SOUNDTRACK: MILAGRES-Tiny Desk Concert #198 (February 27, 2012).
I hadn’t heard of Milagres before this set. Bob mentions how they are a band with many layers of music–practically a wall of sound.
The big sound of Milagres is built from small, simple elements: the boom of the kick drum, the clack of the claves, the repetitive tap-tap-tapping of a piano. This is a band of selective minimalism — which, in the end, somehow gets me thinking about the big sounds Phil Spector made. It’s all about attention to detail, and Milagres is a band that cares.
And yet for this Tiny Desk:
Frankly, I worried more when the band’s list of gear didn’t include a single amp and its members said they didn’t need to use our keyboard. They came armed with a red toy piano, an autoharp, a shaker egg, a melodica, a glockenspiel, a few acoustic guitars and not much else.
But in the end, that same attention to detail made this a great Tiny Desk Concert. In spite of the tiny sound, the songs were big and strong — delicately built, yet sturdy enough for the emotive sounds of Kyle Wilson’s voice.
Wilson’s voice is kind of loud whisper, but the band, with all of their funny gear sounds really full and the elements come together very nicely.
“Hard to Stay” starts out nicely, but when the band adds the lovely “ooohs” during the first verse it sounds amazing. And you can hear all of the instruments perfectly balanced—the authoharp, the melodica and then the xylophone. Couple that with some lovely lyrics
All the leaves are glowing green / as the seasons rage all the birds seem to sing in the key of A
“Halfway” opens with a toy piano—which doesn’t sound cheesy. Wilson hits lots of delicate falsetto notes that work perfectly with the piano and xylophone. The chorus “Halfway, halfway, I could be halfway” is all sung in gentle falsetto. And then add more of those beautiful ooohs during the second verse. I also really like at the end when he keeps playing his chords higher and higher up the neck–getting kind of noisy–until it all abruptly stops
“Glowing Mouth” opens with shaker and melodica and again, the sound is nice not cheesy. he sings wonderful falsetto “haaas” in the middle and the autoharp returns with the great sound. He play a simple but pretty riff on the acoustic guitar as the song ends (its fun to watch his fingers playing it close up).
The band really won me over with their sound here and now I’m very curious to hear what they’re “supposed” to sound like.
[READ: January 27, 2017] “Y’all Torture Me Home”
I am astonished that this essay had to be written at all back in 2008. But I am even more upset that now, 8 years later, issues of torture are being considered again. Really the only word that should be coming up regularly is impeachment.
When I was in college I wrote a humorous piece for my college newspaper that was all about Deconstruction. There had been a debate going back and forth about it (seriously), with the people who were opposed to it saying that it led to a belief that nothing had meaning–which could cause a spiritual crisis. (Ah, the 90s).
Since no one was winning this argument, I jumped in with my piece which was all about “de construction” at “da University” (our school was expanding and there was orange construction fencing everywhere). It was hailed and enjoyed (at least by one of the professors in the philosophy department).
I bring this up only because Saunders takes a similar mis-understanding approach in the essay, which, sadly, is timely once again. His piece begins:
I was overjoyed that Congress refused to override President Bush’s veto of a bill outlawing the washboarding of prisoners, a technique that some have described as torture—a ridiculous notion if I’ve ever heard one.
[After you unpack the negatives, the ruling was that “washboarding” can continue]
And thus begins Saunders detailed account of his own experience with being washboarded. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 