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I'll tell you right away that I won't be able to describe, let alone explain, the powerful beauty of this work.
Therefore, I ask you to trust me or at least grant me the benefit of the doubt.
It doesn't even matter if you read what follows. Watch the video and then go to Bandstand and listen as much as you can.
Mecano Un-Ltd is a Dutch band that plays a rather personal Post-Punk.
Their musical arsenal even includes an accordion.
Their music draws inspiration from the rather dark scenarios of a (past?) Soviet regime.
They are obviously on the opposite side. Like me. We are (they are) the regime's dissidents, quotes from Mayakowsky, protest, permanent revolt…
If you want a tangible reference, it reminds me of the apocalyptic and claustrophobic atmospheres of Orwell's 1984 or the film Brazil by the Monty Python.
Perhaps I put it a bit heavy-handedly, but that's the starting point.
The Half Inch Universe. What can fit in a half-inch universe? A lot.
The cover is an image from a past that only old folks like me can remember.
I didn’t have the cat (once, in the countryside, cats were eaten).
The Meccano, however, I had, as a Christmas gift (I won't dwell on the significance Christmas gifts had for me in a distant and poor past. Perhaps some of you can understand anyway). The Meccano, I was saying. It probably determined in some way my "glorious" future as a mechanical designer. Well... it was just to say that the one on the cover is me. Without the cat.
The Half Inch Universe is a collection of old singles and EPs. It starts in 1978 and goes more or less to today. Not necessarily in chronological order.
27 tracks each more beautiful than the last (musically speaking). The lyrics, as you understand, highlight a certain social and political commitment. Sometimes with evocative and shocking images given the context.
Listen to the ending of “Links.”
“Links as silent as a grave
as common as grass
as tangible as gas.”
"Links as silent as a grave
common as grass
tangible as gas."
I point out "Note of a Stroll in Spring" just for the beauty of the title and some very poetic passages.
The rest is for you to discover.
Ah, for the technical notes, there is an interesting Wikipedia page. Usable mainly by those who know Dutch.
That's all I owed you. Goodnight.
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