I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ANOTHER SKY-Tiny Desk Concert #942 (February 5, 2020).

I have watched this video many times because I love everything about this band.  I love the unexpectedly intricate guitar, the adventurous bass and complex rhythms, and I love singer Catrin Vincent’s voice.

Drummer Max Doohan open “Brave Face” with really fast hi-hats.  Some very high bass notes (from Naomi Le Dune) and a smooth, slinky guitar (Jack Gilbert) makes the melody as Katrin sings in her unique, deep and clearly accented voice.

After a verse or so, Katrin plays a piano chord while the guitar opens a clean catchy melody.  The  song stops musically for a moment before it kicks back in with some rocking guitars and fast drums.  Despite the rhythmic changes, all the while her vocal style remains unchanged–a great contrast.

There’s so much dynamism in this song.  It builds and builds to a dramatic ending.

There’s intensity and clear intention to the music of Another Sky. I knew that from having seen this London band perform at SXSW. But in the confines of an office, hearing Catrin Vincent’s unique voice, raw and un-amplified, brought it to another level. They came to NPR back in December to perform, opening their Tiny Desk set with a new song, released just this week. “Brave Face” is a window into the uncompromising sound and message of Another Sky, as Catrin sings in her impassioned voice:

“You must put yourself first
believe you will be loved
only you can demand all you deserve
You put on your brave face, now girl.”

This isn’t a message that is easy to punctuate with music, but matching message with music is the strength of Another Sky. You can hear it in the way Jack Gilbert weaves his guitar lines around the haunting vocals, the way the rhythm section sets up a tension with the melody.

“Avalanche” “another song that deals with toxic masculinity, there’s such ferocity, such commitment to the message.”   It opens with guitar harmonics and Katrin singing along on a slow piano melody.  A complex bass line adds some lower notes to the song which teases quiet moments before getting loud again with a nifty guitar solo.  The song once again gets huge before the music cuts out for just some piano and voice.

Before the final song,

Catrin brought some levity in the form of thanks. “I used to work in an infamous thrift shop in London,” she said, “that paid me to sit and watch NPR Tiny Desks on loop, and I used to think, ‘Oh we’ll never get here,’ and we did, so thank you.”

“All Ends” opens with a quiet introduction and more great guitar work.  Once again I love the bass work–chords played at the high end of the neck, along with ringing guitars and Katrin’s voice.

This band is so interesting, I can’t wait to hear more from them.

[READ: February 10, 2020] 5 Worlds Book 2

The story is magical and fairly complicated with a lot of parts.  But the crux is the dire situation on the five worlds.  Moon Yatta is a desert; Salassandra’s animals are all dying; Grimbo(e) is covered in ocean moss and there are water riots on Toki, where the plant people are dying.  The Mon Domani Elder says that they need to light the beacons on the roof.  The other leaders are less convinced of the need for beacons and some are hostile to the idea.

Behind all of the trouble is a creature known as The Mimic–a super nasty fellow that is able to possess people.

At the end of book one our hero, Oona Lee and her friends An Tzu and Jax Amboy were able to light the first beacon.  Lighting the beacon made it rain on Mon Domani for the first time in years.

This book opens with a flashback.  In book one we knew of Oona’s sister, and how she fled just before it was her time to light the beacons.  By the end of the book we saw that she was actively trying to prevent Oona from lighting the beacon.

Master Elon pulls aside a young Jessa Lee and tells her about the Mimic–he is not a legend, he is real and a real threat.  He tells her that the Cobalt Prince wants to destroy the Mimic and only a great sand dancer (and Jessa is the best) can defeat the Mimic.  But just before the lighting is to commence, Elon tells her the true consequence of lighting the beacons (which we don’t hear).

We jump to the present–after the attacks on Mon Domani that Jessa (as Zayd) was responsible for.  She seeks out Elon who tells her that the Cobalt Prince has been possessed by the Mimic.

Then we jump to our heroes  They are hiding aboard a ship.  Oona says there is at least one other sand dancer who can light the beacons his name is Vector Sanderson.  She hopes that they can find him and that they can light all the beacons together.

They talk about Oona’s sister how she is now blue, like a Toki.  How could they have converted her to being Toki?  Plus, An Tzu’s invisibility is getting wore.

As the ship gets close to the first stop, a Toki ship docks with them.  The kids think it is a trap and they flee.  But their escape pod is attacked and they lose Jax.  Their pod crashes into a sacred tower on Salassandra.  The tower has a singing fire which has been kept alight for as long as anyone can remember.  When their pod crashes into the tower the fire goes out and the children are captured.  But while they are being interrogated, the sacred oil jumps out.  It is alive.  One of the holy men realizes that the sacred oil is a living thing and they’ve been burning it.  This makes the elders turn on the crabbiest elder especially when the sacred oil goes up to Oona, and snuggles with her.  It tells her to call him Ram Sam Sam.

The elders take Oona and An Tzu to some helpful people who encourage them to go to Atbal-Balak.  Thats’ where the queen’s missing arm vanished while it was gripping the Mimic’s heart.  They must find Magda Gaadek to get some help on their journey there.

They arrive as Atbal-Balak and learn that most of the sand dancers from Mon Domani are in the prisons on this land.

As they try to cross the wasteland, Oona is captured by the Prince of Toki who is a pretty, big-eyed, blue creatures with what looks like tattoos on his face.  He seems perpetually happy.

Then the prince gives a history lesson.  There was a mining accident there on Toki.  Three children were left orphans.  They had sand dancing abilities and Professor Plumb adopted two of them, but the third was taken to the Flying Fortress on Toki.  That was Vector Sanderson.  The other two were Oona and her sister Jessa. They are actually Toki!

Oona wants to know how they turned Jessa blue, but the prince says they were both born blue and were altered by Plumb.

Can this be true?  Its hard to know because then the prince says that lighting the beacons is terrible idea.  He says if you light them all, it will turn Mon Domani into a sun which will destroy the other four worlds.

Oona is unconvinced.  As the prince walks away he asks Jessa if Oona will come around.  Jessa says yes, she will make sure of it.

Jessa and Oona finally talk and they discover a secret–the prince was sort of right but he was missing a crucial piece of information.  Oona also accepts her true self and allows her blueness to shine through.  An Tzu only sees this last moment and he freaks out, thinking Oona was corrupted.

There is a huge confrontation at the end of the book.  The CObalt Prince is about to get the Mimic’s heart from the queen’s bones.  But Jessa sacrifices herself at the last moment, telling Oona that sisters are forever.

But in the epilogue, Oona is unable to light the blue beacon.  She tries her best but it just doesn’t work.  In the last pages we see a friendly face who explains that the beacons must be lit in a specific order: white red blue yellow green.

And so, Oona and her pals including Ram Sam Sam are off to Moon Yatta and the red beacon.

As with the last book, the illustration style of this book is very trippy–soft and delicate with fine lines and gentle coloring. It looks very anime and yet it’s not.  It’s hard to know which artist’s style dominates.  I feel like Boya Sun, but they all have a similar aesthetic.  I really like the character design as well.  I found it very refreshing that none of the characters look like superheroes (well except for Jax the athlete).  Oona is a short girl who has wide hips and thighs and An Tzu is a chubby boy.  Even the other creatures are all interesting and uniquely designed.

This is a great series.