Din of Ecstasy Media

Listen to a live version of “Liberation or Death”

Some of Chris’s Thoughts re Din

“There must be a darkness under the surface. People have this idyllic, drug-like dream of a romantic life … a perfect relationship or mythologising someone on the cover of a magazine, all the things that look picturesque but are really very destructive. …. Everybody deals with alienation, but those people who keep it under wraps are just too boring to deal with. …. This is a very personal record about breaking up with my wife and having an identity crisis. A lot of it is raw, naked, and kind of psycho-sexual. There are lots of drugs and compulsions that I’m getting at. There’s a lot of creative stff in neurotic indulgence. …. In New York, you’re exposed to a lot of human shit, but there is also beauty in almost any situation.” [Bloody Valentines, Mojo, April 1995]

“From a musical vantage point, [Din of Ecstasy] was me going back to my roots. I felt Living with the Law didn’t have an edge that I always felt. With Din of Ecstasy, I went back to my teenage thinking of louder, aggressive and visceral. It was a power trio album. I was trying to articulate some edginess I grew up with like Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Cream, and The Doors. Also, I was breaking up with my wife of 13 years and dealing with my own morality issues. I realized that maybe a lightning bolt wouldn’t strike me if I split up with her. I was also madly in love with someone else at the time. I was asking myself a lot of questions like “What is my dogma about relationships? Why do people stay together when they’re not happy? Why is it called love when it’s a need? Why is it called sexual fulfillment when it’s just fucking?” That’s where the content for the album came from. It was a social response to a personal, intimate thing. I was trying to articulate all of that stuff, but I think I lost some people with that album because it wasn’t just a guy screaming out loud. The sound of the record itself resonated more with people than the impetus that motivated the writing. That might have resulted from my own musical indulgences.” [Melancholic Resonance, from Anil Prasad’s Innerviews]

Whitley calls many of his songs “male and female.” He cites “Can’t Get Off,” which twitches and squirms with frustration, as an example. “When I think about it lyrically, it feels like a guy being a guy, but being really stupidly vulnerable,” he said. “It almost seems like the lyrics are like the masculine and the music is like the feminine, in terms of feel.” “Narcotic Prayer” is “about expecting something from a relationship, on any level, that it can’t give you,” he said. “You can only get it yourself, and it’s the most lonely thing you finally come upon at some point. I’ve done it so many times in different relationships, and I do it now.” Musically, Whitley’s songs are slippery. He likes odd chords and syncopated rhythms. He describes some songs as lazily shuffling along, but having a tension that pushes them forward, a “lilt,” as he calls it. He says it comes from playing solo on the street. “I just am rhythmic more than anything,” he said. “I emulated stuff on guitar; I became quite rhythmic just pragmatically. [“Contradiction Important to Chris Whitley”]