It’s the desperation and the recklessness and the pure, red hot, energy, that gets me with Florence and the Machine.
I’m normally safe in my listening material. I know that my head can easily swerve off course with a little minor harmonisation. I have learnt to watch what I subject my ears to, however appealing anguished wailing or sombre melodics can be –
Florence and the Machine hits a strange balance: it gets the dark side – but it buoys you up.
It explores the things that we feel but rarely say – without being too much. It balances anger and anguish and despair – with exhilaration and delight and a strange kind of poignancy.
It’s strangely liberating to hear the rawness of human experience. It’s a little less threatening when it’s accompanied by a great base line. It’s a little less overwhelming when you find yourself buzzing with energy, when you want to sing rather than scream.
I’m not sure how she’s achieved it. I don’t know whether it’s the changes in tempo that lead you or the incredibly emotive and strangely sensuous voice. It might be the words – though I haven’t caught them all – or a clever trick with the harmonisation. It’s immaterial really – because, for whatever reason, I’m recognising what she’s singing and that’s the important thing.
Whatever’s going on for me, she says in a way that I can’t – and, as charged as that may be, it feels a lot better in that context.
Whatever emotions ‘Lungs’ is tapping into, I’d rather connect through music; I’d rather explore it through a shared voice than try to make sense of it by myself –
– and, when it’s the excitement that’s contagious – well, I’m going with that too; because, it’s rare to get a listening experience that spans the whole human spectrum so well; that takes you to so many places in such a short space of time.
Tags: music
