¤ jetless heights

+ Sun, February 20

8. Modest Mouse – Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes

Me and Modest Mouse, we go back.  In fact, I can trace our relationship back to one single point in time.  You see, it was the summer after sophomore year and I had asked Rigel for a mix, with the only qualifier being that I wanted it to get me into Modest Mouse.  I suppose now, thinking back, it wildly succeeded.

In any event, that summer, my parents and I went out west, around Seattle and Victoria Island for the most part.  In a tidy little book store in Portland I picked up 1984 for the first time and more or less devoured it in the next 3 days.

It was while reading that I more or less did nothing but listen to that tape as we drove through those mountain roads sightseeing.  It’s because of this that Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes has always reminded me of that book.  It’s a very good fit, if you ask me.  Take the background anvil clank, the frenzied chorus begging for an escape plan, the monotonous vocals, the very song name itself.  It all alternates between a lifeless and drab scene and a panicked demand for freedom.  You can’t get too much closer to 1984 than that, can you?

I ended up buying The Moon And Antarctica on that trip and honestly listened to nothing but it for the rest of it.  If you want to fall into Modest Mouse, I very much feel that that CD is the best way to do it.  Accessible, enjoyable and good – certainly a hell of a lot easier than the obtuse anger of, say, The Lonesome Crowded West.

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1 → Laura DeCamp  –  (May  2 2005,  9:05 PM)

It is a joy to see that Tiny Cities Made of Ashes was your first Modest Mouse encounter.  It was also mine, at about the same point in my life.  Warm fuzzies all around. 






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