Ulver, "Solitude"

Whilst surfing around last.fm, joining the Flood group, and searching for full-length songs to add to my playlist, I ran across this song ("Solitude" by Ulver), which I added to my playlist before realizing that it was a cover:

Let us now come back to the subject, the newest album Shadows of the Sun. There is a very slight connection between this record and its predecessor, Blood Inside; in fact, the only song that could have sounded reasonable in the context of the new album is Blinded by Blood, the spiritual and calm nature of which seems to have passed over and influenced the direction for the new release.

"Aside from this negligible link, Shadows of the Sun is almost the exact polar opposite of its forerunner. Unlike the disharmonic, bizarre and dissonant Blood Inside, this novelty is a completely different experience: calm, moderate and melancholic. It is, as one may have learned to expect from Ulver, a coherent and full work, as opposed to being a collection of unrelated tracks....

There is a Black Sabbath cover on the album - 'Solitude' from 'Master of Reality'. With a sole exception of the earlier 'Planet Caravan', this is the only cover of the Birmingham doom pioneers that makes sense in an album by Ulver at this point of their career (unless they would radically alter a song’s structure to have it fit). There are no discrepancies between the cover and the rest of the album that my ears are able to sense and the conclusions done during the album fit the lyrics of this bleak song rather well.

And Ulver themselves are decidedly not major label:

PUBLIC RELATIONS AND POLITICS

ULVER release SHADOWS OF THE SUN on their own label, Jester Records, without a sumptuous production and marketing apparatus. We make music, not money, and cannot compete with labels that fly you to lavish banquets and free booze in grand hotels, in exchange for bold text. Also we do not wish to present the music with noise interferences and/or lower quality out of pirate paranoia. Instead, the album has been streamed in 320kbit audio, for one-click press listening. It makes no sense to spend hours and fortunes on P&P. This is the future. We apologize for the inconvenience and ask for your understanding. Thank you.

Frankly, I wish that Ulver would do the marketing for Ron Paul. But I digress.

Here are the lyrics to "Solitude":

My name it means nothing
my fortune is less
My future is shrouded in dark wilderness
Sunshine is far away, clouds linger on
Everything I posessed - Now they are gone

Oh where can I go to and what can I do?
Nothing can please me only thoughts are of you
You just laughed when I begged you to stay
I've not stopped crying since you went away

The world is a lonely place - you're on your own
Guess I will go home - sit down and moan.
Crying and thinking is all that I do
Memories I have remind me of you

[mrontemp business] | [mrontemp politics] | [mrontemp technology] | [mrontemp del.icio.us tags]

Sphere: Related Content