First Impressions 019: warm wigouts, bardo vibrations, twisted trip-hop, ambient faultlines and more.
Initial vibes on new music
Hello,
I had planned to share some thoughts after a time thinking about why there hasn’t been a song in recent times that makes a strong, politically-charged statement in the name of peace. We live in such a diffuse environment of unrest and splintering opinions that I couldn’t find any through-line of clarity. Is a song like John Lennon’s Imagine simply from a more civil time? When the music industry got into full swing during the 60s, you were supposed to pick a side: The Beatles or The Stones. These days politics is a bit like choosing Drake or Kendrick, and the entertainment aspect of it in social media discourse is fast and furious without pause for reflection. Are we that far away from any mere expression of peace, with masses yelling about either how to reach it, or who does and doesn’t deserve it? Even this number one hit in the US, from someone in the guise of champion for the impoverished, couldn’t resist a lean towards the right side of the audience. It’s not as if young people aren’t politically energised and motivated – movements and their associated protests are by and large organised by younger people who do not waste time when an issue strikes them as important to address on a wider scale. I’m guessing music is simply no longer a vehicle to reach a consensus of ideals. (plus which major label would get behind it?) I would love your thoughts below.
-
OK, let’s go:
Soft Power – Ezra Feinberg: Anyone missing the bucolic folk ends of Jim O’Rourke’s pop epiphanies might want to take a turn into Ezra Feinberg’s latest, though Soft Power lays roots in prog and psychedelia and the idea of wigging out being a more exquisite proposition. Its sweet trick through its sparkling arrangements and liquid shifts is to make a frolic of it, equal parts finesse and the open air of springtime. Feinberg’s guitar is the high checkpoint for the large cast – including Mary Lattimore, David Moore (Bing & Ruth) and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - to be on point in their call and respond, supple with sublime melodies and warm energy. Zoom out and dive in.
Ruido y Flor – Ezmeralda: I read this is an album about death, but don’t let that kill you: this is no melodrama of last gasps and stasis anxiety. Bogota producer Nicolás Vallejo has made a warm and fuzzy set of bardo state vibrations that don’t require full transition. Vaporous mists of tape hiss and late-night nature recordings seep through synths that variously glint or toil and rise like church organs, with faint pulses that offer some tracks a little stormy weather. It has a delicate essence set deep under its grainy surface that underscores its title (translated as ‘noise and flower’) and enigmatic sense of serenity.
Wisswass – Dijit: Cairo producer Hashem L Kelesh finds a twisted beauty in the sneering menace of his beats, lurching like storm clouds through pinging, twisting synths, gritty guitar wails and funk that’s urgent to the point of apocalypse. His own singing comes more from the throat than the heart, leaving a trio of female guest singers to locate and lift up the light in his work to show both its open-heartedness and defiance. A reference to Tricky is easy enough, stretching his trademark suburban paranoia into full-blown nation alienation, but the appearance of Leila Arab on vocals here also casts the haunted soul of her crucial Like Weather as a true totem.
And This Is Also The Law of Reflection - Richard Skelton: Richard Skelton’s early work meditated on loss and time through the lens of the vast rural landscapes of the UK, gestural cycles of decay. More recently, Skelton has less drawn inspiration from the landscape to anchor internal tumult than wholly submitted to it and its spiritual power. For me the title of this new work has a slight irony, for well past mere reflection, Skelton’s musical gift is to inhabit and embody his surroundings. Bowing strings deep, slow and heavy typifies Skelton’s approach, where nothing is unnaturally heightened. Their corporeal energy is a continuing wellspring for him, and through minimal means, he has amassed an incredible body of work ringing with the mysterious and arcane grace of life.
dB – Kevin Drumm: Now numbering 213 releases on his Bandcamp page, the Chicago electro-acoustic artist really is a merchant of drone, hawking works on an at-least weekly basis that move from the kind of magnetic, low-level stream of clanking sounds you might hear from a distant building site late at night to more pure pinnacles of sound. There’s always a method to his murkiness, but I opted for this 45-minute piece on the lighter side of his obsession with the possibilities of tone, a minimal, feather delicate piece of subtle shifts in the way the sun filters through curtains as the morning moves into full view.
Unmetrical – Vagantpoesi: From Perceptual Tapes, a label barely a year old out of Hobart, Tasmania, comes this new work from the Swedish composer. It’s a long set of short pieces rippling with detail, invaded with crinkling and flickering textures to cast faultlines across their glistening surfaces. In listening, this incursion feels ongoing and unending in grinding at our perception of space where process is ever-present.
Thanks for reading.
-
Andrew Khedoori is the curator of Longform Editions.
First Impressions visual by Mark Gowing.