Midlake Play “Bandits”

Listen to this track by indie-folk storytellers from Denton, Texas, Midlake. It’s “Bandits”, the second cut off of their 2006 sophomore release The Trials of Van Occupanther. As a progression from their 2004 debut Bamnan and Silvercork, the band double down on their influences that range from Sixties British folk-rock scenes, the singer-songwriters of Laurel Canyon, and the expansive art rock of contemporaries Grandaddy. Even a whiff of Jethro Tull’s pastoral prog gets a look-in. The concoction makes for a heady mix of rural energy and deep melancholy that is perhaps an unexpected direction for a bunch of jazz students from The University of North Texas College of Music to take.

Their jazz roots aren’t very audible in this song, although their ability to fashion an edge of twilight golden hour mood by way of a lush and layered arrangement certainly is. This song balances that instrumental mood with lyrical storytelling that suggests a folk tale in the broadest sense of that term. “Bandits” is rife with rural imagery, presented against a cinematic musical backdrop. On the surface, the intricacies and issues of the modern world sound as far away from what we’re hearing as it’s possible to be. Yet as in any enduring folk tale, they’re closer than one might assume.

On this tune, singer and main songwriter Tim Smith’s voice suggests a sleepier Tim Buckley as he sings the story of a trip away from home one day with a partner, only to return to find their home has been ransacked by bandits. His subdued lead vocal is wrapped in a dance between piano and acoustic guitar with Richard Thompson-like electric guitar interjections that provide striking contrast. It’s all set to a waltz-like pulse that only accentuates how dreamlike and downright restful this song is, despite it opening with a robbery. The band reference classic textures while moving beyond them with a quality that this song could have been written in any era in the last 50 years.

This sense of timelessness has as much to do with the story as it does with the music, suggesting socially resonant themes. It begins with a provoking question: Did you ever want to be overrun by bandits/To hand over all of your things and start over new? The song’s narrator responds to the events of being cleaned-out by bandits as a chance at transformation and personal revision rather than the cause of trauma.

In real life, one would have to consult with someone who’s had that experience directly to judge how viable that would be. But there’s more to discover here beyond idealized, hippyish detachment from worldly goods. The song suggests instead that the motivations and events people encounter from day to day are almost always more complex and connected to unknown quantities than we usually think they are.

One of the forces at work underneath the events in this song is the universal nature of human desperation in the face of how uncertain and unpredictable life so often is. Overwhelming forces that range from hunger to greed drive people to do desperate things at the expense of others in light of this. Not even the morality of this is always straightforward, with motivations never excusing the bad effects that desperate actions sometimes cause in the lives of others.

But neither are these human behaviours a one-way street. People take important things away from us even as we have also taken them away from others. All of this is often in a bid to protect ourselves. Humanity is trapped inside this perpetual motion machine as the cycle continues. In this, “Bandits” suggests that human desperation in its many, many forms is the common source of our misery, and the real villain of the story.

The song asks another provocative question: what if we set aside our own uncertainty and gave shelter to people, even the ones who have wronged us? Even this is murky moral territory of course. The nature of forgiveness, redemption, and reconciliation as they play out in real life are too nuanced and dependent on context to be so neatly defined or judged in a universal way. These are powerful forces that churn in the lower cauldrons of the human experience. As such, they are also serious matters and not to be undertaken lightly or reflexively.

But that’s where the folk tale form of storytelling plays into things so well in “Bandits”. This is a story in which forgiveness and reconciliation are at least possible because of how it plays out between its characters; the victims of a robbery, and the bandits who robbed them as they themselves become victims and find themselves in need of shelter and respite which those original victims provide. What comes next in the story is not a moral imperative. It’s just what ends up happening based on who the characters are and the decisions they make. The story gives shape to what that choice might look like.

This is the beauty of the form that Midlake uses to present this song to listeners. Folk tales like this are not meant to be digested like a set of moral instructions. Instead, they serve to help visualize how the world can be, not necessarily what it is in present times or to dictate how it should be.

Stories like this, whether written, told, or sung about, are reminders that sometimes having a vision for something better than what we have can help to illuminate a path to greater understanding. They connect us to what’s common to all humans; what we need to thrive, and what we need to eliminate that keep us from thriving – that keep us in a state of desperation. And that really is a source of transformation that opens up a world of possibilities.

After their third album, 2010’s The Courage of Others, Tim Smith departed from Midlake to pursue his own projects under the name Harp. You can learn more about that project and hear the songs at harpband.com.

Midlake are a going concern today. Check out their site at midlakeband.com for news and new music.

Enjoy!

The Trials of Van Occupanther is the second studio album by American rock band Midlake. It was released on July 25, 2006, on Bella Union.

Dave Simpson wrote in a contemporary review for the Guardian:

As the charts heave under the weight of so-so soft rock, Midlake suggest the genre isn't all bad. From the remote rock outpost of Denton, Texas, they look lovingly to Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, but also to the darker genius of Peter Hammill. They have clearly listened closely to the Blue Nile's debut and Radiohead's OK Computer. However, they bring it all together in a vision of their own. The Trails of Van Occupanther places itself in the head of an imaginary 19th-century hermit. This allows vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Tim Smith to ponder everything from unrequited love to the environment. The songwriting is rich, delivering an almost hallucinatory mix of pianos, horns, guitars and painfully wistful reminisces...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kggVH8O9ynU&list=OLAK5uy_lj5w17kNhtwU4jWMtta_2QfeQVgifkzqs

#Midlake #IndieRock #Music

Yes. There is an expectation that bands straddle the gap btw giving the fan base what they know and want, but also offering something new and developing their sounds, concepts,...

But I am glad that the two most recent albums of #Midlake and #Midlife continue to do what their previous music did:
it mixes very well for me.
#Mixtape

Both very nice:

Midlake, A bridge too far
https://midlakeband.bandcamp.com/album/a-bridge-to-far

Midlife, Chorus (OK, yes, from 2024)
https://mildlife.bandcamp.com/album/chorus

#FolkRock #Folk #Psychedelia #Jazz