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Rating: The salinity of the air.
I think about this while listening to "Ocean Beach," and, following the free associations guided by the assonance of the titles, I remember another beach, Neil Young's, 1974. I wonder what this emotional affinity between two such distant albums depends on, and the cover of "On The Beach" comes back to mind. So much wind. Quite normal to expect it by the ocean, but there is something unnatural in that landscape that doesn't depend on the violence of the wind, nor on the buried Cadillac, but on the smells instead.
Indeed, the salinity is missing, that mineral lightness that the sea air carries, I cannot feel it because it is probably an urban wind, dense, passed through streets and sidewalks, more similar to the consistency of stagnant air in cellars than to the volatility of a breeze. The season of the sea has not yet arrived.
It is precisely the wind that unites the two albums. Immersed in the same atmospheric conditions, Kozelek breathes the same desalinated oxygen.
The difference between "Ocean Beach" and the previous works is played on the fine line that divides sadness from melancholy. A few degrees of separation but that result in tangible changes. Because sadness is a static feeling, it numbs you by pinning you to the present, while that vague and intimate sorrow that is melancholy gives enough freedom to traverse emotional space and reach memories. And here they come to the surface, light as only dead images can be, they are ordered details of a whole still to be deciphered.
No longer whispers, Kozelek abandons himself to a song, still delicate, but fuller and more robust, accompanied by gentle guitars that draw pure melodies. The opening "Cabezon," with its carefree gait, immediately warns us that something is imperceptibly changing; "San Geronimo" and "Over My Head" confirm the impression. But it is the strings that embellish "Summer Dress," the subdued piano of "Drop," or "Red Carpet" stained with a still fresh pain, that rebuild with the fabric of defeat that layer of poetic despair, perhaps now less thick, but from whose weight Kozelek cannot free himself
No, the season of the sea has not yet arrived. Perhaps this time, however, it is not so far away.Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Summer Dress (02:52)
summer dress makes you more beautiful than the rest
lovliest girl that i know, and the sweetest
spends her life inside, she thinks she isn't blessed
summer dress separates you from the rest
easiest days of her life have been spent
wonders if she is loved, if she is missed
says a prayer as she's kissed by ocean mist
takes herself to the sand and dreams
says a prayer as she's kissed by ocean mist
takes herself to the sand and dreams
04 Shadows (06:02)
Coarse and white coat of your skin
blends with the state you're in
And the redness of your eyes
against a sun that clouds blind
(Chorus)
You ain't saying nothing
that I don't already know
When you say,
"Love's dimly light, won't shine on tomorrow."
You ain't saying nothing
that I don't already know
When you say,
"Love's dimly light, won't shine on tomorrow."
Chalk white apartment walls
surfaces my every flaw
And the naked instill in here,
brings surreal life
into clear
(Chorus)
You ain't doing nothing
that I don't already know
When you hide your
sorry head in pillows
And you ain't doing nothing
that I don't already know
When you hide your
sorry head in, when you hide your sorry head in pillows
(musical break)
Fake a strain, sort of grin
it matches the shape you're in
And accept any lies or truth
after the long year that we've been through
(Chorus)
And you ain't saying nothing
that I don't already know
When you say,
"Life takes turns like firery shadows."
And you ain't saying nothing
that I don't already know
When you say,
"Life takes turns like firery.."
When you say,
"Life takes turns like firery shadows."
09 Drop (13:26)
so much that i can't say to you
my voice shakes from the hurt that i hide
ashamed of my existence
and of my petty often wounded pride
i'd like to come home to see you
and to catch your sickness by the bedside
but then you'd know how much i really need you
all the love in an instant
makes my life stop
but then my hate for you
makes my feelings altogether drop
if only i were blind to your selfish fling
and your desperate cause
and didn't press you for the details
that threaten my physical flaws
i'd like to come home to see you
and embrace your illness under soft light
but then you'd know how much i really need you
all the love in an instant
makes my life stop
but then my hate for you
makes my feelings altogether drop
so much that i can say to you
with affection that i burn inside
you're aching from the distance
avoiding strain that's running still alive
if only i could heal you in the sprinkling of the ocean side
but then you'd know how much i really love you
all the love in an instant
makes my life stop
but then my hate for you
makes my feelings altogether drop
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