today i want to cover parts of the gathering‘s musical history, stretching from their breakthrough album mandylion to the release if_then_else. i used the title “a noise severe” since this is also the name of one of their live dvds, featuring their heavier side.
the first song of the gathering which caught my attention was leaves, which i already presented on spielwiese. it appeared on the mandylion album, which was the first the gathering release with their new singer anneke van giersbergen. leaves is my favourite song from that album (even from all their albums). the album contains many great songs, so it was not easy to decide for another one. in the end, i choose two. the first is sand & mercury, a more heavy tune:

the second is mandylion, an instrumental tune:

their next release was nighttime birds, of which the title track on most surfaces is my favourite piece. its style is similar to the heavier side of the mandylion album.

the next album was very different to the albums released before. very experimental, very progressive, much less metal. it came on two cds, the title track how to measure a planet? filling up 28 minutes of the second cd. a more catchy tune from that album is liberty bell, which comes with a music video:

the last two songs i want to present are from the if_then_else album, released 2000. the first is beautiful war, a nice instrumental track featuring trumpets instead of the usual keyboard.

the last song is saturnine, about someone being left alone. this song made me buy the album; in fact, it was the second i knew after mandylion.

blackfield is a project by the british prog mastermind steven wilson and the israeli rock star aviv geffen, playing alternative and art rock, sometimes even pop. the first song i want to present is from their first album, blackfield, and called blackfield. it comes with a beautiful music video, which for whatever reason didn’t show up in the music video series.

(apparently the video does not work in all countries, for example in germany. if it doesn’t work for you, try this version of the song without the video.)

the second piece is the opener of their second album, blackfield ii, titled once. it was also the opener on their tour in 2007, when i first saw them. this is a live recording, but of very high quality, both the video and the sound. if you want to watch the band, click into the window to open it in youtube.

a very beautiful and calm song from their first album is lullaby:

another beautiful, more rocking song about love is epidemic from their second album:

finally, here’s a song from their first album, called cloudy now. it’s in fact a song written by aviv geffen, which he used to play on his solo tours, which was then translated by steven wilson to english and recorded by the two. it’s a somewhat doomy, depressing song, and one of the most impressing i remember from the concert.

(and yes, aviv also iteratively removed his tops during the switzerland concert, until ending up as in the video. i think the girls liked it :-) )