Molly's review of JH's
Mice Parade - Obrigado Saudade (2004)
The title of this album is Portugese and translates as 'thank you saudade'. Here's the definition from wiki which I feel sums up the mood and intention of this album:
''...Portuguese and Galician word for a feeling of nostalgic longing for something or someone that one was fond of and which is lost. It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return.
Saudade differs from nostalgia in that whereas nostalgia involves a mixed happy and sad feeling for the lost memories,
saudade involves the hope that what is being longed for might return.
Saudade has been described as a "vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist,... a turning towards the past or towards the future". A stronger form of
saudade may be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing.''
The by turns blissful and mournful post-rock sound of this album lives up to it's title. To me
Obrigado Saudade it was a homage to an intangible sense of optimism for the future (frustratingly translucent), a celebration of what lost ideals ring in our ears and sorrow that we have lost them... admittedly after I read the wiki.
I think the greatness in soft, near-subconscious instrumental music like this is that the listener can paint their own picture on a vast canvas. You can choose to cry or pretend it's the score to your kooky little DV indie movie
Reflective, sometimes ambient and vague but with flourishes of acoustica - piano, harp, xylophone and guitar - the album is really quite beautiful if you're in the mood. There are one or two more lively happenings buried deep down somewhere, a tumbling lounge-jazz drumline, but they swiftly allow themselves to be swallowed in the hum. On any given day of sicker passion it might bore me, but not today!