THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING KEY SILENCE
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Why an anthology? It's fairly obvious: because we detest the concept.
All anthologies are, by default, embellishments of the truth. Full of
subtle exaggerations and refined lies. They are works of fiction based
on actual events, if you will. Devised to convince the public by use
of unscrupulous rhetoric and subjective reasoning that a particular
artist deserves a place in their heart and a piece of their wallet. In
order to achieve this goal, the artist's body of work is dismembered and
reduced to questionable milestones, alleged turning points and screenplay
drafts. His/her faults, blunders and artistic cul-de-sacks are discretely
omitted, thus depriving us of vital information required to assess the
true value of his/her work. Anthologies can therefore be construed as
pimps with good intentions, specialized in providing publicity for artists
that are, as we are led to believe, far too good to need publicity.
As you can see, anthologies are much too dangerous to be entrusted to
some self-proclaimed connoisseur in the future. Especially if he/she is
benevolent and well-intentioned. We're well aware of the devastating power
of good intentions.
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Is 'anthology' just a fancier way of saying 'best of'? No.
Even though Key is a selection of pivotal Silence tracks,
it is far from your typical 'best of'. You see, the term 'best of' implies
the existence of hits. As our bank accounts show no sign of the latter,
the term 'anthology' seemed like a more appropriate choice.
To us, Key is a selection of our less faulty tracks and most interesting
failures. Musically, lyrically, production-wise and feedback-wise. We
believe that the only way to comprehend the complexity of one's work is
to be familiar with his/her shortcomings. That is why we've made no attempts
to hide our faults, blunders and artistic cul-de-sacks. A word of advice:
I may be lying.
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Is this Silence's last release? Yes.
Every record we released so far was at the time of its release our
last record. You see, musicians are able to think like ordinary people
only for a short period of time: a couple of months after the release
of their new record. Thoughts like: "don't be a romantic fool,
think about your future
consider the disproportion between the invested
effort and the gains" start to surface. For a short, horrific
while, musicians become reasonable. In the vast majority of cases, romantic
delusions and self-destructive behaviour the vital traits of every decent
musician soon return. As far as we're concerned, we've managed to release
six albums despite being musicians the least lucrative occupation in
the music business. The kind of relentless stupidity one can only be proud
of. And, as history has taught us, stupidity is the one thing we can always
rely on.
Benko, February 2006
