As soon as the gloriously named “Me, My Lover, Her Lover, Part 1” issues, or rather, oozes forth, from the speakers, we recognize the sonic landscape immediately, for it is the same stark creative world that the likes of Nick Cave and Johnny Cash would call home: dark, spacious, and intriguing.
It is a place where tales of love, loss, and longing come naturally to the music makers who seek inspiration here, but whereas the former would lace his songs with images of religion and redemption sought, and the latter would find enough tragedy in the real world, Art Schop takes a different, altogether more thoughtful, route.
Known for his ability to blend and, indeed, bend academic subjects, such as science and philosophy, into his songs, here his lyrics use mathematical metaphors to make their point. It is a love triangle that he describes as much through feelings as via the unusual medium of hypotenuse and square roots, the human condition described via sacred geometry rather than more emotive concerns, apt for someone with a physics degree from Oxford. But as highbrow and unusual as that might sound, the song itself is a gorgeously precise and yet raw and emotive, folk-infused piece.
Inspiration for this song and the album that it calls home, The Fifth Hammer, comes from Daniel Heller-Roazen’s book The Fifth Hammer: Pythagoras and the Disharmony of the World, which makes a nice change from the usual trite cliches, soppy and excitable young love songs, and imagery of people taking rings to Mordor. If you listen to Art Schop’s music enough, I swear that you can feel yourself getting smarter!
Metaphysical dark folk pop? Let’s have plenty more.
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