Friday 16 December 2005

almost-magical music

Several years ago i came across a few songs which remained vivid in my brain: "hiroshima mon amour" (the B-side version)(1977), "Dancing with tears in my eyes" and "reap the wild wind" by ULTRAVOX, and a song by PINK MILITARY, "after hiroshima" (maybe from 1979, but appears in their LP do animals believe in God,1980). Both belong to the late 70es but their style is not so easy to classify or determine. PINK MILITARY is said to be a post-punk band, but they were really close to electronic music which we could find right before the arrival and triumph of new wave. SInce i don't know where exactly to place these 2 bands, i call them bands-making-almost-magical-music. Recently i suddenly decided to go on with some search on more about ULTRAVOX and PINK MILITARY. Of course i did find tones of information about ULTRAVOX. and also about one of their members, who started a brilliant solo career in the 80es, JOHN FOXX (see picture above). And thanks to my searching i got to know other wonderful songs: "did you see her" by PINK MILITARY (i must say that PINK MILITARY only have one album; Do animals believe in God, released in 1980...which i hope to find one day in CD version). And other musical wonders are "the garden" , "Like a miracle", "Endlessly", "My wild love" all of them by FOXX. Well, and i discovered the videoclip for "Dancing with tears in my eyes" by ULTRAVOX....absolutely beautiful and with important ideas flowing beneath the story and images....it 's the only videoclip which moved me. A scientist was working on something dealing with nuclear energy and suddenly they noticed some kind of failure in the system, some fatal error. The man goes back home and tells his wife/whatever what's going on what is about to happen. They are wrapped by memories and enjoy the last moments of their life. It feels like....what should we do when we know everything, even us, is about to vanish? I really felt some emptiness at the end of the videoclip, in the last images. Nothing remains, but the melody of the song. Everything disappears at last, like Pink Military...(however, its singer, Jayne Casey, also singer of Big in Japan, after Pink Military, she formed Pink Industry).

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