Between blotch and blok

Okay, so let us posit, just for this one entry, to avoid a lot of unnecessarily convoluted phrasing that the soul does exist and the ravens possess one. (The ravens, however, will enclose this dangerous concept in quotes.) And it's going to be one of those

And probably not up to TWAS-ish standards.

One of the problems of overnight radio listening, as opposed to its many interest and joys, is getting the volume just right. Too quiet and, on waking, there is the dilemma of either lying there straining the ears to half hear what's being broadcast or risking, on getting up to increase the volume, waking the other occupants of the futon (futon occupancy has over the past four years varied from between one and five, with the mean running round about 2 and a bit) either with the activity involved or the increased level of noise, either from the radio itself or from the almost inevitably disturbed disturbed cat (repetition deliberate). Often the ravens wake and lie in rigid frustration unable to make out a word, following the rise and fall of the news cadences of the World Service. Sleep returns, eventually, but not before ear strain and a headache set in. The alternative, and more frequent problem, is the volume being too loud and the ravens being suddenly awoken from deep sleep by the strains of "Lillibulero" or something discordant from John Peel. This happens most nights, since during the day the ravens turn the volume up on that particular radio (we have at least one means of receiving radio in each room of the house) if they're perching at their upstairs desk and not at the downstairs PC, and the human occupants (cats can't be blamed for this, especially not the deaf one) of the room fail to turn it down before retiring (the not entirely infallible way round this is for the ravens to leave it on R3, thereby necessitating the changing of channels to R4/World Service at which point volume is also decreased). The definition of the ideal volume--though not its absolute level, which we're certain varies--for overnight listening is that speech should be easily audible if the listener is awake, that music should be audible comfortably for a conscious listener without the risk of it waking anyone else either in the room or elsewhere, and that there should be enough musical, but probably not spoken, "leakage" into the unconscious world. John Peel can join in (after all, he'd be in fine company: currently the ravens are repeatedly dreaming about Clive James), but not so loud he wakes us up. The same applies to Andy Kershaw or Charlie Gillett. And this is where "Poppy Girl" makes its (her?) appearance.

Or rather, Sui Vesan's "Makovienka". We can't remember when precisely we first drifted back to consciousness to the strains of this track, but sometime early on last year. Being only half awake we missed who it was singing, hardly even registering that it was Charlie Gillett's show on the World Service. Over the summer and into the autumn as the ravens' sleep became less deep, sleep patterns less regular, and their late night stints in front of the PC increased, we heard this track more often: evidently we were not the only ones haunted through the night (or elsewhere, other) hours by this strange, beautiful sound. The album on which it appears, Sui, came high up in the World Service's music awards for last year so many others have fallen in love with it too (okay, we're assuming the ravens have a heart, here, as well as a "soul"). And love, it is.

If we were to characterise the sound of 2002 for the ravens, a year in which we "discovered" Pete Atkin belatedly, The Waifs, Neko Case, Sondre Lerche amongst others, it would be "Poppy Girl" whispering (literally on the track, as well as due to night listening volume constraints) and whooping through the night hours, the ravens lying stock still, watching the white-light passage of the odd car or artic. disturbing the orange-light stillness of the street lamplight on the ceiling, with the occasional lightning flash punctuation of the speed camera being triggered and the thunder roar of the offending vehicle disappearing down the road.

What is there to love? Step by step through the sounds, the quiet beginning of minimal acoustic guitar and drums and the half-heard conversation, the whooping swooping swinging calls coming in above, the clear voice with the serrated edge telling us--what? Longing, lament, resilience? The backing vocals twitter and throb in and out, then talk again, not quite echoing, but commenting,complimenting. Then the main vocal part and musicians only, until the others return, but not before for a moment the one singer is exposed, gentler, then as harsh as before. Then talk, backing singers, lead vocal together. The guitars and slapped beat louder, regular, metronomic almost. The impression of a gradual creacendo through the entiire track. It stops, abruptly.

Whatever "story" you put to this track, it has passion, pain. Victory and celebration? Maybe. Though it has no certainty of those. Endurance? Yes. It resists, stands up to the blasts, and remains, ready to dive and somersault again.

Where have the ravens been? Inert, heart sliced out. The body remains below, holding its breath. The "soul" flies free, so high it too must gasp for air. Balanced between utter desolation and the exhilaration of riding those thermals of sorrow, it loops the loop of those whoops, gently sinks with the husky interludes, is teased by those chattering voices. It fills with the sounds, would add to the song, but has no voice to match them. The ravens as Lady Capulet, once, looked down at the body of their daughter Juliet and lifted their arms to rave in "Mediterranean style" as the director required--and nothing happened. All emotion drained. The ravens dry-eyed kissed their own mother's corpse goodbye. Grey spirit, wrung dry, though not yet weeping. Up here, the sob's still in our throat, the scream in our chest, and the same sounds are around us, but consoling, carrying us on. It ends, and we're back, just the sly memory of the song sliding in and out of our memory. Our breath returns.

The rest of the album. Well, a rider at this point: we ordered it last week and it arrived on Saturday morning (swift service from Roots Music), so we first heard it through the Skoda rumble on our way to friends at the weekend. Hence first impressions were tempered by less than ideal listening conditions and the added refrain from LL in the back of the car of "Can we listen to my music now? Don't like this, can we listen to...." So, the rest. Not as instantly grabbing you by the emotional neck and squeezing as "Poppy Girl" itself, but the vocal variety, the use of the human throat as a musical instrument, and not just as a channel through which to put out words, is stupendous. It celebrates, it threatens, it bemuses, eventually it bewitches. It has the characteristics that Mongolian throat singers have of sounding inhuman whilst still emanating from a person. It's vigorous, pliant but strong. It insists, it demands, it begs, and woos. We capitulate. It's part of our musical landscape now, even when the CD's off.

Moreover, it's incomprehensible. We have to trust, even, that "Makovienka" does equate to "Poppy Girl". And what does that mean, anyway? The ravens like songs with lyrics, wordy, clever lyrics especially. The ravens don't really like not understanding the words they hear, or their context, their hidden implications, the references and allusions that might be there. If the ravens were to take up swimming that's the soupy linguistic stuff they would swim in. So songs whose titles we have to trust are correctly translated and whose subjects and lyrics we can only guess at are not their normal habitat. We look at the titles on the kindly-provided additional insert and see "Run on small stones", "Small I am, I graze stars", "Wind whispers with cloud", "I will kiss you, my sun", "From Earth There, and from There to myself" and think, "Poor translations? Or are they really that... twee?" They sound like track titles from Suzanne Vega on a bad day, only more so. If the ravens saw titles like this, and presumably lyrics to match, in a language they understood, you wouldn't see their fleeing feathers for dust. But the joy of not understanding, of free-associating with the syllables! The more so since Vesan uses her own made-up language "tatlanina" as well as Slovakian. (We think we can tell which is the former and which the latter, but there's no certainty.) We can even look at the lyrics, full of as many haceks as a Skoda brochure, and be none the wiser. Wordy birdies awash with wondrous mysterious outpourings. You can see why magical incantations have the power they have.

Hooked. Our heart's broken, or would be, if we hadn't cast it, without care or precaution, away.

Has the exorcism worked? Has bringing her into the daylight, tracking her on the web, subjecting the entire album to close scrutiny, changed anything? Or, some random night of infected dreams, will the ravens awake again to the strains of "Poppy Girl", eyes (if you'll pardon the film title) wide shut, "soul" wrenched open, throat once more constricted round the sob that won't come, but which throbs across the darkness from Sui's singing? Probably the latter. The rest of the album's growing on us. We'll be listening in the daytime too, regularly and repeatedly.

So, exorcism? Maybe one shouldn't extirpate one's ghosts, just exhumate them. Share the daylight, the (heavens there is some at the minute) sunshine. Those insubstantial grey gauze wisps sparkle and shimmy in the illumination, unexpectedly substantial even if they cast a shadow only over the "soul".

Okay, "heart" and "soul" banished to non-existence. Usual corvid existence resumed.

On a practical note, there's an interview, and a review.