Imagine Dragons, Continued Silenced EP (2012)






I've been focusing a lot on paintings, I think it's because it's only very rarely I find an album or an artist that I really want to share and write about. And I don't really research much about bands before I write about them (then again, neither about paintings, but I think I have a bit more background knowledge on them), so I can only write about how I feel about their songs more than anything else. Then again, I always love listening to the artist while I write about them, so much easier to convey my thoughts (although it still may not be very well explained). Have to love my unnecessary rambling.



Continued Silence EP, Imagine Dragons (2012)

Imagine Dragons are a band I stumbled across through a movie trailer, something with Bradley Cooper being a writer or something... Anyways, there was this enthusiastic song in the background, a feel good track, and as soon as I stumbled across Imagine Dragons I was sold. The song selection is a bit limited, they are a fairly new band, but they are very quickly gaining attention. I mean for their EP they've been featured in a lot of trailers yet (The Perks of being a Wallflower included).

Radioactive, the first track, had a beat that's so addictive it'll stick in your head all day. It's like a perfect mix between a catchy beat, collective chorus and vocals, among the perfect instrumentals. There's a quiet start before the beat just the beat just rocks in, stealing the show.  I just absolutely love it. There's a revolutionary and camaraderie sense to the song, "this is it, the apocalypse" and "welcome to the new age," almost like being part of an underground movement. It just manages to burrow into your head and reappear at the strangest moments during the day.

The only other song I'll talk about is On Top of the World, which is probably in my top 3 songs that make me happy no matter how crappy I'm feeling. It just absolutely bursts with a upbeat tune,  optimistic lyrics and a cute little clapping beat in the background. "I'm on the top world, been dreaming of this since a child". I'm always swaying and bopping along to it in an almost idiotic fashion on own and I don't give a damn, it's impossible to stay sad when listening to this. That's a challenge right there! The vocalist is just perfect, it's like being in a private sanctuary by yourself but also knowing that thousands around the world probably have the same brother-in-arms feeling that you're having right now. That sounds way too much like the military for me, but I can't really explain it anymore without sounding like an old school hippie.

I'm not going to describe each song, they just evoke all these optimistic feelings in me, I always feel humbled to the world when coming away from their tracks. Imagine Dragons come with the highest recommendation from me, a band I'll be following very closely at in the future.

Feininger, Gelmeroda III (1913)

Oh wow, it's been a while. To be honest, doing night shifts have really destroyed me and my energy levels to do anything else. Well that and my general laziness. I'll try to do a lot more of these the next couple days, an attempt to make up for all the posts I kept reminding myself to make but never actually did. I've actually had this post in my drafts for about a month, I just didn't get around to actually properly writing it.

Lyonel Feininger, Gelmeroda III (1913)
Oil on canvas
100.50 x 80.00 cm

Another Degas to Dali discovery, and I had no knowledge of this work before I laid eyes on it. To be honest, the subject was not immediately clear to me and it still isn't the first thing I see when I look at it, this is a prime example to me of seeing something completely different to what I think the artist intended.
What I see is a dystopia, a run down and drizzly place, crowded by looming buildings. The cubism style that Feininger has adopted is harsh, with sharp contrasts between light and dark to define the lines. This harshness adds to this bleak atmosphere I get. It's oppressive, like a giant hand pressing on my chest when I look at it.
What's interesting to me is that it was painted as a quiet church scene in a cubism style. It's like this quiet image and the desolate society that I created around it in my head. It's really cool though, because my vision and that of Feininger seem to shift when I stare at the work. One moment it's this rainy, gloomy statement about oppressive governments, the next it's a quiant church.
It's not that I have to choose between my view of the subject or the painters intentions while painting it, both are different but right. There's this oscillation when I look at it, it's always morphing and shifting. To me, this is the perfect example of the differences in the artist and audience view of the work. It differs from person to person... Or is it I just take an abstract view to paintings? I don't care, I like the work either way.