i have fallen in love with mew's music. they're a danish band whose musicality, sheer audacity in complex harmonies, intricate melodies, and incredibly poetic lyrics have taken my breath away. i am comforted and provoked by their music; but most of all i love immersing myself in their sound.

frengers is the earlier album of the two mentioned in the title. it's a more traditional album, with each song differentiated from itself by its own unique feel. the continuity of their sound ricochets between soothing, stretched melodies and crisp hammered beats overlaid by jonas bjerre's soaring vocals. the rhythmic beauty of their songs capture you and make me want to dance. i always want to dance. but i REALLY want to dance when i listen to their irresistible songs.

frengers song tracks
am i wry? no
156
snow brigade
symmetry
behind the drapes
her voice is beyond her years
eight flew over, one was destroyed
she came home for christmas
she spider
comforting sounds

and the glass handed kites is a completely different album from frengers. the philosophy, for one, is a completely different approach - "we wanted it to be one long song" in johan wohlert's words (from their website). just listening to the vocals emerge in circuitry of the wolf gives you shivers. the album's musical complexity is completely amazing. you want to listen to it in one fell swoop - locking yourself away in your favourite place, with your favourite cup of tea, and a window that only shows you the sky. each song is its own entity, serious, beautiful, or hilarious, and yet all the songs are one. you could be listening to the most beautiful treatise a philosopher ever penned - the only other kind of music that made me feel this way was glenn gould's second recording of bach's goldberg variations. give me these three albums on a desert island, gould's variations and mew's frengers and and the glass handed kites, and i could listen to them until i die.

and the glass handed kites song tracks
circuitry of the wolf
chinaberry tree
why are you looking grave?
fox cub
apocalypso
special
the zookeeper's boy
a dark design
saviours of jazz ballet (fear me, december)
an envoy to the open fields
small ambulance
the seething rain weeps for you
white lips kissed
louise louisa

band members
jonas bjerre - vocalist & guitarist
bo madsen - guitarist
silas utke graae jorgenson - drummer
johan wohlert - former bassist

albums
a triumph of man (1997)
half the world is watching me (2000)
frengers (2003)
and the glass handed kites (2005)

band website

mew in wikipedia

link to music video of the zookeeper's boy on youtube

Labels: music