Music serves the most valuable, instructive purpose known to man. Or at least to this man. It takes you out of any uncomfortable situation you might find yourself in and transports you to a warm, supportive and sustaining realm, offering you perspective, and most of all calm and contentment.
A firm example to illustrate my case. Yesterday at work I had a chaotic, frantic morning, preparing my virtual lessons, all the while being inundated by urgent, but actually rather meaningless admin related e-mails which demanded an immediate response while I was feeling that the immediate priority planning and getting in a teaching frame of mine,was rather more immediate and important.
Anyhow, after classes and admin requirements were met I searched for some musical sustenance to address the mood of disquiet and irritation which had mounted over the course of the morning. And chanced upon this, Diner, the debut album from the charmingly named Lucy Peru.
It's not the best or most significant record ever made and it doesn't pretend to be. It consciously focuses on the small moment. The private moment. But it does chart, quite beautifully, a small, intimate passage of time between two people, more specifically the beginning, progress and conclusion of a relationship.
Lucy Peru comes across as the cute girlfriend you never had in your youth, and plays her hand to perfection. She's Suzanne Vega's younger sister. Even perhaps her daughter. Suzanne after all had 'her' diner too. But her concerns are just the same as Suzanne's were back in the day. Some things never change.
By turns she's warm, intimate, turned on and turned off. Diner covers all the small dramas and intimacies taking place between that couple that are always there on the table next to you. The silence and stillness, those moments that are so momentary and illusory and essentially private but she's had the generosity to share them here with you. Her songs swell and bloom with modest grace.
I don't know how often I'll come back to Lucy Peru and this. But I'm glad that she and this are there. This is her first statement, always one of the most important you can make, and it's a bold and brave one. I hope plenty are listening.
No comments:
Post a Comment