The Cinematic Scope of Mariusz Duda's Lunatic Soul 2

Music Review: Mariusz Duda - Lunatic Soul 2

One of the first things that strikes you about Lunatic Soul 2 — the second solo album from Mariusz Duda, frontman for progressive rock cult favorites Riverside — is that it has such a big cinematic feel to it.

But this is not so much in the same way as your everyday, garden variety ambient film soundtrack (although there are plenty of those same type of prerequisite atmospherics here). Instead, this is an album where the words and music conjure actual, visual images of a somewhat weary traveler as he makes his way through, what in this case appears to be, a journey into the different shades and stages of the afterlife.

The album is in fact a continuation of Duda's first Lunatic Soul album, released in 2008. The cover art is even a reversed image in white of the black sleeve of the original, prompting some fans to call it "White Lunatic Soul."

But rather than just explore the lighter shades the white cover might suggest, Duda instead takes you through a series of songs which also offer glimpses into the darker side of what lies just beyond the veil. The common thread with all the songs is the journey itself. These are songs where you are literally put into the shoes of the traveler, as he makes his way through the musical purgatory conveyed so effectively through Duda's often quite stunning words and music.

Musically, the album draws from a broad range of genres and even geographic locales. You can hear bits and pieces of oriental, middle eastern, and Indian influences in songs like "Escape From ParadIce" and the instrumental "In Between Kingdom" which opens the record.

The prog influences are also there. Both "Otherwhere" and "Suspended In Whiteness" recall Steven Wilson's recent, more headier sounding work with Porcupine Tree on albums like The Incident, and on his own solo album Insurgentes. You even get a bit of the grand sweep of early Peter Gabriel-era Genesis on "Transition" (which reminded me a lot of some of the middle parts of that group's twenty plus minute opus "Suppers Ready").

But mostly, the music conveys a sense of drama throughout that is oddly, but pleasingly quite compelling. The music ebbs and rises in direct proportion to Duda's lyrics about a man making his way through the darkness and light associated with the afterworld of his loosely told story. Like I said, it plays almost like a movie, and often within a single song.

On "Suspended In Whiteness" for example, the first half of the song (sub-titled "This Heaven") features dreamy sounding chimes, keyboards and flutes floating lightly in and out of the mix, before they are overcome by the huge drums and deep, doomy bass tones of the darker second part ("Don't Feel Alive"), as our traveler asks himself "where the heaven am I now?" (clever play on words there).

On the album's best track, "Asoulum" (which is apparently Duda's way of spelling "Soul Asylum"), acoustic guitars and lush vocal harmonies seem to rise to heaven itself, before finally crashing down in a wave of darkness as the spoken word lyrics forebodingly warn "I watch as this place starts to change."

This is just a beautifully haunting track.



Although much of what is heard on Lunatic Soul 2 might be described as trippy, dreamy or even a bit New-Agey — think of a slightly more rhythmic Daniel Lanois or a harder sounding Dead Can Dance and you'd be in the general ballpark here — the album also has its share of more rocking moments. The heaviest of these is "Escape From ParadIce," where despite the absence of electric guitars (there are none to be found on the entire album), the mid-eastern sounds and big tribal drums make plenty enough noise on their own.

This is also a solo album in the truest sense of the word. From the percussion to the voices, Duda plays and sings virtually every note here, save for the occasional flute part or keyboard loop.

But the most impressive thing about Lunatic Soul 2 is the way it weds music to drama without the aid of pictures. Rarely does music achieve the feat of transporting you to another place in the same way as a good film can. This album, most remarkably, does exactly that. In that sense, it's about as close to a cinematic musical experience as it gets.



This article was first published as Music Review: Mariusz Duda - Lunatic Soul 2 at Blogcritics Magazine.

Rod The Bod And Glen The Boyd

Thanks to Annette Deymonaz for reminding me that I once hung out with rock stars, that I once actually looked that good...and most of all, for making me ask once again what the fuck happened, and where it did it all go so terribly wrong? LOL...

Yeah, right, thanks Annette.... (just kidding...seriously though,  this brought a smile to my face after a stressy week).

Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band: Songs From The Promise Performed Live



"Songs From The Promise" Setlist:

"Racing in the Street ('78)
"Gotta Get That Feeling"
"Ain't Good Enough For You"
"The Promise"
"Blue Christmas"

Finding Lost: Can You Go Home Again?



Book Review: Finding Lost - Season Six: The Unofficial Guide by Nikki Stafford

For those of us who have deeply and sorely missed our weekly Lost fix ever since the often perplexing, but undeniably groundbreaking ABC series faded to black for good this past spring, Nikki Stafford's Finding Lost - Season Six: The Unofficial Guide makes for the same kind of bittersweet experience as attending your thirty year high school reunion.

Reading through Stafford's intricately detailed recaps of every episode of Lost's sixth and final season, you become intimately reacquainted with the already foggy memories associated with its most unforgettable characters (Jack, Locke, Hurley, Linus, Sawyer) and even its biblical deities (Jacob and Smokey).

With the added benefit of rear view hindsight, you might also even be able to finally make sense of the island's deepest mysteries (or, much like that high school reunion, maybe not).

Mostly though, Stafford's book will leave those Losties who became the most emotionally invested in it, with the same feelings of longing, regret and finally resignation as the series finale itself did.



For those who "got" Lost — which was admittedly, not always the easiest task — it was an epic story of good vs. evil. The great, if not always easily deciphered writing, wove together elements pitting the basic arguments of religion and faith against those of science and free will. But it was also a story where the lines were always ambiguously drawn enough to never clearly favor one school of thought over the other.

For those who didn't ("get it," that is) — or perhaps just want to take a fresh new stab at getting Lost all over again on the DVDs — Stafford's definitive guide also goes a long way towards peeling away many of these same layers of mystery.

It is for this latter group, that Finding Lost - Season Six: The Unoffical Guide may hold the greatest overall value. As something of a Lost scholar — Nikki Stafford's deep knowledge of this series isn't at all unlike Blogcritics' own Barbara Barnett's expertise on all things House. The author gives a detailed, chronological run-down of each of the season six episodes that also provides just enough backstory to get the newbies mostly caught up to speed.



The fact that she also does this without revealing any future spoilers along the way, makes this book a great resource for any unanswered questions that may linger following the viewing of each episode (for those who choose to do so).

Of course, there is also plenty enough new Lost trivia to satisfy the hunger of even the most insatiable, more seasoned Lost nerds. The revelations here range from fairly common knowledge like the Springsteen references to "Spanish Johnny" and "Rosalita" in the "Everybody Loves Hugo" episode, to the lesser known fact that the mysteriously anonymous "Man In Black" (a.k.a. the Smoke Monster) was in fact, at one point scripted with a biblical name (which Stafford reveals).

In between the episode recaps, Stafford also goes into considerable detail on the cultural and literary influences woven into the storylines of Lost by primary writers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. These range from Star Wars (prompting a complimentary letter from George Lucas) to Milton's Paradise Lost and Stephen King's epic apocalyptic novel The Stand.



Stafford also attempts — and mostly convincingly — to solve most of the many lingering mysteries and questions left unanswered by the series finale, as relates to the Dharma Initiative, "The Others," the Smoke Monster, Hurley's lottery numbers, and — well everything else.

Whether or not Lost follows other sci-fi television classics like Star Trek and The X-Files onto the big screen remains to be seen. But I'd bet a six pack of Dharma generic beer that ten years or so down the line it will.

If and when that happens, the most obvious challenge will be in topping the unprecedented scope of the original six seasons of this series, and condensing them down to a mere two, or even three hours. To that I say, good luck and Namaste.

Perhaps the more daunting task however, will be rekindling the original magic of this amazing series, and finding new ways to expand upon it. For those of us who loved and still miss Lost, Nikki Staford has mostly done that with this book.

Ten years down the line, on the other hand? Well, much like that thirty year reunion, you can never go home again...but then again, maybe you can.

Nikki Stafford's Finding Lost - Season Six: The Unofficial Guide is the final installment in her series of Finding Lost books. She continues to write about the series — even now — on her blog Nik At Nite.

This article was first published as Book Review: Finding Lost - Season Six: The Unofficial Guide by Nikki Stafford at Blogcritics Magazine.

The Rockologist: The Night John Lennon Died

This past week, a lot of us who grew up with the music of the Beatles and John Lennon have been looking back and remembering just where we were on that night some thirty years ago when we first heard the news that forever changed history and our lives.

Like JFK and Elvis before him, John Lennon's death was a snapshot in time we will never forget.

Okay, so here we go.

On the night of December 8, 1980 — which I want to say was a Monday — I was attending the annual Christmas party hosted every year by and for the Seattle retail music business community, in celebration of a job mostly well done. Business overall was still mostly down at the time, but hey, party on, right?

Since the local retail music community in Seattle (and indeed nationwide) had experienced something of a downturn in recent years back then — this particular party took place during the post-disco, pre-MTV netherworld of diminished record sales that was 1980 after all — most of the local music retail hacks (including yours truly) in attendance that night were simply grateful the beer and grub were once again flowing freely, and that the locale that year was the fairly upscale Butcher Atrium.

The years immediately previous to this had seen the annual music industry Christmas soiree go from full-on five course meals at Andy's Diner, to pizza and beer (requiring a drink ticket) at the lowly Ballard Firehouse. Talk about your buzzkills.

Needless to say, it was certainly a long way from the glory days of the mid-seventies — when the mega-hits of folks like Fleetwood Mac, the Bee Gees and Journey (much as us hardcore record store geeks loved to bitch about them) — had afforded us underpaid counter jockeys a fleeting glimpse at such true rock star opulence.

The fact that for the first time in a few years, we didn't have to pimp the local record label reps for drink tickets on this particular night was certainly a sign that good times were indeed upon us once again.

Whatever the case, spirits were once again flying high that night when Ed Richter — the Seattle record distributor who dutifully did his best to keep this local music industry tradition going in both good times and bad (thanks, Ed) — dutifully put on his Santa outfit and proceeded to dole out all of the "gifts" supposedly determined by the raffle tickets all of us retail record geeks had received at the door. Yeah, right.

Was the rock buyer at Tower going to get the lions share of the loot — boxed sets and such — as opposed to me, the lowly manager of a record store known more for its expansive selection of a still then underground phenomenon called "rap" (Penny Lane in Lakewood)?

Well, sure he was. But no matter.

That was mostly okay too. As long as the beer was once again flowing freely for the rest of us minimum wage type record store employees, and as long as optimism for a better future ahead for music retail was in the air once again, who really gave a rats ass, right?

It was at right about the same time that Ed Richter-Claus started to read off that first winning number — I think Tower dude scored a Windham Hill Boxed set or something — that the dark rumors started to sweep the room.

John Lennon had just been shot. ABC's Monday Night Football announcer Howard Cossell had just broke the story at half time during some NFL game between the Broncos and the Raiders, the Giants and the Dolphins or whoever.

Whatever the case, since the game didn't involve our hapless Seattle Seahawks, and since most of us record geeks were busy celebrating the holidays in Georgetown with free beer, free grub and (for a few of us, anyway) free backroom coke, what did the big game matter, and who was paying attention anyway?

Santa Richter was giving out his presents, dammit!

At this point, and for some odd reason, it fell upon me to confirm the rumors which were by then sweeping the room at the party.

So I borrowed a quarter from someone, went to the pay phone in the lobby, and called the Seattle Post Intelligencer (once, in a pre-internet "Journalism" time, known as one of Seattle's two great daily newspapers, but now known online as the casualty of that era called Seattle P-I.com).

I was quoted in the front page story on John Lennon's murder published the very next morning.

By the time I made it back to the bigger room confirming the story, word was already spreading and the room was emptying fast. I'm not even sure if Santa Richter had a chance to hand out all the booty in his Bag O' Gifts. It's entirely possible that Tower guy went home a stocking shy of a three disc Alligator Records blues anthology that night.

Meanwhile, the evenings guests of honor — Seattle's then reigning royal twin princesses of rock, the Wilson sisters of Heart - were just arriving to make to make their grand surprise entrance.

I can still distinctly remember the perplexed look on Ann and Nancy's faces as they strode into the Butcher Atrium in Seattle's Georgetown district — just a stones throw away from General Record Service (one of the bigger one-stop distributors for Seattle music retail at the time).

It was this really odd "what the fuck?" sort of look. Apparently, they hadn't heard the news.

The next morning, still nursing the monster sort of hangover I could still handle back then as a twenty-something year old record geek, I loaded up the car with all of the Beatles and Lennon albums I could carry from the warehouse at General Record Service In Georgetown (at least the ones that were still left), and made the forty mile drive to my record store, Penny Lane in Tacoma.

I also remember listening to the radio on the way up — with all of the endless Lennon tributes — and having to pull over on the side Of I-5 when they played "Nobody Loves You When You're Down And Out" to have a much needed cry. Don't ask me why, but that one really got to me for some reason.

By the time, I arrived at Penny Lane, there was already a line in wait.

Good times for music retail had apparently indeed come once again. Too bad the circumstances sucked the way that they did.

This article was first published as The Night John Lennon Died at Blogcritics Magazine.