Idyll Swords - II
(Communion)

While first listening to II, the arty side has already started whining. He smirks and moans, complaining, "If the Idyll Swords are really inspired by Eastern music, then why are their song structures so Western? This is just standard pop and rock using Eastern instruments!"

Seeing as the fun side only agreed to listen to Idyll Swords in hope of appeasing the arty side, thinking the odd, foreign instruments would interest him, the fun side starts to sulk and finally retreats to watch the latest reality-based TV program. He has little interest in music made by instruments he can't even pronounce, let alone spell.

Left alone to complain to himself, the arty side continues to bitch and moan. He makes jokes about how the album's title, II, makes obvious the band is more influenced by the songs of Led Zeppelin than the songs of the East. He calls Idyll Swords' arrangement of a traditional Afghani song, "Kashal in Rag Pilu," a cop out, pandering to arty types like himself who might question them. He starts to wonder why the band didn't just go all out on creating pop music by including vocals on every track along with drums and bass guitar, instead of their all acoustic, mostly instrumental arrangement.

Seeing the fun side is busy watching Probst, the arty side decides he'd rather be reading Proust, so he leaves a note for the fun side saying, "Sell back this CD and buy something you might like better, something with vocals on every track."

After primetime TV is over, the fun side returns to the stereo and sees the arty side's note. Finally unencumbered by the arty side's whining, the fun side decides to give the CD one more chance to see if it really is worthless. A few songs in, the fun side is really enjoying the music, much to his own amazement. He likes all the funny sounding instruments and how they all sound so "weird." It reminds him of how Idyll Swords' members Dave Brylawski and Chuck Johnson made their electric guitars sound so "weird" in their previous bands, Polvo and Spatula (respectively). The fun side doesn't know anything about Eastern music, so he doesn't care about authenticity or anything like that; he just thinks the songs are pretty. Maybe the arty side is right about one thing though; maybe the band should go all out and include vocals on every track. The fun side thinks those songs with vocals are "rad."

So the fun side decided to keep the Idyll Swords CD for himself. He's going to hide it from the arty side though; he doesn't want to hear any more of the arty side's complaints.

jim steed 2001 jan 12