Obsession

Abstract Thursday: Obsession

"Download sex and download god
Download the funds to meet the cost
Download a dream home and a wife
Download the ocean and the sky


Another day on earth has passed me by
But I have lost all faith in what's outside
The awning of the stars across the sky
And the wreckage of the night


Download love and download war
Download the s**t you didn't want
Download the things that make you mad
Download the life you wish you had"

Steven Wilson ~ Home Invasion


You know how, just sometimes, you come across a piece of music that really grabs you and won't let go?  

You keep listening to it over and over again, seeing more in it, appreciating it more each time.  If it hasn't happened to you with music it almost certainly happened with a novel, a poem or a film.

In my teens it happened almost every time I bought an album, but over the years there have gradually been fewer and fewer albums each year that have had such a strong impact.  In part it is the effect of having listened to so much music, I guess. 

So I was rather surprised earlier this year, when I started listening to Steven Wilson's album "Hand.Cannot.Erase", to find that it was almost as if I had been transported back to my teens.  I love this album, and I still listen to it an awful lot.  It is not always an easy listen, and the subject matter (alienation from modern society, a sort of "the Wall" for the post millennium) is dark.  My blip is mash up of the album sleeve.

It is a prog rock album, reminiscent of Floyd and Genesis but with a modern metal influence.  Strangely enough modern metal is not the sort of thing I listen to normally.  And yet ....

It features a stellar cast of musicians including Nick Beggs of Kajagoogoo (remember them?) on Chapman Stick (a sort of bass).  In particular if features a guy called Guthrie Govan on guitar and I've given any of you who are interested in guitar playing this link  to a minute or so of one of his guitar solos so that you can see what I am on about.  Oh to have 1/100th of that man's talent and ability!