...and here's another excerpt from a diary I was writing in Kerala, India this August.
"13/8/09
Today we are travelling to the Munnar Region, one of the few mountainous parts of Kerala. Situated roughly 150km to the west of Kochi, Munnar is famous for tea plantations and exotic wildlife.
We also switch drivers and cars, from Sajeev to Saji, and from an estate to a twelve seater coach.
I decide to spend the four hour journey listening to my ipod. Driving through Kochi, and struggling to pick something to listen to, I eventually settle on “Catacombs” by Cass McCombs. For whatever reason, this has become my default album, meaning that I tend to listen to it in situations where I can’t decide what to listen to. There’s something beautifully relaxed about this record, despite containing some pretty intense music. McCombs’ sense of space and his willingness to let songs play out as long as they need (almost six minutes in some cases) fits my desire to relax and take in the sights of driving through Kochi, which today looks as inviting as ever with its mix of green jungle and brightly coloured houses. There are less people here than there are in the north which makes it a far more comfortable environment to traverse. “Catacombs” takes me all the way through Kochi and into the surrounding jungle. I change my mind about the two tracks near the end, I like them more now. It occurs to me that I am always soundtracking my life and that the only other places where soundtracks occur are tv and film. I wonder if this involves me more in my environment or creates an imaginary boundary. Could this be unhealthy?
Next up, I pick Elliott Smith. I remember that his has been the only “celebrity” death I have lived through to have had an emotional impact on me. There is something so personal and particular about his music which makes the listener really feel like they’re listening to him the man rather than a pop singer. I pick, “From the Basement on the Hill”, his last, and posthumous, release.
In many respects, “From a Basement…” shouldn’t have been as good an album as it is. It had been a long time since Smith had released anything, and his last, “Figure 8”, was not particularly good, and “From…” was compiled after his death. All these signs point to a potential misfire of an album which is why it is so surprising that it actually serves as good a “final” album as any Elliott Smith fan could have hoped for. The production is not as stale as “Figure 8”, the subject matter sticks pretty closely to what Smith’s best at – sensitive, semi-miserable, often heart-breaking songs about mistaken relationships and substance abuse, and Smith himself sounds, somewhat tragically, very alive. It’s nice to listen to it and think about the man and his music as I watch the jungle woosh past. It would be remiss of me here not to mention that “New Moon”, the compilation of rarities released after “From a Basement…”, is similarly fantastic, and even more intimate a listening experience.
We’re driving uphill now. The Munnar region is 6,000 feet above sea level so we’ll be driving uphill for a while. We stop for tea and afterwards something draws me towards “Life is Full of Possibilities” by DNTEL.
I think that this album may achieve forgotten masterpiece status at some point. It was at risk of this not long after its release when The Postal Service album became far more popular than the Ben Gibbard DNTEL collaboration on “Life…” ever was, despite the latter’s superiority, at least in my opinion.
“Life…” trade in organic keyboard swell, glitchy beats, and just enough guest vocalists so that it is not overwhelmed by a multitude of actors. The subject matter is shamelessly bleak, but the music itself, as so much great music does, transcends this totally. It’s an album of incredible depth and warmth, something that you can bury yourself in entirely. It can be an intense listening experience, but an incredibly rich one nonetheless. I have so many memories attached to it, so obsessed with it was I when it came out. For instance, it reminds me very much of various trips I made with a friend to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dundee from Aberdeen, my hometown, on the megabus. I have a distinctive image of the grey and green Scottish countryside with rain pouring and hitting the windows of the bus. Other strong memories are attached to “(This is the Dream Of) Evan and Chan”, the aforementioned Gibbard collaboration. It’s a song that itself inspires nostalgia, containing lyrics like, “He then played every song from 1993, the crowd applauded as he curtseyed bashfully, your eyebrows tickled my neck with every nervous blink…”, and still stands as the my favourite track Gibbard has ever contributed to. It’s amazing.
We’re almost there, we’ve climbed quite high now. The jungle looks so beautiful with a combination of rubber palms, eucalyptus trees, and banana plants. Every now and then I catch a glimpse of an amazing looking flower or insect. I start listening to Tiny Vipers’ “Life on Earth”.
I must be a sucker for intensity at the moment, as this wonderful folk album, which has only recently been released, is a lot to take in. Still, the singer’s voice is incredible and there is something so rough and damaged sounding about the music that give it such a fragile and commanding presence. It’s a long record, perhaps too long, but like “Catacombs” there is something admirable about music that takes as long as it needs.
We arrive at Munnar, which is a small town overlooking incredible bright and dark green coloured tea fields that are eclipsed by a kinetic grey mist that makes the place feel like a Myazaki film. We have to transfer from our coach to a jeep to get to our hotel, “Nature Zone”, which is further up a rough stone-filled road. We drive up past more tea fields and jungle, all looking mysterious and interesting.
“Nature Zone” itself is composed of free-standing tents, a restaurant structure, and some tree houses where we will be staying. The tree houses are high up but are well-constructed, with some flaws. Because the structures are built around the trees themselves, there is a giant, living tree trunk in the room with holes surrounding it. Holes are no good if mosquitos are to be kept out. Living tree trunks are no good if tropical insects are to kept out as we will learn later, when a giant stick insect will visit Owen in the night.
The staff at “Nature Zone” seem unfortunately deficient of any knowledge about nature, which is sad although we identify from our balcony some of the giant squirrels native to this region. The look like something in between a monkey and a squirrel, more like a lemur than anything else. Kind of cute. Dinner is good but takes a long time. In the evening I play Kirby on the DS and work on a letter for A."
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