year