she’s not coming back from this.
“it’s like a question that i don’t yet know the answer to.”
i wasn’t really prepared for my life to change, the first time i heard the twilight sad. discovered through conversations that traversed time zones and oceans, they were the first real gift he gave me. having already aligned on so much, i was deep in the throes of getting to know someone: that intoxicating feeling of needing more, of being hungry for a person. we were discovering each other, pulling at the fibres that make up an individual. my favourite bands were like a carbon copy of his own list, except for this group i hadn’t heard of before. he had mentioned these guys from scotland with the kind of exalted fervour that a religious disciple would display. when we spoke, i could hear in his voice the cult-like devotion which they inspired from him. with curiosity piqued, i figured i had better find out just who the fuck they were.
he may as well have bundled me into the boot of a stolen car and driven me into the depths of an abandoned forest, never to return again. there would be no coming back.
of all the ledges he could have first perched me on, “there’s a girl in the corner” was the one that did it. for a song that lures slowly, the damage it caused was immediate - hooks in, i was reeling after mere seconds. in an effect not dissimilar to a toxic drug entering your system, i could tell it was taking me over, methodically spreading it’s reach the way a drop of ink gradually claims crisp white paper. as i listened and it continued to unfurl itself with a steady, assured insistency, i felt invited: like a stranger was standing in the deep recesses of an otherwise empty room, beckoning me to edge closer to them through the dark. the strange thing was, it seemed like their other hand was also simultaneously warning me away.
he had told me about this wall of noise that hits when the band plays the song live, and at the 2:36 mark, i got a taste of what he meant. like a full speed collision with no survivors, i was not prepared for the force of impact: the way the climax of the song takes you with it, enveloping you in a magic you were certainly not expecting to find so suddenly, out of the blue. in the space of a few minutes, the twilight sad had gone from being an unknown entity to my newest beautiful affliction. the fall was that instant, that severe.
seemingly energized by the fact that he knew he had just given me my first dose of an addictive substance, my education came thick and fast. live versions, acoustic sessions, outtakes and b-sides soon became the main topic of our conversations. i fell in love with him as easily and rapidly as i fell in love with this kilsyth band - tumbling with a broken-bones helplessness under the spell which had been cast. i couldn’t understand how something that so noticeably contained elements of all the music i already adored, could somehow also feel like completely uncharted territory. i was all at sea, only too happy to let my boat crash on the rocks surrounding their despondent shores. hell, these guys made me want to actually steer the ship directly towards a catastrophe - just as long as it meant that i could continue to experience their wretched, disconsolate soundtrack.
the thing that got me initially, and still does, is the fact that you can hear the absolute extremities of human emotion within the music that this band makes. with funeral-parlour solemness, the songs that the twilight sad write also allude to a tiny glory box of hope buried beneath the weight. as a lyricist, james has managed to eloquently capture the shattered-glass devastation that cuts us all at some point - the kind of experience that we pack up and hide away inside ourselves, because the vulnerable trauma of a broken heart can be too much to outwardly acknowledge. can you put into words what it’s like, to know that someone has found a way to distill in song, the very essence of a circumstance that has left you standing alone? it is like a pale light finding it’s way through the crack in the door. i don’t know who or what it was that bit james, but the teeth marks left behind are there on show, his own personal cost transformed into art that both inspires and soothes.
their music, much like the metallic taste of blood, is impossible to rid yourself of once you have come to truly know it.
i asked my informant recently to find me a clip that best demonstrated the live experience. directing me to a performance of ‘i became a prostitute’ from the KEXP session in iceland, it was immediately apparent that for all the sordid seduction that their recorded music offers, this band in the live arena is like a tattered street dog that has had to fight for scraps.
https://youtu.be/br3kBEehRCA
as introductions are offered politely, the first-time listener has no idea of the behemoth about to greet them. when it arrives, i can only liken it to being electrocuted: the currents of noise snap through your body, except there is no outlet to offer relief from the assault. as andy and mark affront the lucky punters before them with a feedback-drenched sonic boundary that constantly threatens to spill over, james transforms from an unassuming individual into a possessed messiah: to watch him is to see the force of the song take someone over. like a puppet controlled by the song’s geppetto, he becomes a conduit for the formidable, visceral energy that is being generated - and there is no act, no show. 'prossy’ actually turns inside out and inhabits it’s creators: the sound swirls furiously, and james appears to exorcize the demon right in front of us. it is compelling to watch, the car-crash magnetism of musicians in total synergy rendering you unable to look away.
i didn’t think when i first pressed play, that strangers from the other side of the globe would be able to speak for the most remote and guarded parts of me. i didn’t expect to stumble into a new world that makes a perennial loner feel a little less so. but that is what happened, and i’m at a loss to explain what it has meant.
it is my long-shot hope that one day that i will be able to stand in front of the band who brought this affirming, affecting music into my life, and get to experience the force of it in real time for myself. until then, i will continue to be buoyed by the knowledge that i have a catalogue of work i can find refuge in, should i ever feel like there’s no home to go to.
thank you, the twilight sad, for putting your mope-rock masterstrokes out into the world for all of us to bind our wrists with. thank you for writing songs that strike at the profound depths of the human heart; and for all that you have done for me, without ever even realizing.
it is a misery knowing you, in the best possible way.
tangentwithtanner
areudirty
2087
