2003 - USA
Post-Rock, American Primitivism, Avant-Folk
Cul de Sac is an American band from Boston who started in the 1990’s, making music at the crossroads of post-rock and experimental rock. The genre they belong to is very difficult to pinpoint but it’s definitely something that has to do with guitars, long textures and worldwide influences (China especially). They released six studio albums, each other a lot different than the other. And this is something funny to notice because their bandname means in French « dead end » a place they’re never clearly never went. Because even though Death of the Sun, released in 2003, is their last studio album, it still feels like a timeless record with a very cinematographic atmosphere that reminds me of films like Paris, Texas, Gerry or The Passenger.
All desert films.
In those three films, we follow characters desperately walking towards an unexisting destination, one step after the other, relentlessly. They are wanderers. Cul de Sac’s album sounds like a perfect soundtrack for those kind of images. But where the characters are most of the time moved by despondency, the band tries to find the beauty within this state of mind. The novelty here is their use of electronic and arcane samples from the seventies. On the opening song, the beautiful Dust of Butterflies, you can hear a ancient tune called “Creole Love Call”. This song is, with the final I Remember Nothing More, the greatest song off the album. The final track is also assembled around a sample, one of a woman singing « Salangadou », a Creole Lament about a mother calling the name of her missing daughter. Here again, a wanderer.
Between those two songs, a world quite different unfolds, rawer, with a feeling of urgency that you might hear on the title track Death of the Sun and it’s addictive rhythm. The other tracks are mostly showcasing the frontman and guitarist Glenn Jones experimenting with more electronic sounds. But even if the atmosphere is more tensed and less meditative, they still manage to create a mesmerizing emotion. And this is an emotion I haven’t found anywhere else. The journey through this album might be a difficult one for some, because it forces you to open your mind to thin-skinned thoughts reminiscent of life struggles. And… finally… maybe there is here an explanation to the band’s name. Cul de Sac make music for those who feel like they are going in circles, as if life was only composed of dead ends, like those Bamboo Rockets searching for an inch of sky on the second song. The band from Boston isn’t denying this reality, the absence of purpose, people wandering. But as I said before, by seeking for beauty in this existential state of mind, they tell us that we will, nevertheless, always be able to feel, hear and experience vibrant sounds and images. Because as long as you wander, you can dream along. Cul de Sac’s last album is a room to dream full of unique sounds that ends as the album closes its gates. But like all great albums, those sounds stay with us as long as we remember them. And this emotion is what we remember, nothing more.
All desert films.
In those three films, we follow characters desperately walking towards an unexisting destination, one step after the other, relentlessly. They are wanderers. Cul de Sac’s album sounds like a perfect soundtrack for those kind of images. But where the characters are most of the time moved by despondency, the band tries to find the beauty within this state of mind. The novelty here is their use of electronic and arcane samples from the seventies. On the opening song, the beautiful Dust of Butterflies, you can hear a ancient tune called “Creole Love Call”. This song is, with the final I Remember Nothing More, the greatest song off the album. The final track is also assembled around a sample, one of a woman singing « Salangadou », a Creole Lament about a mother calling the name of her missing daughter. Here again, a wanderer.
Between those two songs, a world quite different unfolds, rawer, with a feeling of urgency that you might hear on the title track Death of the Sun and it’s addictive rhythm. The other tracks are mostly showcasing the frontman and guitarist Glenn Jones experimenting with more electronic sounds. But even if the atmosphere is more tensed and less meditative, they still manage to create a mesmerizing emotion. And this is an emotion I haven’t found anywhere else. The journey through this album might be a difficult one for some, because it forces you to open your mind to thin-skinned thoughts reminiscent of life struggles. And… finally… maybe there is here an explanation to the band’s name. Cul de Sac make music for those who feel like they are going in circles, as if life was only composed of dead ends, like those Bamboo Rockets searching for an inch of sky on the second song. The band from Boston isn’t denying this reality, the absence of purpose, people wandering. But as I said before, by seeking for beauty in this existential state of mind, they tell us that we will, nevertheless, always be able to feel, hear and experience vibrant sounds and images. Because as long as you wander, you can dream along. Cul de Sac’s last album is a room to dream full of unique sounds that ends as the album closes its gates. But like all great albums, those sounds stay with us as long as we remember them. And this emotion is what we remember, nothing more.