Welcome all to ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฐ๐ต๐ฎ๐บโ๐ ๐ฃ๐ผ๐น๐๐ด๐ผ๐ป, the multi-faceted feature where Pancham_b reviews our usual reviewerโs own music releases. Here, Pancham delves into Charlesโ latest single, featured on the ๐๐๐ฌ ๐ผ๐ง๐ฉ๐๐จ๐ฉ ๐๐ฅ๐ค๐ฉ๐ก๐๐๐๐ฉ playlists.
๐๐ช๐ง๐ค๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ฃ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐๐ช๐ข๐ข๐๐ง๐ฉ๐๐ข๐ – ๐พ๐๐๐ง๐ก๐๐จ ๐พ๐ค๐ฃ๐ฃ๐ค๐ก๐ก๐ฎ
Charles Connolly emerges from behind the curtain, wearing a fedora the colour of his soul, a megaphone in one hand, and a drumstick whittled into the shape of an emaciated femur in the other. He puts the megaphone down after yelling โJetโ into the void, and plays a one-handed Toccata and Fugue on a calliope, while marking time on an old tin can of Campbellโs Soup with his femur drumstick. He wears clothes the colour of falling evening, and the music is glorious, and otherworldly.
Listening to the introductory bars of Charlesโ new single โEurope in the Summertimeโ, I think, for a brief brilliant second, that it is opening with a calliope. An elegant Black Plague waltz. This could only mean that Charles has finally taken up his pre-destined role as carny barker and bone machine musician, singing not to the faceless tasteless crowds, but to the many many faces of the dark, some with teeth and some without. It is, instead, an accordion, but it is still quite lovely, evoking a war-torn Vienna and Matt Elliottโs beautiful ode to drowning to death. The song bursts into life at the twentieth second. A small fading part of my soul wishes that it had instead tumbled deep into a well, where if you fall deep enough, and you fall some more, and then you keep falling, eventually you will see the universe, replete with exploding supernovae, reflected in the brackish water. But this feeling is short-lived, as the the rest of the song kicks into gear, and as with all of Charles Connollyโs music, this has the appearance of what the kids these days call a โbangerโ, but as with all of Charles Connollyโs music, there is always something deeper to discover if one delves deep enough. On a first listen, to me, the song evokes loneliness, spiritually empty fun, Brexit, and the deep-rooted modern incapacity to be alone, thereby seeking to experience fun almost aggressively once these pandemic restrictions have been leavened. It could also, theoretically, be a vacuous pop track, danced to and forgotten after a couple of cocktails, but this is Charles, a masterly subtle craftsman and I would argue, a great obfuscator of meaning and as I get more and more inebriated while listening to this tune, the layers do become somewhat more apparent.
(more…)
