"they've covered up the pain and shades of night until the rain endeavors to wash it all away..."
Oliver Myles Mashburn's textured wistful painful sonic diorama "Sin Nombre", inspired by Harold Mendez’s 2018 painting of the same name is an all too brief sparse deathly serious reflection on colonialism, imperialism and genocide. The sweeping acoustic guitar that ascends and stair steps down with moving piano highlighting Oliver's emotional melodies pulls you into the dark poetry. It is an exercise in storytelling that feels impactful and within the stoic weight there is beauty too in the construction of intertwined sounds. The heavy piano notes enforce the drama of the inhumane deconstruction of people and nature itself. Oliver's vocal aesthetic has a lot of character as the narrator. You can feel the words coming from the back of his throat, one that feels a bit bit worn by life or maybe battered by being drawn out as an empathetic artist.
I personally love songs that are sung in both English and Spanish even though, Mr. Hengler, my passionate Spanish teacher would surely be disappointed that my grasp of the language has withered away since high school. I find the contextual meaning opposed by a language I gravitate towards and is beautiful adds weight even though I don't fully understand what is being sung.
Oliver shares a lot of what informed this very compelling song:
"Inspired by Harold Mendez’s 2018 painting of the same name, in front of which I was standing as I wrote the lyrics during the painting’s exhibition during that year at the MoMa in NYC. Finding the lyrics in the Notes section of my phone in 2020, the music seemed to flow out of my fingers immediately upon picking up my guitar - what some old blues players call “sky songs,” in that songs like this sometimes seem to just fall out of the sky at random.
The lyrics explore themes of colonialism and environmental degradation, as my interpretation of the painting was that it depicts a European conquistador riding on horseback through “exploding skies of grey and white,” a burnt out, devastated landscape, the forests scorched, the indigenous people murdered, the animals shot out and poisoned.
The Spanish chorus, which I sing the translation of in English at the end of the song, is from the perspective of someone who watched this destruction happen, retreating to the woods where the best they can do now is simply sit and watch the leaves begin to fall off of the burnt, mangled trees. The title, “Sin Nombre,” or “nameless,” is emblematic of the native people not having a name initially for these brutal conquistadors who brought violence to their shores, with whom they would be forced to intermarry and speak their languages, thus losing both their cultural heritage and their ancestral lands."
Oliver Myles Mashburn is a singer/songwriter/visual artist based in Hudson, NY, and is the frontman for Swanky Tiger.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.facebook.com/olivermylesmashburn
https://www.olivermylesmashburn.com/
https://www.instagram.com/olivermylesmashburn/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr6a_9siwhVeMMe5O7G7Skw
Please keep us going for another year
Oliver Myles Mashburn, Indie Folk, Folk, Acoustic, singer songwriter, storyteller, politico preacher, "Sin Nombre", razor blade vox, Inspired by Harold Mendez’s 2018 painting,
I personally love songs that are sung in both English and Spanish even though, Mr. Hengler, my passionate Spanish teacher would surely be disappointed that my grasp of the language has withered away since high school. I find the contextual meaning opposed by a language I gravitate towards and is beautiful adds weight even though I don't fully understand what is being sung.
Oliver shares a lot of what informed this very compelling song:
"Inspired by Harold Mendez’s 2018 painting of the same name, in front of which I was standing as I wrote the lyrics during the painting’s exhibition during that year at the MoMa in NYC. Finding the lyrics in the Notes section of my phone in 2020, the music seemed to flow out of my fingers immediately upon picking up my guitar - what some old blues players call “sky songs,” in that songs like this sometimes seem to just fall out of the sky at random.
The lyrics explore themes of colonialism and environmental degradation, as my interpretation of the painting was that it depicts a European conquistador riding on horseback through “exploding skies of grey and white,” a burnt out, devastated landscape, the forests scorched, the indigenous people murdered, the animals shot out and poisoned.
The Spanish chorus, which I sing the translation of in English at the end of the song, is from the perspective of someone who watched this destruction happen, retreating to the woods where the best they can do now is simply sit and watch the leaves begin to fall off of the burnt, mangled trees. The title, “Sin Nombre,” or “nameless,” is emblematic of the native people not having a name initially for these brutal conquistadors who brought violence to their shores, with whom they would be forced to intermarry and speak their languages, thus losing both their cultural heritage and their ancestral lands."
Oliver Myles Mashburn is a singer/songwriter/visual artist based in Hudson, NY, and is the frontman for Swanky Tiger.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.facebook.com/olivermylesmashburn
https://www.olivermylesmashburn.com/
https://www.instagram.com/olivermylesmashburn/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr6a_9siwhVeMMe5O7G7Skw
Oliver Myles Mashburn is a singer/songwriter/visual artist based in Hudson, NY, and is the frontman for Swanky Tiger.
* * *
Oliver Myles Mashburn, Indie Folk, Folk, Acoustic, singer songwriter, storyteller, politico preacher, "Sin Nombre", razor blade vox, Inspired by Harold Mendez’s 2018 painting,
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