The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

“The Pains of Being Pure at Heart” to me that title has kind of the same flavour as Milan Kunderas novel “the Unbearable lightness of being”.The title already sounds like poetry. It sounds lovely heavy and deep and I have no idea what that feeling is which makes me feel like an insensitive lump. When I first listened to their music I was almost sure to hear some Portishead-Radiohead styled suicide hymns and stored my gun within reach. However, apparently destiny did not allow me to thrive in a musically-induced catharsis, because what my lumpy ears were exposed to, was that sort of melancholic pop music, neither too melancholic so I would have to pull the trigger, nor too poppy so that it would hurt my reputation.

So whats wrong with sad, melancholy music at all? You might ask and you may because it’s a justified question. My dear readers, melancholic music is just wonderful. I listen to Massive attack while doing my morning yoga. I listen to Anthony and the Johnsons when I come home and saw too many people all day. The albums that I store next to my portable CD –player next to my bathtub are Trentemöller`s “last resort, Damien Rice´s “the blowers daughter”, some Rufus Wainwright, some Elliot Smith, some Muse, some Nick Drake, some Nick Cave some Kate Bush (speaking of bathtubs, I like foam bathes at about 40 degrees. Will have to stop that soon as it leads too premature aging of skin…fulfilling the cliché that all fun things are either immoral, unhealthy or somewhat damaging. Yep, I know I am wandering from the subject, but writing is therapy and getting old and wrinkled is one of the newest fears I have to face).But back to the point, where was I heading again? Ah yes: the music. I am hearing that music at my home and not at a concert. My experiences with slow, sad melancholic concerts is that people lit up their spliffs, raise their pocket lighters and start to get that sort of dull facial expression that seems like if they are staring at a TV test pattern and not a band. It would be in fact a perfect moment to start socializing with the person standing next to you and tell him/her how you used to have that cat and it was run over by some drunken BMW-driver and about your fear of never being able to have a new cat, because that would mean you would just substitute it which is impossible anyway. And the person would go on and share with you his fear about the likely extinction of the Fergusson Island striped possum, how it was his/her favourite motive to draw when he was child and his/her children won´t be able to draw it because once it will die off, people will forget about. You would find a common point, your love to animals and how ignorant this pack of bastards called humankind are, which could be the base for your now starting-love-story . These things might happen to other people. My personal experience though is that it takes me something like 20 minutes in that atmosphere before my eyes get heavy and I start longing for a horizontal place, complete with hot-water bag and a beaver-cloth blanket.

So yeah conclusion of it all, keep on crying at home and rocking outside? Hmmm…maybe, not really actually, but definitely don´t miss the pains of being pure at heart on june the 5 th at the NBI in Berlin.

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