Past Perfect
Listening to Gowns (Red State)
I’ve been working away on my Best of 2010 for weeks now, listing and re-listing and shifting around the songs and albums that really grabbed me this year. As of right now my initial draft is about 50% about the albums, bands and songs of 2010 and 50% about an album that came out in 2007 by a band that broke up in 2010: Red State by Gowns.
I’m enough of a rule-bender to include Red State in my Best of 2010 since something of significance happened around the album this year. But due to the length of my rapturous assessment of the music of Gowns, it needs a home of its own here on Aural Pleasures. Here goes…
I first heard of Gowns by reading of its break-up in Flavorpill. Usually a portent for heartbreak, but in this particular case, it’s perfect. The Flavorpill reviewer wrote, “With this breakup we lost one of the most fearless groups in recent memory, who touched on something difficult to describe but without a doubt profound and beautiful.” Fearless? Difficult to describe? Profound and beautiful?! I read that and knew deep in my bones that I would love this band without having heard a single note.1 This wasn’t even love at first sight – it was love at first idea.
I read a quote recently the gist of which was one of the truly beautiful things about life is that you can’t re-experience its best moments.2 What that means to me at this time in my life is that the real value of our most treasured memories is found in the impossibility of recreating the experience; they are perfect in their past-ness. So the fact that I was hearing about a band I knew I’d adore after they’d broken up seemed romantic and achingly perfect. It’s kind of like meeting your perfect guy right after he starts dating someone you’d probably love too if she hadn’t just stole your perfect guy.3
In the band were Ezra Buchla, Erika M. Anderson and Corey Fogel. Some reviews I’ve read have referred to the music as punk alt-folk drone. I guess that sorta makes sense. It's not the most accessible stuff, and could possibly be a little difficult to listen to at first for those with a more main-stream palate. I do tend to be attracted to people and music that can be a little difficult, being somewhat difficult4 at times myself.
What I feel when I’m listening to this album, particularly to the aural abyss5 of songs like “White Like Heaven” and “Rope” is that I’m in a post-apocalyptic snow globe that’s just been shaken really hard, and the song is swirling around me, glitter-shiny and soft and sharp and warm and ice-cold all at once. Distortion coupled with whisper-quiet vocals. Then some shredding. It’s kinda epic and amazing.
And the lyrics! Again, from “White Like Heaven:”we were driving we were driving and suddenly i could see it i could see it i could feel it and...i saw the world break open i could see all of it i could see for thousands of miles in every direction every direction looking up looking out and i saw thirty seconds turn into 10,000 years and it was horrible6
I’ve been there, Erika M. Anderson!! Without drugs, even! That feeling of moving outside of time, and seeing an alternate, infinite version of what everyone else is seeing… I totally get that. “White Like Heaven” needs to be the soundtrack of the next Dune remake.
The members of the band are now all involved in their own projects. Check out EMA’s here. I may have to make room for her in my already over-crowded Holy Trinity. PJ Harvey, Kim Gordon, Kim Deal, Kristen Hersh and now Erika M. Anderson. What I wouldn't give to get us all in the same room at once. I could die happy in that room.
Gowns certainly left their mark on me: a singular, slightly anguished, beautiful, perfect mark. Gowns as a band may be past tense but Red State has earned a permanent spot in my archive of Perfect Past-ness.
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1 I do this with books, too. And candy bars.
2 Where did I read this? Who said it? Why is only 5% of my brain functioning? These are not rhetorical questions, people!
3 Bitch! I take that back. Nothing perfect about that scenario. That just fucking sucks.
4 I prefer the word "complex"
5 Based on comment made by @bestblips after I played it on Blip: “this song is like an aural abyss. took part of my brain.”
6 The fact that she goes on to sing about eating macaroni and cheese makes it even better.
