Mid-Week Music: Meril Wubslin - Alors quoi
Back when the internet was not "always on," I joined an email list for fans of The Fall, the greatest band of all time. I met a friend I'll call Paul on that list, and he was my friend in New York City before I moved here. Paul was my first friend whose drinking troubled me, and when I started to question my own drinking, I compared myself to him. "Is this as bad as Paul?" He got into fights. He circled back and drained the almost-empty pints left on the table when we left the bar. Decades after we met, at a low point in his life, he invited me to see a popular 90s indie band, long after the 90s, perform at Irving Plaza based on the insistence that this had been a band we both loved. I knew the name, but it was never a band I had listened to, and I went with him to the concert in an effort to rebuild our friendship. He bought us Bud Light Lime cans on a credit card at a furious rate, and even though I was a heavy drinker, he outpaced me easily. At one point during the evening, he became obsessed with scoring cocaine for us and I insisted that he not do that. I have never even tried cocaine, and I had no intention of trying it that night. The night left me sad and horrified.
Paul is sober now, and I'm proud of the effort he put into it. We don't talk often, and I wonder if it's because I'm scared of his energy. We probably have a lot to talk about. I do love him.
I'm still on that email list, years after the singer of The Fall, Mark E. Smith, died at the age of 60 from what I can only guess is a lifetime of drinking, smoking, and amphetamines. People come and go on the list, and we're getting old enough that some are dying, but I have friends there, and we love talking about music.
This album was recommended by a member in our half-assed year-end roundup for 2021. I say half-assed because I think about four or five of us participated. But I have a year's worth of music to listen to because of it, and I trust these people enough to know that I will love most of it.
A caveat: I have not studied the French language since high school, and I do not know the lyrical content of this album.
Alors quoi is one of those albums that sounds like it exists out of time. The acoustic instrumentation is played tightly and loosely as if the instruments are permanently attached to the musicians. The vocals are never intense, and I do wish I knew French because I think they're telling stories I would like to hear. Is it the folk music of some culture I don't know? Maybe. Is it a second coming of The Velvet Underground, played on traditional instruments? Could be. There is biographical information about the band out there, but I haven't dug into it.
The overall effect is trance-like, with a tension that comes out of an intentional calm. Guitars interplay with complex rhythms that cross over each other, a lockup that pulls me in and demands attention. It's not background music for me.
This is all rather ambiguous, isn't it? I don't know what else to say. It's kind of weird but also sounds like music that must exist, like a record bought for its album cover in the back of a dusty record shop, a special discovery. I love this kind of album.
I love you,
David
