I can understand why we generalise, it can be useful when we try to describe things to each other, “It’s a bit like a mix between.....” “Kind of reminds me of this, that........”

It would be difficult to get through life if we didn’t generalise situations, threats, fears, hopes and desires. But sometimes the whole general thing just doesn’t work; the Band of Holy Joy is one of those cases. No point in comparing or contrasting because whatever else they do it certainly isn’t like anything else. Yup you can chuck certain names and references up but as soon as you do they seem to fall apart and serve no useful purpose.

I like this 21st century genre free approach to mixing up whatever we want and putting it out there for what it is rather than limiting it by setting rules and taboos to fit it into to.

Take all the musical influences of the last fifty years. Let’s start with some beat style jazz from the fifties and rough it up a bit with some rock and roll. Lets take the best thoughtful sixties lyrics and trance it out with some late sixties hallucinogenic experimental multi instrumental stuff. Into the seventies, let’s skip over the indulgences of the prog rock stuff although we could probably throw in something strange and mashed up, got to have chunks of soul in there too. Add some large doses of the punk ethic and then push it down the stairs just to minimise any pompous posturing, a psychic limp may help. Into the eighties and all that longing and strings and arrangements that start harking backwards, looping the whole brew inside out. Early nineties despair for the final farewell to any values base approach to anything and the horrific sight of justification of all by personal profit, no wonder it all went electronic spiced with some chemical ecstasy. Move towards some fin de siècle hope. Start some fights over dwindling resources and here we are. Feel free to add any other ingredients I may have missed. So if the genre thing makes no sense, how does it make me feel?

Feels like all those moments that we tend not to discuss with each other. Some of the most dramatic points, scenes, thoughts and actions in our lives are intensely personal and even if we wanted to talk about them I am not sure we could. I do recognise them in Holy Joy music and lyrics though. That mad twist of the best and the worst of experiences all thrown into one mad wailing burst of painful pleasure.

There is something special about shared feelings and ideas without judgement or outcome that I can relate to. I know when I hear, see, taste, feel or smell something like that and as in all the best moments in life it is beyond words. So please fell free to ignore the above.