Shearwater – The Snow Leopard
Today’s MSMOTD is Shearwater – The Snow Leopard
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I first heart his song while randomly flipping through Pitchfork’s Top 100 tracks of 2008. I usually don’t care so much for Pitchfork’s selections, but occasionally they and I agree emphatically on something, and this track (and album) are one of those things!
The Snow Leopard immediately caught my attention due to the wonderful piano chord progression which opens the song. As soon as Jonathan Meiburg’s haunting and delicate falsetto wavers in over top, I knew I was hooked. If this piano and vocal harmony was all that happened in this song, I would be quite satisfied, but they build and build until the melody, slight and fragile at the beginning of the song, becomes a stalking, muscular, and slightly unsettling anthem with guitar, drums and bass pulsing majestically under Meiburg’s suddenly powerful vocals. The video for The Snow Leopard features video of the reclusive animal shot for Planet Earth.
The album itself (“Rook”) is very good, with a sound hearkening to Simon & Garfunkle and Radiohead, among others (check out Radiohead’s Pyramid Song for a similar chord progression. I love it!). Pitchfork says they’re much like the vaunted “Talk Talk”, but I’m not indie enough to know Talk Talk (or maybe I’m just an idiot who didn’t realize that Talk Talk was rather popular and mainstream in the mid-late 80s), so I can’t comment on that. I can comment that it’s a great album! Other favourite tracks include “Leviathan, Bound” (love the dulcimer and piano) and closing track “The Hunter’s Star”
Further info about today’s MSMOTD
Official Website: http://www.shearwatermusic.com/
Wikipedia Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shearwater_(band)
Pitchfork Review: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11560-rook/
Buy the CD (Rook)
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