![]() ![]() i Much of this material is completely forgotten today, or only occasionally taught to listless English majors as part of tedious literary surveys. ![]() For me, listening to AATT ultimately takes us back into literary history, from the 17th century ‘cult of melancholia’ to the ‘dark romanticism’ of the 18th century. One of AATT’s gifts is to find different ways of allowing melancholy to shape, form and deform melody – often to the point where a song becomes so infused with this unconditional sadness that it must either take flight into a reverberant sky or huddle itself acoustically into a hushed world of delicate timbres and half-sung syllables. The second reason is to try to draw out some of the themes in AATT, which for me centre around the idea of melancholy and its relationship to melody, song and lyric. All the while, AATT have remained under the radar for them there are no number one hits, no top ten albums, no reunion tours (I like to think they prefer it this way, though age teaches us to discover inspiration in resignation). They are one of those bands who has never stopped making music and evolving, all the while retaining that melancholic thread that is evident in all their songs. Their career spans some 30 years, from their initial formation in 1979 in a Worcestershire village, to their most recent album, Hunter Not The Hunted (2012). AATT is one of the few bands I still listen to to this day. The first reason is, quite simply, as an appreciation. My reason for writing about And Also The Trees (hereafter AATT) is twofold. ![]() ‘Exactly.’ I replied, ‘that’s what’s so great about them.’ ‘They look like they take themselves too seriously’, someone else in the room said. Their exhaustion and their sadness seemed unconditional. This was a sadness hovering between a withering past and a refusal of the present. It was strangely inspirational it made you want to feel sad too, but not for any particular reason. Instead, this band seemed to refuse the entire modern world they seemed to live in ruins and brooding melancholy. Not the gothic of carnival make up, frumpy black clothes, quirky pop jingles, and sprayed-out hair. Even their name – And Also The Trees – sounded like a line from a poem. Looking at the CD, I saw that the band photos were right in line with the sound – skinny young lads looking like they had stepped right out of the 19th century, waistcoats and all, standing in front of the ruins of some estate, full of ennui and extremely world weary. The song was 'Shaletown', from the album The Millpond Years, by a band I'd never heard of before. The lyrics were reminiscent of Romantic poetry, evoking a haunting narrative of rural decay and lost landscapes. What I heard was a lush, almost baroque sound made up of an eerie, swirling, mandolin-like guitar, breathy and sorrowful vocals, all punctuated by a tight rhythm section that managed to somehow move through the thick, shimmering chaos. That was until I heard And Also The Trees – by accident really, walking into my friend's room one late afternoon. In an appreciation of Worcestershire goths, And Also The Trees, Eugene Thacker digs the 'unconditional sadness' which connects their music to a melancholy continnuum stretching back to the 17th centuryĪs a student I was convinced I knew goth – it was Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and so on. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |