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Rating: Formed in Melbourne (Florida – USA) in 1965, Tom Rapp's Pearls Before Swine released their stunning debut “One Nation Underground” on the small ESP-Disk in New York in 1967, but it was a year later that they created their masterpiece. “Balaklava” is a dark and at times mysterious album (already suggested by the reproduction on the cover of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's “The Triumph of Death”), with Rapp's deep and imprecise voice ominously emerging from a tapestry of psychedelic folk immersed in classical solutions with sporadic forays into bizarre “sampling.”
If the debut unfolded through delicate militant pacifism, this work sounds even more subdued and intimate, so much so that Rapp himself described his music as “constructive melancholy,” and the themes of war are portrayed with learned quotes borrowed from Lord Alfred Tennyson, who in his epic “The Charge Of The Light Brigade” describes the Battle of Balaklava in 1854 during the Crimean War; from George Santayana, from Herodotus, and they culminate in the final nightmare of “Ring Thing”, where the saga of Tolkien's “The Lord of the Rings” reigns.
Pearls Before Swine structure their music with psychedelic solutions and ventures into psych territories, without ever abandoning the folk foundation, and even the use of 'exotic' instruments for the period, like marimba or French horn, serve to paint the surreal landscapes described by Rapp. Indispensable episodes include the visionary “Translucent Carriage” or the bucolic “Lepers And Roses”, with a particular nod to the vibrant reinterpretation of Leonard Cohen's “Suzanne”.
Rapp, remaining the sole holder of the Pearls Before Swine trademark, created a couple more works with session musicians in the '70s before dedicating himself completely to a career as a civil rights attorney.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Translucent Carriages (04:00)
The translucent carriages
Drawing morning in
Dawn inside their pockets
Like a whisper on the wind
The soft touch of your words
Has been betrayed like love grown old
Or the silhouettes of children
Crying somewhere in the cold
The ancient night is coming back
The light is fading out
The tree is hid in shadow
In a fog of useless doubt
Go away go away
The imperative is drawn
All your symbols are shattered
All your sacred words are gone
The caravans are leaving
For the dawn of nothing
Lepers carry roses
To Jerusalem
In peace
Sons bury their fathers
In war
Fathers bury their sons
Love is silent
At the edge of the universe
Waiting
To come in
Jesus raised the dead
But who
Will raise the living
Every time I see you passing by
I have to wonder why
03 Images of April (02:44)
Images of April
Summer in th air
April in your hair
All is gone
I remember
Days inside your mind
The brave new mirror I would find
All is gone
The sea has left the sand
The sun has left the land
As helpless as my empty hand
All is gone
You are sunlight
In another dawn
A voice inside another song
All is gone
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