The Ordinary Times

Years

Momo Wandel Soumah – “Tamouya Gouli”

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When the flute solo starts, innocently enough, at 4:47 in this song, you are completely unprepared for what it will become. The flautist traces careful figure eights around the melody while Momo growls his approval and the band keeps a steady and pleasant groove. Then this trilling screech, but still within what you’re used to hearing from the mouths and pipes of flautists. But then. 5:38. You are hearing his voice through the flute and he is singing a duet with himself. And Momo is really digging it, sounding like a very big dog who is being scratched in that one place.

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There is one copy of this album, called Afro Swing, available on Amazon.

Attack In Black – “Years (By One Thousand Fingertips)”

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Maybe I’m into this song because I love the name of the band so much. Maybe it’s because I’m into crush songs right now, being in the sway of a pretty powerful affection. Maybe it’s how it starts with just this humble guitar, moping along, sounding like it’s being played in someone’s kitchen. Maybe it’s the words:

If you hated music
would you be a mother with a family?
If your songs weren’t written
would I still get shivers from your silence
until tears are welled up in my eyelids?

If your duty wasn’t earthly
would you still understand it’s beauty?

Please, do these things for me.
Please, know that you have held one thousand years
by one thousand fingertips.

If your words weren’t charming
would they still sit on fences in my eardrums?
If your voice was harmful
would it be a storm cloud
on the golden day of summer’s starting?

If I didn’t know you
I would not be nearly as inspired.

Please, do these things for me.
Please, know that you have held one thousand years
by one thousand fingertips.

–
from an album by the same name

— Ben Moral

08.16.10