Grief can be an exceedingly strong motivator and can produce some deeply sad, bad at the same time, life-affirming music. Remember, for example, Neil Young’s album Tonight’s The Night or some of the best songs written by Leonard Cohen, Morrisey or Bill Callaghan.
Quite often, the authors experiencing such feelings write grief inspired music in the spur of the moment, as if trying to throw it out of them as quickly as possible.
Not so, Jamie Cameron singer/songwriter of The Last Dinosaur. After suffering a car accident, he was severely injured and his best friend lost his life. To write the music and lyrics related to that unfortunate experience and grief that came along with it, it took Cameron eight years to come up with The Nothing.
What we get to hear is unbelievable sadness, but also undeniably life-affirming feelings. The time Cameron spent on writing the music and lyrics for The Nothing obviously gave him time to fully think and feel things through and come up with some incredible music that presents a captivating listen.
As if you are reading a novel, Cameron has structured the album in ‘chapters’ - two songs with lyrics are interspersed by an instrumental theme as if giving us time to mull things over. Of course, the overall musical feel is very intimate, reminding often of best Elliott Smith/Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) moments, with no traces of Cameron trying to emulate either.
While the ‘chapter’ tracks like Grow and All My Faith (a seemingly upbeat number) give you food for thought with their subject matter, the instrumental tracks like The National Stage, are not just space fillers and simple interludes, but present an instrumental recapitulation of what was said, and are immaculately structured musically.And as the whole of the music on the album, they are characterized by impeccable and sometimes surprising arrangements that give the whole album an additional dimension.
An incredible album that came out of some unfortunate events.
