Thomas Feiner - The Opiates Revised

I would like to start this by saying that i honestly believe more or less every single release on samadhisound is worth getting. It is without a doubt one of the most consistently interesting contemporary labels out there and one that is carving out a nice niche on its own at that (I also make it no secret that i believe David Sylvian to be a god amongst men, but that is another discussion). One of the things i can do here is that i can make my opinion of stuff public in a nicely arranged way. This is one of those times when that feels very good. What i want to share is the Opiates, an absolutely marvellous piece of work from the worlds most underrated swede, Thomas Feiner.

What it proves in many ways is what a fundamentally powerful thing music can really be.

The style of the album is very much low key, downtempo soft orchestral pop music. The beauty of the strings constantly weighed against the roughness and melancholy of Feiner's own voice simply excels in providing an (what I dare say) important contrast to a lot of todays music. This is a collection of properly written tunes with a lot of heart behind them and even a few standout tracks.

In my eyes you have got two choices if you are going to make a masterpiece. Either you do something new, or you do it better then everyone else. This is the later. The whole thing has got a great sense of that you feel like you have heard it before quality. Take for example one of the standout tracks, Dinah and the beautiful blue. Drowned in nostalgia it feels like you have listened to this somewhere before and that it is all almost so familiar that you can hum it (trust me, the chorus is stupendously gorgeus). This is mainly due to extremely organic songwriting and composing, which is really just a fine way of saying that it all flows damn nicely. It is very much a lost classic.

The closest comparison i could possible give it is the movie Shawshank redemption. They very much share the same qualities and those great big life affirming qualities and both very clearly point out difference between synthetic sentimentality and genuine human emotion.

It is an incredibly easy album to fall in love with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jORyPnUdQ48&feature=related - dinah and the beautiful...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQa6GSIjht4&feature=related - the siren song