Preteretrospective

Preteretrospective

Yeah, I spelled it correctly. Preteretrospective.

It’s the new album from The Noise Who Runs.

Who are they? Have you listened to them before? No, I hadn’t listened to them before this album landed in my inbox. 

So, following my typical trajectory, when I encountered an artist I wasn’t familiar with, I became acquainted with them. I start by listening to their back catalogue.

The Noise Who Runs released an EP in 2022, High Time in Lo-Fi, which reminded me of Blow At High Dough by The Tragically Hip. Aliteravely only. My brain makes all kinds of crazy connections when it gets going. Hang on, folks. This ride might turn into a Crazy Train.

Next is the music queue is the second EP from The Noise Who Runs, These Will Be Your Gods—a nifty transition from Aslan to this EP. The Noise Who Runs turned the volume down and smoothed their sound for a more radio-friendly soundscape. It’s still good, but a different kind of good.

And now we get to our feature album, Preteretrospective. Save me some space in this long blog; Google that word yourself, and tell me what it means in 20 words or less in the comments box.

I have no idea why, but after listening to this album, I kept getting Lord of the Flies popping up in my brain. It’s a great novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding. It was made into a movie in 1963 that I thought treated the book admirably. It was made into a film again in 1990, and it was not so hot, in my opinion. I’m still unsure why I thought Lord of the Flies had anything to do with this recording. I may have to give this some time and revisit it.

I asked Joel what came to mind for him after a short listen of Beautiful Perhaps. He heard some Peter Gabriel, especially the song Intruder from Peter Gabriel #3, Melting Face. So I listened to that and then went back to Beautiful Perhaps. Yeah, there is some overlap there. I can hear where Joel got that connection. He also touched on Roxy’s Music, In Every Dream Home A Heartache; I didn’t hear that myself. But that’s the beauty of music; it’s never the same thing twice, and there are different notes for different folks and no wrong answers.

I heard Flash And The Pan, no song in particular. I think it’s the voice, the modulated, distorted, synthesized voice. But that’s just me. I also liked the bass lines. Well, that’s it for the first track and the back catalogue. Onward Ho!

Onward Ho! Have you heard that exclamation before now? Do you know what it means? Or are you like me and utter it when moving on to a new task without considering why we say Onward Ho!? Here’s some musing on moving on.

“When faced with life’s difficulties and challenges, one must keep going, not with despair but with a sense of hope. More than just moving on and moving forward, “Onward Ho!” conveys a sense of new adventures and uncharted territory in a positive, better or more advanced sense.”

I like that. Positive and better, that’s my goal through these meandering blogs. Onward Ho! And I think Preteretrospective works on that level as well.

The above chatter took me deeper, someplace between truth, fiction, fantasy and theology. My mind kept wanting to make connections. I like that because it keeps my brain busy and jumping all over my music library (most of it between my ears from decades of listening). Lyrically my neurons touched on Narnia. Consider these words from C.S. Lewis.

“Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs Beaver. “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

He isn’t safe, but he’s good. (perhaps?)

The truth isn’t pretty, but it is beautiful, perhaps.

In the 6th song of this album, there is a portion that jumped out at me. It wasn’t so much because of its originality, although it is original, but because of its familiarity.

“I don’t want much as such, just more than never enough. After rent and bills, we scrape for food all month.

Try to juggle with what’s not even up in the air

We start from flat on the floor and descend from there 

So good it’s free, so good it’s free So good it’s free, so good it’s free.”

I have been in these places throughout my life experience. I didn’t want to be rich; I just wanted enough to buy food and pay the bills. I love the line where we start at the bottom and go down from there. Brilliant writing, that is.

A bit further along in the album, we get the song 2poor2die. I’ll be honest here. I’m not fond of lousy grammar, including using numbers as letters. The name of this song is “two poor two die.” Glad to get that off my chest, now onward to the content of this song. The lyrics tell us that they are “too poor to die.” I have known men who received a paupers grave because they were too poor to die. I have stood at the graves of men so poor that the only people at his graveside were the men lowering the casket, myself, another pastor, and the guy with the machine to fill in the hole. There is more than one way to be poor. We can be morally bankrupt. We can be financially destitute. We can be in poor health. And we can be too poor to die.

Have you ever had days like this? “Don’t want to change the world today, maybe just hide away.” I do.

Have you ever wondered how some people always seem to be cheerful? The song Smile, Smile, Smile takes on those two ideals.

The album closes with four songs headlined by their latest single, ‘New York To L.A. In 2-And-A-Half Minutes‘. This synth-happy music has enough existential lyrics to keep you searching through your psychology textbooks or Wikipedia for days. Fortunately, the album is engaging enough that listening repeatedly and searching for meaning in the lyrics is not a chore.

Released April 21, 2023

The Noise Who Runs are Ian Pickering, and Felipe Goes. 

All songs written by Ian Pickering 

All songs recorded, engineered and produced by The Noise Who Runs 

Drums, additional recording and production by Julien Guyot

Additional production by Colin C at The Cell Studio (thecellstudio.com) except Beautiful Perhaps, recorded and produced by Claudio Meza, aka ‘Spural’ at Mauco Records, Chile. 

All songs were mixed and mastered by Colin C at The Cell Studio.

All rights reserved

Artist photos by Théo Valenduc

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