Music I love – Dala, ‘Anywhere under the moon.’

My appreciation for Dala has grown slowly over several years. I saw them when they came with the Vinyl Cafe concert to Hamilton in December of 2008, kinda liked the songs that they sang in that show, (some of which were traditional-seasonal, not their own,) and picked up a copy of the CD that they had on sale, “Who do you think you are.’ I gave that CD a few listens, but wasn’t immediately blown away. I remember that I was really starting to love it by the time December rolled around, because I bought a CD of Matt Andersen’s at that year’s concert just hoping I’d come to like it as much. (Not quite, though he’s grown on me somewhat as well.)

I bought another Dala CD, “Everyone is Someone”, off the Itunes Canada store early in 2010, and wasn’t really blown away by anything off the album except for ‘Levi Blues’, which I thought was amazing from the first listen, and still do.

Recently I’ve picked up some more of their music from emusic.com – another studio album, “This moment is a flash”, which I’m not sure what I think about, and a live performance collection, “Girls from the North Country”, which has a few covers like “Both Sides Now” and “The Weight,” and also accoustic versions of some of my favorite tracks from “Everyone is Someone” and “Who do you think you are.” This was enough to get me scouting YouTube for Dala’s music videos and footage of their live performances.

Today, on the bus from Burlington to the Hamilton Writer’s meeting, I slipped a memory card into my palm TX with a new MP3 playlist, and started to listen while reading more from “Trading in Danger.” When the accoustic version of “Anywhere under the moon” from Girls from the North Country started, it was just one of those slightly transcendent musical moments. I cranked the volume on the palm as high as it would go, I couldn’t focus on reading, I didn’t care if the other passengers in the back of the bus were watching me groove.

All that I cared about was the guitar, the lyrics that Amanda and Sheila were alternating and overlapping, and whoever it is that they’re apparently trying to meet in Winnipeg.

I’ve re-listened to the track several times this evening, trying to get that sense back, and as usual, it doesn’t really work. (The original cut of “Anywhere under the moon” from Who do you think you are seems very fake and overproduced compared to the acoustic; the video cut on YouTube is closer to the acoustic.)

I was in an unusual mood on that bus ride for whatever reason – I later broke out laughing while watching the space simulator episode of ‘Community’ on my ipod nano – the moment where Abed complains that he should have been on the ship, not back at mission control.

So, what music has given you that sense of being totally swept away for a few minutes?