Veil & Subdue Blog

If you live in the United States, chances a better than not that the last thing you heard from Marc Almond was via Soft Cell, who gave us that wonderful early 80s technopop masterpiece: their splendid cover of “Tainted Love.” However, if that’s all you know of Marc then you’ve missed out on one of the more eclectic, misunderstood, dynamic solo careers in music today. The last 30 years may not have been kind to Marc Almond if you judge his work only by top ten smash hits (although he did have a number one in the UK with 1987′s “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart”), but Marc has nonetheless been very kind to his loyal fans, giving them a steady stream of romantic, dynamic works that span a rainbow of delicious, exotic genres.

“Orpheus In Exile: Songs of Vadim Kozin” is the newest bold brushstroke on his ever-expanding musical canvas. “Orpheus” is actually the second of Almond’s forays into the Russian musical landscape, the first being his recent “Heart On Snow” album. But where “Heart On Snow” provided a wonderful overview of beloved songs from that country, “Orpheus” narrows the focus on “Russian Orpheus” Vadin Kozin, a singer/songwriter who, though immensely popular in his day, was largely swept away in Stalinist paranoia and general homophobia of the early 20th Century, to be largely lost in the fraying edges of an evolving Soviet state.

I absolutely love this album! Those familiar with Maurice Jarre’s classic “Doctor Zhivago” soundtrack will be delighted to find similar textures: snow-laced gypsy strings and aching accordians which, from the first note, transport the listener into the forgotten Russian-edged French Chanson style of music.

The album starter, “Boulevards Of Magadan,” whispers of the dark ache of being captive in a faraway cold land, with only a longing for distant Paris feuling the soul (Kozin would know; he was himself imprisoned in a gulog in far away Magadan for many years). From there Marc hand-picks songs of love and passion: the up-tempo “Forgotten Tango,” the sad farewell of “My Fire,” the violin-laced “I Love So Much To Look Into Your Eyes,” “Friendship” and “Brave Boy” make no mistake as to the depth of Kozin’s desires. Sweetly veiled yet equally overt at times, Marc’s selection does much to bring Kozin out of the closet of yesterday to reveal what must be considered Russia’s first gay icon.

The most devastating number must be “Beggar,” the sad story of the life of an old beggar woman on the streets. Once an enchanteuse with “beauty staggering”, she is now lost forever to advanced age and destitute poverty. Followed by the painful but sweet “When Youth Becomes A Memory,” one can be sure that Marc’s contemplations on the changes that come with age are very personal. And, yes, if anyone remembers the song “Youth” from Soft Cell’s very first album, these selections can be especially poignant!

Orpheus is a grand gesture from Marc: he has never been in better vocal form, and his reserved, subtle stylings hit just the right flavour to match the exquisite orchestral production of collaborator Alexei Fedorov and The Rossia Orchestra Ensemble. And by the way, it’s worth noting that “Orpheus” also features some of the most beautiful CD packaging I’ve seen in a long time. The cover art is what I would describe as a turn-of-the-century poster lithograph, with minimal colors which are slightly offset from each other to create the illusion of a quickly manufactured concert poster. It’s bold and dramatic and very Russian, it captures well what awaits inside.

For someone like Marc, who has made no pretense of his love and fascination of fame and image, there’s no mistaking who the real star of this album is – Vadim shines through on every song, and I give great credit to Marc that he does not get in the way of his subject matter. It’s a delicate line, and Marc proves to be a surprisingly sublime master. It’s a very long way indeed from the often over-the-top Jacques Brel covers of old!

“Orpheus In Exile” is clearly a labour of love. It’s a sublime album that captures the soul of a man much loved in his day, eventually forgotten to most, blacklisted because of his passions, but prolific until the end. As such Vadim Kozin can well be considered a perfect reflection of Marc.

In the midst of analyzing Michael Jackson’s legacy to music in general – and specifically to how he paved the way in crossing the “black/white” barrier in many areas of entertainment – I wanted to point out one other music genre that he was the first to cross: Goth music.

 Michael was pop and funk and flash, but he was arguably also one of the first mainstream entertainers (let alone one of African-American descent) to bring the camp/horror aspects of Goth music into the radios and TVs of mainstream America. For what else would you call the song and accompanying mini-movie-video called Thriller, a work of entertainment that dealt not only with a metamorphosis into a werewolf-like creature (“I’m not like other boys,” he said to his unsuspecting date), but also included a sublime and chilling narration from the Late Goth god Vincent Price as well?

 That Michael was aware of the line he was walking is evidenced in the warning he insisted be included at the beginning of the video; that he basically didn’t go for all that occultish stuff, and that he was sorry for scaring everyone. Wink!

 Michael may have been the King of Pop, but he was also a Lord of Goth…camouflaged in red jacket and sequined glove. Hell, how could someone who owned “Elephant Man” John Merrick’s bones not be Goth? The lad was dark, my friends.

 As we say goodbye to the man and embrace the eternal myth…let us give proper respects to a man who safely and deftly brought a slice of good old-fashioned Goth sensibility to the masses.

 You will be missed.

Shrouded leaves.

Delicate, encrusted, forgotten things.

Withholding shadows, and color, too.

Folds, curled lengthwise, with pallored hue.

Aged and aching, these crackling pages,

Fragments of the briefest ages.

As Veil & Subdue is an opera inspired very much by the night terror phenomenon, I wanted to create a greater all-round awareness of the condition. I myself have only ever had one night terror event, and it was more like a sleep paralysis than anything else – during a nap, when I suddenly was aware, though still sleeping, and I tried to wake up and to move and couldn’t. It was a feeling of suffocating and being held down, and left me feeling very not awake even after I’d awoken.

Anna K. Meade, who helped conceive and co-write V&S, has suffered from night terrors all her life, and in a future posting on this blog she’ll hopefully share some of them with us. In the meantime, I welcome all who suffer from the condition to share your experiences here. The ongoing assumption seems to be that only children have night terrors; I’ve seen enough to know that many more adults have them than is commonly thought, and scant little medical study or focus is given to this segment of the population. So please share! Let’s raise the awareness and get these stories out into the open.

“Action. Action…”

Memories, once fleeting moments and whispers, begin to dig deep grooves. Thoughts and wonders, mysteries and unknowing, through repetition find their way into foundations, building upon themselves into states of aching stronghold.

We are the seeds planted, the voices repeated, the scoldings embedded and the praises rewarded. Innocence is the absence of memory, the whisper of newness, the void of repetition. Age is a sentence of echoes, fermenting into judgement and beliefs. We know, we know. “Action…”

This word keeps repeating, keeps dancing along my halls, like so many others, echoing like stars in the heavens. These are my parameters. These are my angels. We only know limitations and structures. Beliefs – but only brittle, contextual ones. What have we not been told? What have we not heard ad infinitum? “Action…Action…”

What is not old? Even newness is old. The same material, which has existed for billions upon billions of years, only takes new forms, but echoes with oldness. We are the seeds, but from pages upon pages of natures fornication, her recreation, her reinvention. We are told to be, and we are.

Or so we believe.