Your cart (0 item)

EYELESS IN GAZA - Everyone feels like a Stranger

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Ambivalent Scale A-SCALE 041 Release Year: 2011 Note: new studio album with 12 tracks by the British cultband (with MARTYN BATES), more song-oriented & less improvised as before... "a collective meditation upon the double-edged sense of exhilaration and closeness that can occur when one enters that peculiar state of mind and being that being alone can sometimes give" Price (incl. 19% VAT): €13.00 More Info "The edition is limited to 1000 copies and as with other Eyeless In Gaza albums, we do not know when or if there will be more editions coming, so get it now. The album is song-focussed and the running time is 46 mins 52 secs. The 12 tracks are: 1. Voices, 2. Dance of Hours, 3. Much Wants More, 4. Morning Singing, 5. Seeing/Book of Days, 6. Among the Gathering Skies, 7. So You Appear, 8. Slow Eve, 9. Childhood Knives, 10. Dreaming Body, 11. If I Could Live as the Sun Does, 12. Endless Trees. Dance of Hours, Childhood Knives and So You Appear have appeared in pre-view versions on radio programs and on YouTube, but have been perfected for the final release here. Morning Singing is a new take on the Martyn Bates solo classic from 1982, but since Eyeless In Gaza has performed this live as a band several times lately, this reflects how it is interpreted these days as a song by Eyeless In Gaza. Martyn Bates writes about the new album: Through the Summer of 2011 while we were putting together the tunes for Everyone Feels Like a Stranger, an unexpected pattern began to emerge. Clearly, as we were recording and completing pieces, much of this new work was showing a distinct prejudice /alignment to the form of songs, as opposed to instrumental explorations and improvisations, pictures without words. Now of course, all of the music we make has a story to it – much as we are all stories, because, well … that’s all we have really: stories beautiful / terrifying / ecstatic / anecdotal / awake / asleep etc. etc. These particular song-stories all naturally feed into Eyeless In Gaza directly, and, as far as I’m concerned, the songs then go on to take on a life of their own. That being said, I was already aware that these particular songs seemed to have arrived coloured with something that struck me as being particularly inward looking and reflective, for the most part. It was Peter Becker who first suggested that we title this album of songs Everyone Feels Like a Stranger – and initially I was unsure, as I felt that somehow this phrase ran the risk of conveying the ‘wrong kind’ of negative connotations. However, I see now that he was right. What we have here within these songs is a collective meditation upon the double-edged sense of exhilaration and closeness that can occur when one enters that peculiar state of mind and being that being alone can sometimes give. Where to ‘feel like a stranger’ oddly brings about a wayward sense of subtle happiness or comfort. And where distance and separation somehow connect with a sudden elevation and insight, and link in with an unsettling sense of security within that isolation. Where being ‘alone’ takes on an almost religious intensity .Where you are connected to the Quiet, the calm, the silence. Where Everyone Feels Like a Stranger, true … but, at the same time, no-one ever feels like a dispassionate collaborator. Dance of Hours – a YouTube film directed by David Black for Black Creative Limited with additional footage from Elizabeth Bates, recorded at Mont St. Michel out of the shores of Normandy in late August 2011. My own initial reaction to Everyone Feels Like a Stranger – not as negative in mood as the title might suggest. This is an album that is hard to tell why one should hold in high esteem, but one should, because it is greater in some ways than previous albums. It shows a deep respect for the song format and that is at the core here. I might find more improvisational material more exciting, but here they really bring out the best of what is central to making music – melody/harmony, wonderful voice, thoughtfulness, inventiveness, atmosphere, colouring and all without sounding presumptuous, nor trying to live up to what others might regard as great, but rather define it. An album not to be missed!" [website info] www.eyelessingaza.com