sparrowssoulsongs

[sparrowssoulsongs]

i have begun working on three new essays on songs, so stuff *are* coming but now i wonder if i should write a piece on an album because, oh boy have I fallen in love

[sparrowssoulsongs]

01. Decompression - Their Methlab // Weaves & Waves

Hi.

I wanted to start this blog just so I can write some essays about songs that I really love and share them with whoever might be interested.

I don't study music, I have studied fine art for several years now - first in high school and now at a university in my home town. I won't give any informed analysis on the musical theory behind the songs I will write about but instead I will just write about how I personally interpret these songs and what they mean to me - emotionally and sentimentally. The point of this blog is not for me to flaunt some intellectual ability to write or to flex my musical taste but to connect.

I am going to write these little essays purely for myself but I will share them with the hopes that someone will come across this and read them so we can share the human experience that music gives us.

I am aware this probably already sounds awfully pretentious, for which I apologize haha but if this kind of language  bothers you, you should probably scroll past this.

Since this is my very first post and I am about to write many words I have decided to go for one of my most favourite songs ever which actually has no lyrics.

If I had to rank the songs I love, I'd probably put this song at the top of the list in first place.

The song is called Decompression by the band Their Methlab , the song is on Spotify to listen if you are curious ( I will also link the youtube link for anyone who doesn't have Spotify)

Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/track/1BAdzZ4WMxWYxsrR8Z5FSv?si=RslheiQpQyiYjokXFlV9iQ&dd=1

Youtube link: https://youtu.be/7ukUysNX7R0

The song starts off slow, at first just a slow low ambient hum that to me sounds like a wave washing up on the shore on those quiet , windless days. The first few seconds set me up on the edge of a wide wild coast , staring out to an endless horizon of blue and silver. Suddenly, a slow beat enters the scene. Another character.

To me this song has always felt like an inner battle, the battle of oneself. The battle of one's heart and one's head. You may think that I am about to say that the beat is the heart but not even I am this cliche. (I still am incredibly cliche though.) To me that second character is the dance of the heart and the head. It is both of them tangled together, unable to separate. 

Then after two minutes , we get the release of our suspense - we get our explosion.

Any time I think of this song I think of a whirlpool.Being caught in it. There is another background sound behind all of the instruments of something that sounds a bit like a skipping record.

To me , not only are you in the whirlpool but you are the whirlpool.

The dance of the heart and head becomes hectic, panicked. You are trapped inside your own head, trying to make heads or tails of what you are thinking, what you are feeling. But its something you cant untangle. You are trapped in a web of your own making. Gasping for air desperately, trying to swim up , unleash yourself of the violent current you are twirling inside of. It's so much. Everything is too much. It overwhelms you. You lose yourself in it. As your head tries to calm you , your heart beats faster, as you shoot down one bad thought, another one arises. Eventually you tire yourself out. Nothing is resolved and probably never will be but you accept it. You decompress. You breathe in, breathe out. Shakily but you are breathing.

As a person who paints, I have a lot visuals that come to my head everytime I listen to this song. A lot of colours, lights flashing and twirling around me. I can see that calm silver blue sea slowly turn to a gray green. The silver is no longer a reflection of the perfect clearness of the water, the perfectly clear sky above but instead the silver becomes a reflection of the gray sky, the sign of a storm coming.

On the more visual side, this song always looked like that exact moment when the daylight slowly dims as a big gray cloud hides the strong summer sun. Anyone who has spent enough time at the seaside knows exactly what I'm talking about . Its different from when the sun just disappears for a moment , the air changes too. It feels like a heavy blanket was just waved above your head, the air thickens a bit , you can feel its slight and subtle increase in moisture. On the horizon , if you pay attention you can see in the distance the rain that looks like thin dark threads connecting the sky and the sea. Behind the weave of thin threads of rain you can see a dim orange and yellow - the sunlight being reflected back now through the many prisms of many raindrops. As you raise your eyes further above the orangey yellow horizon line, the colours fade into a pale grayish green then into a beautiful warm light grey. The clouds are different shades of dark blue and purple and look menacing yet they emanate a divine presence. They have arrived to end one cycle and to begin a new one. You just happened to witness it.

The sea changes colour, changes its strength with the arrival of the great grey skies. The sea too begins to show its divinity as it begins its conversation  with the clouds above. The waves gradually become stronger, taller as each new wave comes rolling from the heart of the sea back to the shore, each time crashing louder and louder. It is almost as if the sea is trying to cry out to the distant clouds hovering above it. I do not know what the sea wants of the clouds above it - maybe it is saying : "Come back, love. I have missed you. It has been too long." Or maybe it is pleading, begging for mercy. Maybe it is angry at the dark clouds, maybe they have an unresolved schism.

As the raindrops begin to loudly crash into the sea, just like dropping marbles inside a glass jar, their conversation continues , only they know what is being said.

Just like the mystery of nature, the power of the elements crashing together into one, so do our inner feelings, our inner mysteries.

This song has been my loyal companion in my many attempts to untangle these inner mysteries. Just like the rain, I have my own inner threads, my own inner sea and sky having a dialogue to which I don't have translation for. Many things have happened to me throughout the years to trigger these stroms inside me and this song has been there to explain the unexplainable. To comfort and nurture ,to give words to those feelings in the only way possible-

through the gift of sound.

- S

04/02/2023