The Cure 在1989年推出了这张大热门专辑《Disintegration》。《Disintegration》同时也是 Robert Smith“悲情三部曲”的第二部(第一部是《Pornography》，第三部是《Bloodflowers》)，显得黑暗诱人，带着神秘和忧郁，整张专辑有着催眠曲一样的感觉，没有了乐队以前的黑暗绝望的作风，尽管专辑的基调比以前更为忧郁。The Cure 的音乐罕见的变得迷人了起来。好像在无垠的大海里，仰望夜空闪亮的星光，慢慢下沉，痛苦浸透，安详地窒息。铺天盖地的深蓝色键盘，孤寂而灿烂的吉他，黑暗中幻化出彩色光芒的贝司，沉稳压抑而华丽眩目的鼓，还有 Robert Smith 凄美冷艳的歌声......

Digitally remastered CD debut with 2 bonus tracks of album originally only available in split box set also featuring Nurse With Wound & Sol Invictus. One of the bonus tracks is previously unreleased. Also included is a 12 page booklet with full lyrics & full color artwork. 6 tracks in all.

1.这是Sol Invictus 最经典的专辑(没有之一),从此她成为新民谣的样板教科书。由这张专辑开始，Sol Invictus的“管弦乐团小分队”成为了新潮流，这种逐渐淡化吉他、加重其他弦乐比例的作法直到现在依然是Neo-folk不二法门。专辑中的Stay、Fall Like Rain、An English Garden等都是Sol Invictus巡唱必备曲目。
2.此时是Sol Invictus阵容最整齐的时刻，Karl Blake、Eric Roger、Nick Hall及David Mellor。Tony Wakeford动用了两台小提琴，专辑插画由美国著名艺术家Tor Lundvall完成，这也是其第一次以唱片专辑为主题创作，而此后Eric Roger、Karl Blake逐渐淡出Sol Invictus,前者专注于自己的新团Gaë Bolg,后者和David Mellor转向Tursa和Durtro(分别是Tony Wakeford和David Tibet个人的厂牌)的幕后工作。
3.专辑词曲由Tony Wakeford一手包办，这是一张献给爱的恋曲，是身在英伦雨季伤感的人心路历程的独白。Tony Wakeford自比为漂浮在空气中的灰尘，没有爱情将会失去自己的灵魂，而只有在雨中，才能得到滋润体现自己，但也仅仅是倏忽之间的快感。专辑起承很大，Tony Wakeford用时而平静，时而阴沉绝望的嗓音为自己的爱情歌唱，就像‘In the Rain’讲述恋爱关系；‘Fall like rain’ 探讨人类；‘Oh what Fun’ 对自杀的理解，围绕着爱与背叛的主题而完成一部伟大的雨中街头剧。
4.这张专辑自1995年发行后，先后被各个大小厂牌不停的remastered，比如俄罗斯的Infinite Fog、德国的Dark Vinyl等，每年都会传出再版的消息，但各路厂牌甚至听众依然乐此不疲。
这就是前无古人后无来者、死亡民谣史上的奇葩——Sol Invictus的IN THE RAIN。

一直都有最大的冲动写This Mortal Coil,毕竟他们是我最认同和喜欢的乐队，反而这成了我写他们的最大障碍，怎么写自己也不满意。也一直有感觉想介绍《Blood》给大家，因为一些凌乱却最简单的原因，算了就让我这样凌乱的说出来吧：
从我3年半前拥有这张唱片的时候就把它当成自己听过的最优秀的一张，现在依然这样认为；他是在Darkwave/低调音乐圈里面的高标，把那种超纯唯美，超纯阴暗的色调深入到一个别人难以企及的境地。这样的事情，以前没有人尝试做过，以后也难以有人超越；也是到目前为止我唯一一次勒紧腰带，连续三次购买同张原版唱片的傻瓜行为的元凶；我想说的是，很高兴我能拥有This Mortal Coil的每张大碟，每张都是给我满分的感受，但是，这张：却更远远不是满分那么一点；你认同4AD么？喜欢Cocteau Twins,Dead Can Dance,difjuz等低调乐队么？嗯，别那么早否定/肯定完4AD，直到听过这个真正4AD的精髓和灵魂的所在，这个致命线圈为止吧；或者不是因为This Mortal Coil的出现，在那个时代，那些游离在死亡和崩溃边缘的音乐,Bauhaus,xmaldeutashland，都会失去探求无边黑暗的引标和强大而统一的力量……
这张Blood中，最吸引的地方不只是因为首脑人物，Ivo(4AD老板)不再局限在4AD王国里面发展This Mortal Coil，而是聚集了各处精英，而且在以前This Mortal Coil那深黑不见底的纯唯美世界里面引入了那么丝丝点点亮光.
从我个人的角度来说：有了这一张，其他唱片都可以放弃。

Á sólstöðum í svartnætti tunglið geislum grætur
Vetrarnótt við erum þínar sönnu svörtu dætur
Norðurljósa litamynstur lokkar okkur nær
Hrímiþakin snævibreiðan, glitrandi og skær
Í ljósadýrð við lifnum við og seint þá dansinn dvín
Aldrei, aldrei fara frá mér, vetrarnóttin mín
Fallin út í fjarskann fjúka fölnuð blöð af rósum
Nornir kveða upp anda undir köldum norðurljósum
Kælan Mikla dansar undir köldum norðurljósum
Translation:
Winter solstice in the black night
the moon cries its beams
Winter night; we are your true dark daughters
The northern lights color patterns lure us closer
The frost-covered fields of snow, glittering and bright
In the glorious lights we come alive and late the dance fades
Never, never leave me, my precious winter night
Fallen, into the distance blow
withered petals of roses
Witches conjure spirits
under the cold northern lights
Kælan Mikla dances
under the cold northern lights
credits
released April 2, 2021
Written and performed by Kælan Mikla
Recording and mixing by Barði Jóhannsson
Mastering by Frank Arkwright
Illustrated by Førtifem
Design by MERCH BABE
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These New Puritans are the great heretics of British music, fearless innovators with a maverick spirit. It’s been a decade of sonic innovation since a teenage TNP released their debut album Beat Pyramid. In the years since, they’ve successfully blurred the distinctions between rock, classical, electronic, pop and experimental music, earning rave reviews and praise from artists as diverse as Björk, Massive Attack and Elton John along the way.
Their brutal and beautiful fourth studio album, Inside The Rose, however, is the Barnett brothers' most innovative yet. Recorded in Berlin, London, and Southend-on-Sea, and mixed in L.A, it’s unlike anything else you’ll hear this year – forty minutes of powerful melodies, lush strings and progressive electronics, packed with jaw-dropping sonic left turns.
Sitting in a scruffy Irish pub, Jack and George are as relaxed in each other’s company as only brothers can be. Friendly and self-deprecating, they’re the antithesis of the archetypal ‘experimental’ musician.
“That’s as much of a convention as anything else,” explains Jack. “It reminds me of spiritual mediums. The truth always just happens to lie with people who wear cheap suits and perform at the end of the pier. Musical truth just always happens to be found in people who are deeply serious, have beards and make lots of noise"
One of the big changes is the band’s reverting to a duo, just as it had been when they first started out.
“This album is much more primitive,” explains Jack. “We want to make our music as direct and as powerful as possible - straight to the nervous system.”
“We wanted this album to be about us working together on something really pure, positive and progressive,” adds George. “The melodies and Jack’s voice are much more important this time around.”
The brothers began playing music together at 7 or 8 years old – Jack writing songs on a massively over-sized guitar, and George hitting a pair of bongos from a charity shop with drum sticks. “We’d learn Captain Beefheart songs together,” says Jack. “And I would slow down Aphex Twin songs to analyse them, then create copies, to learn how to make those kinds of sounds.”
Together they began to create their own musical world. Realising that the only way of playing live in Southend was to form a band, they recruited school friend Tom Hein. The brothers’ dad was a builder; for their first London gigs they would ride up to London in his van, then in the same van go to work on building sites the next day.
2008’s debut Beat Pyramid, a circular work of fast rhythms, repetitive lyrics and fractured field recordings, stood out like a sore thumb amongst the conservative, guitar-based music of the period. The follow up, Hidden (2010) defied expectations, combining brutal Japanese Taiko drums, dancehall rhythms and austere woodwind (Jack taught himself musical notation to score the album's orchestral arrangements). After appearing on Björk’s Bastards remix album, TNP then released the cinematic Field of Reeds in 2013, followed by EXPANDED: Live at the Barbican (2014). Since then, Jack and George’s search for new sonic challenges saw them produce the musical score for the first authorised theatrical production of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Writing sessions for Inside The Rose began in Essex, and were completed in Berlin after Jack relocated there. Recording began in 2015 in London – drums were the starting point, produced by long-time collaborator Graham Sutton (Bark Psychosis / Boymerang) but the majority was done in Berlin in a former Soviet broadcasting studio in the city’s industrial suburbs.
“To get there each day, I’d cycle through a sea of broken glass with chemicals from the cement works blowing in my face,” says Jack of his daily commute.
“It was so noisy around the studio, I started waking up at three in the afternoon to work once they’d finished, then working for eleven or twelve hours solid. I think it’s louder than the last album because everywhere I worked there was building work nearby, so we had to compete.”
From the opening seconds of Infinity Vibraphones, with its vocal refrain: ‘Let’s go back to the underworld/ Let’s go back inside” Inside the Rose’s sharp romanticism grips like a vice, drawing you into a nocturnal alternate reality where nothing is as it seems. “The songs are about beauty, transcendence, desire, oblivion, ecstasy, eyes and angels.”
From the brooding Anti-Gravity - think Depeche Mode circa Some Great Reward - to the industrial electronics of Into The Fire (featuring Current 93’s David Tibet) to the unalloyed operatic beauty of A-R-P, it pulsates with ideas and energy. The album’s adventurous spirit is summed up by a band phrase George would use as a touchstone throughout recording: “why dream backwards when you can dream forwards? If your biggest dream is to look like someone from the 70s, you’ve got to have something wrong with you.” “If that’s your deepest desire, that’s so unambitious. It’s a waste”, adds Jack.
Another highlight is the spine-tingling ballad Where The Trees Are On Fire. “I dreamt the melody and most of the lyrics,” explains Jack. I was almost superstitious about changing anything in it. To me, it sounds sort of like [Stephen Sondheim’s] ‘Send In the Clowns’ or something.”
Inside The Rose isn’t just TNP’s most affecting piece of music yet. It’s further proof that they operate in a different realm to most bands, making music with true fearlessness.
“I think it’s unambitious if all you’re wanting to do is reflect your age,” says Jack in conclusion.
“I want to go beyond myself and my time. That’s the art I like. Whether it’s Francis Bacon, William Blake or Andrei Tarkovsky. You fail, inevitably, but that’s the challenge.”
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