It’s rare that any musical act has even been mentioned here four times but NOVY SVET has captured something in the last couple weeks. Maybe ‘triggered’ is the more appropriate word? It’s rare, with so much out here in the digital stream, that anyone can singularly hold my attention through four albums. It’s happened though. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is. Suffice to say it’s a mood. It’s a vibe. It is a definable, specific vibe though. Were one to go back and track my listening and viewing habits through this blog for the last year or more they would see a set pattern, or an obsession maybe of/with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic themes. Rather than think of that as morbid, let’s look at the entire picture. Nothing simply ends, and when things do end it’s rarely a beautiful sight to behold. When things do end, also, there is always some kind of rebirth or rejuvenation. Most change is cataclysmic, mostly because humans hold on so fervidly to whatever status quo is in place. Change isn’t something most of us do voluntarily. We fight with our last breath against it.

Anyway, if I am indeed obsessed with the apocalypse or cataclysm, I am also obsessed with rebirth. I don’t know what the soundtrack for rebirth will sound like, though if it’s anything like the human birth process it will be painful and loud. in the meantime, there is Novy Svet.

What can I say? You know that conventionally beautiful doesn’t interest me.

I’m trying to think of other acts similar to Novy Svet. Certainly any of David Tibet’s projects come to mind though Novy Svet is less mystical and weird, and definitely a bit more accessible. It’s got the same sort of decadent, decaying, industrial cabaret vibe as a lot of more recent Tom Waits, but it’s more subtle. I realize listening to this how flatly loud and without nuance that Tom Waits’ recordings are. Love them, but they kind of in-your-face. This is much less so, but similar in mood. Same message but not as forced. That works better for me.

But I’m reluctant to start this day in Radio Quarantine Land… in What Rough Beast Land. Or I’m reluctant to shift gears into the responsibilities of paying the bills.

Alas… it’s that time.