Photo by Matt Samolis
Great
music often comes from great literature. Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aneas. based on Virgil's Aeneid, is one example. Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Welcome to the Pleasuredome, inspired by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," is another. Jaggery's latest release, Private Violence, carries on the
tradition with a collection of songs Mali Sastri wrote after reading Truman
Capote's In Cold Blood.
The CD
release will be part of Org:
Literati at Oberon in Harvard
Square. (8 PM, Thursday, November 8. Tickets.)
Org:
Literati is a curated evening of music, poetry, and art, featuring What
Time Is It, Mr. Fox?, Gem Club, UnAmerika's Sweetheart
Karin Webb, artist Kristilyn Stevenson,
and Jaggery,
with Eileen
Little and Jennifer Hicks. Attendees are
asked to dress up as their favorite literary character -- which in Boston means the ladies
will show steampunk décolletage, and the dudes will either be Dorian Gray or
Ignatius J. Reilly.
If
you're a fan, you know what's in store: lush strings, haunting melodies, lyrics
that often treat the decision to step outside of sanity as a conscious choice.
The songwriting process for this album was, in fact, the work of a sane mind
coming to grips with the horrors of murder. Singer Mali says, "In Cold Blood totally riveted me-in
particular, the character of Perry Smith. I fiercely identified with this man
who had committed an atrocious murder 50 years ago. It was like we shared the same personal
psychology. I read my own thoughts in
what Capote wrote about Perry's. This experience led me into learning all I
could about the Clutter case. I was living in NYC at the time, and I began
going to the NYPL Archive Division three times a week to pour over the
apparently 6000 pages of microfilm of the notes Capote took."
If
you're not familiar with Jaggery, then get yourself to their Bandcamp
site right now. You can stream everything, and it's all fantastic. In
the context of Boston
bands, they're the exact opposite of, say, Aerosmith - their songs don't have
the word "baby" in them, they don't have wattles.
Here's
a sampler of some of their songs through the years. Put on your headphones and
imagine Madeline Usher come to life as the universe beautifully deconstructs
all around you. As Shakib Chowdhury of Cryptic Fate says,
"Jaggery's songs are the brightest flowers in my avant garden."
Arafat Kazi is turning 31 soon
so send him a birthday tweet @arafatkazi.
Song 1 – Sea of Sideways
Song 2 – 7 Stone
Song 3 – Malachite
Song 4 – Arabian Dance
Latest Slideshows
