Amor de invierno. Pitchfork

Siempre me ha gustado el estilo de redacción, generalizando, de la celebérrima e influyente web sobre música Pitchfork. Mucho más que su criterio. Estos días andan celebrando su decimoquinto aniversario, y en la selección, a cargo de distintos colaboradores, de una canción por cada uno de estos años, me he encontrado una gema marca de la casa, un texto sobre 'Winter's Love' de Animal Collective, que fuera incluida en el disco Sung Tongs, mi preferido de toda la pasada década. No sólo articula muy bien y conduce fenomenalmente, sino que el redactor, Mike Powell, también muestra especial destreza aplicando algunas de las señas de identidad de la página de Chicago: el toque arrolladoramente personal, la capacidad de observación y de reflexión, y de recordar y contar lo observado y reflexionado, la honestidad, la pasión, la brillantez, ... Si bien se puede encontrar aquí, pego a continuación el artículo completo:

I played in bands in college like a lot of people played in bands in college. One of the bands I was in, Gulf Coast Army, opened for Animal Collective in March, 2004, about two months before Sung Tongs came out. The show was in the basement of a sushi restaurant; it's where most of the good shows in Charlottesville were. The restaurant's owner-- a Japanese guy who wandered around town in a black motorcycle jacket with the sad, displaced look people have in airports-- was a musician. I remember playing badly, but later I was told we played well considering how much beer we drank.

Afterwards, I saw Avey Tare in the hallway. "Sweet set," he said. "Sweet"-- the word was so bro, I couldn't believe he was using it, but I instantly felt shallow for even stopping to think about it. That's how it is: You see a cool person doing a supposedly uncool thing and you're left with your arbitrary little prejudices.

At the time I thought all weird music had to be tough and brainy in order to get a point across. But I was also getting bored of listening to tough, brainy shit because it wasn't really me-- I was an undernourished 21 year old working intensely on an honor's thesis, picking through books I half-understood, tripping on mushrooms, taking long drives through the dark hills of Virginia, crawling in girls' windows, and lying to people. The world felt fragile and runny, and Sung Tongs was its soundtrack-- this gentle, confused, unintellectual music that would occasionally fall apart and re-assemble itself, like it didn't know its own shape or size.

It reminded me of the feeling of opening my eyes in the backseat of my mother's car after visiting my grandparents as a small child, never sure of when I fell asleep but never scared, either. I didn't care that some people made fun of the band for sounding naïve because I thought most people were nasty and out of touch with what made life beautiful. I still think that sometimes, but I try not to.

Sung Tongs came out in May, a few weeks before I graduated. I brought it with me to Berlin, where I'd gone to visit a friend who was studying abroad. I still know him; we talk on the phone every couple of weeks, and on his birthday I take a six-hour bus ride to Richmond, Va., so we can walk up and down the historic streets and look at the grand old homes with their Christmas decorations. He's honest and intelligent and never falls for the new thing-- the kind of person who makes me feel at home.

When he first heard "Winters Love", he said, "It's like a sea shanty, right?" He swayed back and forth with an invisible beer stein in his hand and an exaggerated smile on his face. I hadn't heard it that way before: It's like I was so preoccupied with what made it strange that I hadn't thought much about what made it comforting and familiar. My life then was messy by design, geared toward intense and unfamiliar experiences because I thought they were more meaningful than simple ones. I told him I wasn't sure what he was talking about.

About six months later, having not thought about it for a while, it snapped into focus: a sea shanty, a drinking song, something low to the ground. I heard it. An insignificant thing-- the wisdom of friends and what they do to make you laugh-- but I still remember it, and while it'd be silly to blow it out into a grand metaphor, there's a reason, I think, why I heard "Winters Love" one way then and another way now, and why I'll never be able to hear it the way I heard it then again

La canción en cuestión se puede escuchar en este enlace

I love this light in winter time
The frost cakes in the carpet
In winter time I have no legs
Just stumps of meat below me
No falls snowfalls that ruin my day
It's masked up from the street wire
And winter's glow where could she be
She's warm beneath my pocket
Just a calm and modern day
In early, early morning
Rush to her and rush to bed
Am I a better person?
An evening I won't give up
With us I'll never fail
I pulled the boy out of above
She made that boy a man

Y por último, me resulta imposible hablar de 'Winter's Love y dejar atrás el siguiente vídeo, que recoge una toma casera y desnuda, de ésas que tanto me gustan, porque permiten casi palpar la música en su esencia, desprovista de artificios eléctricos o electrónicos