Blonde Redhead
Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons

THE REVIEW

380 km. This is the distance that separates me from a dream. Whether it's considered near or far doesn't matter, I covered it one day and it was unlike what I expected; I remained completely unconscious.

Galactic distances are akin to my relationship with this album. I've always been afraid to put it back on the player. It's the most worn out, scratched, greasy CD I own. It must mean something.

Those blood-red squares on the cover have carved into my soul, which soars every time I approach Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons. To me, this album represents the difference between infatuation and love. I listen to it as I did when I was a child, but now I've grown up. I listen and delude myself into understanding what it wants to convey.

It is a warning not to remain anchored to the past, to understand one's emotions, and to let oneself be overwhelmed by them. I don't take it lightly because I remember that since I was little, these melodies instilled strong anguish and awe. Like the fatal attraction of a moth to streetlights, I've always collided with this work, in an attempt to grasp hidden nuances, an essence.

And it's always a new discovery, because Kazu Makino's timbre is not only elusive, it's poisonous, it grates gracefully on mere mortals who have had the pleasure of listening to it at least once in their lives.

The mistakes made, hopefully in good faith, are uncovered when I put the CD on. How can such a small medium contain such greatness? The general mood that hovers is dark, as is the fate of those who dwell on their own footsteps. Many mental photographs succeed each other during the listening. Indeed, sanguine images, open wounds, scars that struggle to heal. Sometimes, on good days, I almost manage to visualize these images and I feel awe and pain.

It's no coincidence the first verse of the album goes like this:

Lying on my back, I heard music

Felt unsure and catastrophic

Had to tell myself it's only music

It blows my mind, but it's like that

It's no coincidence that the two most significant compositions (for me) are preceded by brief instrumental digressions, as if to take a deep breath. Then the descent into an abyss made of attraction and withdrawal, of deep misunderstandings between two people trying to love each other, to understand each other. It’s a call and response between Makino and Amedeo Pace, a frantic chasing by him trying to grasp the intimate mystery hidden in her.

You’ll be a freak

And I will keep you company

This is the last whisper of the album, yet another funeral march for the void that occurs between two people who care about each other but don't know love, or if you prefer, incommunicability.

Now I have the CD in my car, I won't budge it from there because it has become an integral part of the bodywork together with the holy card of Keith Moon. If one day someone asked me to put on something, I would know exactly what experience to make them go through: the stomach flip, the butterflies in the belly, the infatuation that precedes love and the awareness that it all hangs by a very thin thread. That of a spider waiting for a fellow, ready to inject a sweet poison.