I was browsing the Esplanade Shop with my friends, when I picked up a really old, vintage-looking Enid Blyton book, and then I noticed there was a screw in it. I went, "What the hell is this?" and walked away. hah.
I went over to the music shelf, looked through a bunch of music albums from bands I never knew. I picked up the headphones at the preview player, switched it on and pressed play.
Within 10 seconds of hearing the first track, I thought to myself, "This shit is fucking good." It was like a perfect shot of satisfying melancholy, sounded kinda like Dreampop.
With the help of the really lovely cashier, she introduced the weird secondhand books as Concave Scream's latest album - Soundtrack For A Book
Isn't this just fucking cool? I LOVED Enid Blyton's books as a kid. Think, pixies and fairies, naughty boys who refuse to listen to advice and crazily made-up fairytales that amazingly make a whole lot of sense. WITH that good music was just double the magic for me.
Honestly, I was a little taken aback to know that it was a local band. Because I've always thought of local bands to have a really similar sounding Rock style and vocals. To put it simply - they all sound the same.
I was really disappointed then, because I didn't have enough money to purchase it. And as you'd probably know the misery of not getting what you want, I was pretty bothered for days.
So yesterday, I marched all the way back to the same place with enough money, and yippee, I got it!
What happened at home was quite a different story though.
My experience with books, music albums and movie VCDs alike, is that the cover/sypnosis/ preview/ blurb are altogether almost always deceiving to a certain extent. But that being said, it's not exactly the author's fault, it's just what each individual's wonderful mind perceives beforehand.
But it's not like I didn't know Concave Scream was a rock band. I was just a bit surprised that there were some songs in the album that reminded me strongly of metal, especially Track 9. And the sounds were quite a lot more irregular than I thought. Also, I really didn't expect the album to be fully instrumental. Somehow, from the way I listen to it, I don't think it was a good idea for it to be without vocals. I can really imagine the songs to sound a lot better WITH vocals.
Ah, and another thing. Please don't listen to this album with your media player's shuffle on. Because the tracks are supposed to play in chronological order, such that the end of each song matches with the start of the next song. So because I did play the tracks with the shuffle on, the end of some tracks sounded like they were cut off abruptly, and I actually thought that the band weren't careful in fading out the song.
Still, I don't think this album was a disappointment, I just have a very natural adversity to Rock. When guitars and drum crashes go on repeatedly, song after song, I get really bothered. Same with Sigur Ros, and Deathcab for Cutie and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, all of which I really love. To think about it, Concave Scream do remind of Sigur Ros at some points.
My favourite will forever be Track 1, very depressing and magical :)
And though it seems a bit overpriced for a music album - SGD$25, it's really not. Because 1. you're supporting local, indie music 2. you're paying for the hard cover book 3. good music is priceless.
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