Simple through Complicated

My Phd has to do about the kind of poetry people write following horrifying events, and because it is, as seemingly always with poetry, a very vague topic, I find the kind of feel I'm going towards and now trying to formulate in my proposal is more readily available in music.

I love music. I feel as though it channels something people can't always otherwise express, and I think this kind of "not really saying but saying" I want to discuss in my thesis can be kind of described in music.

Above all, there's the concept of a complex simplicity. Either making the simple complex, making the complex simple, creating a complex line of simple movements or whatever, it feels like an important aspect to me.

There something absolutely beautiful about a kind of simple musical complexity. I don't really know what this means, granted, but I do know how it feels. Like something is complicated not because the musician is showing off his chops (although that's not a deal breaker) or trying to surpass whatever blah blah blah there is to surpass.

What I am talking about is complexity through the inclusion of different musical textures, whether at the same time, or one following the other. Fugazi are great at this, and always have been, and so have Sonic Youth. But apart from these bands, I have found it very hard to find any new music that is both down to earth and mind-blowing.

One of the best examples I have found of this is Isis, who, I think, have won a place in my heart on the strength of the opening track of their great album Oceanic alone. It's not for the faint heartet, but that's just the thing: it is and it isn't for the faint heartet, at the same time. It's loud, singer-puking-frog music, but in a wonderfully geeky and beautiful way:

Another band which I find embodies this kind of aesthetic is Q and not U, and for entirely different reasons. They too mix coherent with unexpected, only in a much more nuanced way. However, nuanced doesn't mean better, just different:

I know there's probably a ton of bands which fit the very obscure bill I have described here, but not that I know of. So if anyone is down with complicated simple, and is weird enough to find this blog, let me know.