It’s difficult to imagine anyone left on the face of the planet (already familiar with the man’s work, that is) who isn’t aware that singer/songwriter John Wesley Harding and critically acclaimed novelist Wesley Stace are one and the same. Henceforth, he has announced that he will record under the name Wesley Stace, and hopefully never again be asked why he assumed the name of a 1967 Bob Dylan album, misspelling and all. “It’s like what happens at the end of a Spider-Man or a Batman movie,” says Stace. “When the superhero reveals his true identity to his girlfriend.” “Girlfriend” may be the operative word on Stace’s new album, Self-Titled (Yep Roc), in which a 47-year-old man, now comfortably married and living in Philadelphia, reflects back over the loves of his younger life. Stace will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on him.
Stace: It used to be that I needed to understand everything about the music I listened to: who was playing on it, what label it was on, why it was made and the story behind its making. Then I gave up reading music magazines and got cured of that, mostly. Now I don’t know what’s popular, don’t read reviews, and I listen really closely to the recommendations of friends. From time to time I still feel the need to understand a bit more about someone or something, as with my recent flirtation with Mike Oldfield, and I end up reading a disappointing (auto)biography or skimming some interviews online. But I don’t need to know who people are anymore or how they got to be that way: it’s enough if I like their music.
This song is a prime example of something I love unreservedly and listen to a lot without knowing anything about it whatsoever except the name on the cover (of which the 12-inch is generic, white with a sticker on it and no other writing). I couldn’t even really tell you what kind of music it is: experimental techno? Penguin Cafe Orchestra meets Yoko? I don’t even want to know, it’s so beautiful. It’s on Leaf Records, and it isn’t in English. That’s what I know. The song is called “Hana.” The whole album, Jun Ray Song Chang, is just as good.
I listened to “Hana” (and watched the mindbending video) on the suggestion of a British email correspondent who has opened wide the gates of the Groundhogs, Don Bikoff and Goat unto me, as I have escorted him unto the realms of Duncan Browne, Patto and Nilsson—it’s a late-flowering musical friendship, and my life has been greatly improved by it. Together we have even taken tentative steps in the direction of the Moody Blues. We decided, at his suggestion, not to follow each other on Twitter so our email correspondence remained unaffected by our other daily doings. That was also a great idea.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWCD9EtKPAY
