"Powder! Go Away are an instrumental post-rock band from Russia."
I'm not gonna lie, this band had me in tears. No fucking joke. It all started with when I was browsing around randomly looking for a powerviolence band and somehow found this album. I saw that they had a 2011 release and was all "OH SHIT COOL!" but what really had me was the album cover, which was of a small dog looking up at the moon. I knew I saw this dog somewhere before. Perhaps in a book I read before? If I had remembered correctly, it was about a Russian dog named Laika, who was the first animal to orbit the Earth and sadly the first animal to die in orbit as well. I decided to look it up on Wikipedia and unfortunately, I was correct. As I started to read the article and glue each part together, a sad and dark presence started to settle over me. I was currently listening to the song Locomotive Comes In Your Dreams when I started to burst out into tears. I don't know whether it was the slow and settling ambiance of the song or this part I read at the end.
"Before the launch, one of the scientists took Laika home to play with his children. In a book chronicling the story of Soviet space medicine, Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote, "I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live."
I knew right then and there that this album was a homage to Laika and her triumphant trials and tribulations in space and how she made such an impact on space travel. I'm all for animal rights and liberation so they struck home to me on a personal level. As for the band itself, they seem to capture everything that I love about instrumental post-rock and then some. The build ups aren't enough to overwhelm you with sound but not minuscule enough to have you yawning. Another mellow aspect I enjoy much is the whole space-oriented influence that evokes a feeling of quiet spaciousness. All in all, the album is beautiful and the meaning behind it is a powerful one that will have you speechless in amazement.
A few days ago I heard this album and it got me into tears. I can't stop thinking about Laika; I mean, the music is awesome but god, it's so sad! That poor doggie was doomed :(
ReplyDeleteYeah, its a good album.
ReplyDeleteThe Laika story doesn't have much to do with it, but its still nice to think about as you listen to it, which is what they probably were going for when they named it that