Today is an important day in A Journey Down The Well's history!
Our new album Sorry Monsters, I Have To Grow has been released!
Available at these stores CDBaby | Kunaki | CD Universe | CD
Connection | Amazon | GEMM | as Cd
Also downloads available at AmazonMP3
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A JOURNEY DOWN THE WELL - Sorry Monsters, I Have To Grow
link of the review
The general tone and mood of a year can often be reflected in its music. If the first new record I’ve heard in 2009 is the soundtrack to the coming months, then I think I’ll just hide under my duvet until 2010 rolls along.
A Journey Down the Well are a trio of two Swedes and a Turk (Martin Bjelfvenstam, Anna Erneman and Taner Torun) who make music that fits the bag marked post-rock / neo-classical crossover, but who sound very little like most of the acts who share that increasingly overfull niche. There are no grandstanding displays of virtuosity, and no warm, lush and comforting pieces. This is music that is fairly sparse, and exceedingly bleak.
Sorry Monsters, I Have to Grow is an explicitly political album. As is often the case when writers use a language that is not their first, the lyrics often have a strange turn of phrase and an unintentional ambiguity that somehow works. The words on “Happy Bird Day”, for example, don’t read well, but fit the music. It’s a plea against intolerance and bigotry that is coupled with a desolate backing that seems to be resigned to that plea falling on deaf ears.
On the first two tracks, the trio are aided by the Strandvägen Choir whose mournful, phonetic phrasings make them sound more like a ragged band of refugees than a classical chorus. “Sugarman” is a jarring track. Its eerie cello figure and voice sound like the embodiment of human suffering. “They create a history out of lies and they call it future” is the age old, but still depressingly true, complaint that history is written by the winners and the powerful.
There are moments when the generally oppressive atmosphere is lifted. “I Will Never Become What I’m Afraid Of” is a charmingly ragged ballad, and “Two Beautiful Swans in a Dirty Lake” is a richly beautiful violin / cello duet. It opens with a robotic evangelist (is there any other kind?) seeing Heaven in a vision of two swans on a dirty lake. Christians do have that cheesy tendency to proclaim as miracles anything that is out of the ordinary or unexpected, but the juxtaposition of beauty amongst filth is more a general metaphor of hope amongst despair.
The moments of hope, though, are fleeting. “New Abandoned Places on Earth” is a percussion-heavy epic instrumental that has echoes of post-punk acts like 23 Skidoo and Savage Republic. As the US-backed Israeli forces wreak havoc and death upon the civilians of Gaza, it’s a chillingly apt and timely piece of music.
Sorry Monsters, I Have to Grow has some parallels with recent albums by A Silver Mt Zion. But where the Canadians never let go of the hope for a better world, A Journey Down the Well seem to despair that nothing can change, and that the weak and defenceless will always be the victims of the powerful. Like Towering Inferno’s Kaddish, it’s not always an easy album to listen to, but nevertheless a brave and ambitious work that deserves to be heard.
A Journey Down The Well - I Will Never Become, What I'm Afraid Of from A Journey Down The Well on Vimeo
"I Will Never Become, What I'm Afraid Of" is one of the tracks express the feeling of A Journey Down The Well's second album: Sorry Monster, I Have To Grow. This is an anti-war album, it is also about resisting the forces which wants to oppress personality and trying to grow as a human being while leaving all the unnecessary fears behind.
Nick Hsu's stop-motion animations meet A Journey Down The Well's music and it gives birth to this video. The album contains this song is released by Fluttery Records.
Sorry Monsters, I Have To Grow
Release Date: 07 Jan 2009
© 2009 Fluttery Records
Tracklist:
1. Sugarman
2. Sorry Monsters, I Have To Grow
3. I Will Never Become, What I’m Afraid Of
4. Bush Horror Movie Soundtrack (Some People Will Never Listen To Music Again)
5. Two Beautiful Swans In A Dirty Lake
6. Happy Bird Day
7. New Abandoned Places On Earth
Yes, some of the listeners already know. But let's announce it. We are a member of Fluttery Records family now. They are going to release our new album in January 2009. Also, it is an honour to be their first band they have released.
Please check their website and don't forget to add them to your myspace list.
Contemporary artist De Dargelos à Rosebud uses two tracks in her 2008 video art Ritualization: Dead Can Dance / Rainbow Voice and A Journey Down The Well / Why Do We Meet At Funerals. This is not a music video shown on television, but it is a visual art to be seen at art galleries. She films a Bulgarian ceremony being done at funerals, for the dead one to reach the light.
2008 - Aix-Mai
Thanks for all listeners who have contacted us via this blog. Today we announce our new website:
www.ajourneydownthewell.com
And we have made this blog, somewhere you can contribute to posts, shout in the shoutbox and check what's new.
Thanks to all our listeners and people who give a space to us on their websites, blogs and magazines. You proved that a band can reach listeners all over the world, without any promotions, any adds, even without a CD itself.
We really thank you for choosing us, and giving us a space in your life
See you soon!
Dedicated to Hrant Dink who was killed in a racist murder
Why do they always kill innocent people? Why most people are always incredibly ignorant? Why the people who has never touch guns are always killed by bullets? And why do we always meet at funerals? This song is dedicated to you, Rest in peace Hrant!
