Slovo: Nommo

I have owned the album "Nommo" by the British group Slovo for over a year now, and each time I place the CD in my changer, I wonder why the hell I ever took it out in the first place. There is a richness to the sound, but more so to the messages that come to you as you listen to the beauty that pours from the speakers. There are rocking beats and nice mellow melodies, but throughout, there is thought. You can not walk away from this music without having examined modern-day life.

I am not a musician, but I am a music lover and the beauty of this work is twofold. There is the music which I can appreciate but can not do justice to as a writer. Some people have to be onstage and others have to make up the audience. As a member of the audience, I can not tell someone else how the music sounds...I can only recommend it...highly. I can tell you that there is a beautiful melding of acoustics with pounding percussions.

However, as a writer and wordsmith and poet, I can relate the meaning that I pick up and interpret as my own from the work. It may not be the meaning that Dave Randall et al. had fully intended, but it is what I experience when hearing these songs.

From "Weebles Fall", words and music by Dave Randall

We close our eyes
Recite our daily lies
Get high, so high,
We self-lobotomize.

How many of us sit in front of a computer, a television screen, or some other form of distraction so that we just don't have to face the fact that our worlds are crumbling? Are we happy, or are we just lobotomized? Can we handle our truths?

From "Come Down", music and lyrics by Dave Randall

I believe in me.
I believe in you.
Look at all of us.
Think of all that we could do.

I could make this little excerpt a mantra of the world I would like to live in. Think about it...if we all accepted our own truth well enough to liberate it, then we could perhaps turn around the path to destruction that many of us see developing in front of us on a daily basis at the hands of big business and the likes of George W. Bush. I believe in me....and in what I believe to be true. I believe in you and what you are capable of seeing, feeling and doing. Look at all of us....we are not alone. Think of all that we can do...yes, indeed...starting with the election in November 2006.

From the track "Whisper" music and lyrics by Dave Randall

I've stood too long
In the shadow of a doubt
I need some sun
It seems that time returns to me once more
But I have less now than before...

I felt that freedom
Could only be defined as endless choice
And I only listened to the logic
of the loudest voice,
But this world
Will be shaken by a whisper
But this world
Will be shaken by a whisper
But this world
Will be shaken by a whisper
(And I will live with integrity
and peace inside, peace inside.)
But this world
Will be shaken by a whisper
(And I will live in all honesty
and peace inside, and peace inside.)

When our loudest voice is coming out of the television or the government controlled media or the fundamentalist churches or from unfettered corporate marketing, then it will take a whisper to begin the movement toward change. That whisper is our own conversion, our own awakening, our own realization that each is us is manipulated. Once we have realized that these various sources of The Voice are in collusion and have been for years, decades, or centuries, then it is up to each of us how to change our world. Sometimes it simply takes a whisper to help us see to start the movement toward change. This song could be a part of the wind that carries the whisper.

You really have to experience this music for yourself. Have a listen to the tracks at the Slovo site. You can purchase a copy of the CD at SpaciousMusic. If you are a new visitor, please register before you fill your cart...it will make the process simpler.




Categories: politics music Slovo Nommo SpaciousMusic music review lyrics change Paradigm+Shift election+2006