reflection

Album Reflection: Fennesz — Bécs

Fennesz: Bécs
Similar Artists: Eluvium, William Basinski, Steve Roach, Brian Eno
Genre: Isolation, Solitude, Anesthetics
Label: Editions Mego

90% of the time that I’m listening to ambient music, or new age, or any kind of soothing instrumental music for that matter, I’m unconscious — lost in some empty space where only faint remnants of the music can actually reach me. It’s those faint glimmers of warmth that provide a cushion for my dream world though, and they form a rather heavenly landscape for my mind to sanctify in. It’s a means of therapy above all else, as it keeps me in a state of floatation during the nights, and away from any unrelenting demon lurking in my mind who’s seeking for a way in during my weakened state. But as much as this music does provide a sort of safe haven for my mind and is greatly therapeutic, it simultaneously keeps me away from the reality of things, each lulling wave and static frequency pushes me down beneath the surface and into a realm of nothingness. It’s a predicament that I’ve become torn by: do I let myself become haunted by painful memories, or do I live in a fantasy world that eventually leads nowhere? If only I could relieve myself of this ancient fear I possess — one of the afterlife, of death, of suffering — then maybe my mind wouldn’t be such an awful place to succumb to.

Fennesz is an artist who I’ve been living with — both consciously and unconsciously — for quite some time. Endless Summer, his 2001 breakthrough and certifiable electronic classic, ushered me into a new phase of music appreciation. Where it was not uncommon for abstract electronic artists from the time to conjoin disparate genres (in this case, sunshiny, heavily processed guitar and sharp, layered noise), Fennesz was able to make each genre melt into the other, and not in a shoegaze type of way (although that is a noticeable influence as well), but in a way where sounds which would be described as harsh and ugly in isolation actually emanated a resounding calm, and made you re-think the meaning of the word “beautiful”.

Bécs is the apparent sequel to Endless Summer, and since it’s the artist’s first solo long player since 2008’s shade or two darker Black Sea, it’s quite the reason for excitement from an ambient aficionado like myself… Or maybe it’s not, because there has been no real shortage of Fennesz-like music in the past 6 years anyway. Matthew Cooper, whose Eluvium alias gained comparison to Fennesz, and was even hailed as “the American Fennesz” at the start of his career, has released a plentiful amount of serene and intricate soundscapes in that timeframe (including last year’s excellent double album Nightmare Ending); not to mention Christian Fennesz himself has released multiple collaborative albums (often more than one per year), so its hard to say he has truly been missed. Also, it’s not as if the appeal/novelty of his earlier works has worn dry, as I still revisit the likes of Endless Summer frequently, so calling this a sequel which draws from the same sound palette doesn’t do much to further any excitement. Or maybe my slight hesitation in approaching this record stems from being afraid of what extensive listening to this music will continue to do to me, or rather, what it will prevent me from doing in the long term. Do I really need to hide away from the surface anymore? Haven’t I hidden from my anxieties for long enough?

The first thing one notices when listening to Fennesz is how beautiful and intricate and detailed the sounds are, and how they form a mystical, yet never contrived or predictable world. After that feeling has worn off, however, they notice that the feeling it prescribes is truly one of emptiness. This is a strange word for me to use, as Fennesz is an artist I am continually intrigued and fascinated by, but it is not emptiness by way of loneliness that I intend to speak of, but instead emptiness by way of numbingness, and a lack of awareness for the outside world. It is music to initiate the drifting mind; a solitary stoner’s paradise that thrives on antisocial behavior and eventually, a loss of love.

It’s worth mentioning that Bécs does all of this gorgeously, even if it is exactly what one would have expected it to be. Through the 40 or so minute runtime our ears are treated to heavenly guitar strums shrouded in elegant cinematic hues, bright tones and crumbling static that slowly massages the listener into a state of empty bliss. And the thing is, each track does do this in a wholly different way, quite expertly in fact. There is no simple trick at play here, and it’s one of the reasons repeated listens don’t do much to reveal the fogginess of these compositions. Fennesz can use sounds that in isolation are eerie, mournful, perplexing, or even terrifying, but when lumped together they transform into a collage of carefully treated beauty that is as grand to listen to as it is hopeless to live by.

I don’t know exactly what I’m getting at with this review, and it’s because I’m at the crossroads in terms of my musical identity. This is my first review in over 4 months, and while part of my absence has been because I’ve been terribly busy with both work and school, and another has been because of a little something called Dark Souls 2, mostly, it’s because looking at art objectively is not something I feel is possible for me anymore, as my opinion and its meaning changes from day-to-day, listen-to-listen. This means that I didn’t have the chance to write reviews on some of this year’s most notable releases, of which there have been many — including The Body, tUnE-yArDs, Wild Beasts, and The War On Drugs to name a few — but that’s ok, because I’m not sure how I feel about any of them anyway. I’ve expressed this concern before, but I’m now more than ever in speculation about the point of a critic in today’s flooded musical landscape where countless music is released daily that will seldom he heard by but a few ears. What I do know, is that music is not something that can be experienced in isolation from the rest of the world. Contrary to my previous beliefs, music — no matter how original or well-written or well-produced — cannot last without contexts (friends, families, locations, real-world scenarios) and for that reason, it unfortunately cannot be solely listened to on headphones to and from your way to work. It is an element that must be consumed fully and discussed in detail with a range of real life people at concerts, festivals, and bars — not just through nameless online entities. Like myself, music is also in a bit of an existential crisis, trying desperately to adapt to its new set of criteria without outwardly admitting to it. It will survive, undoubtedly, but for now we’re both lost in a sea of information, trying to claw ourselves out and numb the pain with anesthetics all at the same time.

Track Listing:
1.) Static Kings*
2.) The Liar
3.) Liminality*
4.) Pallas Athene
5.) Becs*
6.) Sav
7.) Paroles*

Album Highlight: *

Album Reflection: Marissa Nadler – July

by Rio Toro

Marissa Nadler: July

Similar Artists: Neko Case, Sharon Van Etten, Leonard Cohen

Genre: Folk, Dream-Folk, Singer-Songwriter

Label: Sacred Bones

I’ve been on a mission for what feels like a very long time to find a piece of music that will make me cry. A piece with such resounding emotional intensity that it would cause me to break out into tears. I’m not even being greedy about it; even just one tiny droplet would be enough for me, just so I would have some kind of evidence that would prove an attachment to a piece of music was real, and not just implanted by my previous conceptions. While music does have its other ways of harvesting within me (the internal reaction that tells me when I’m really into a track is usually either goose bumps or uncontrollable laughter) crying I consider to be something different. And as much as “tear-jerker” has become a negative term in some respects, I can’t help but feel that if something can make you cry, it owns a part of you.

I’m not sure what my problem is with accomplishing this mission, because I tend to cry all the time during movies, TV shows and books — so what is it exactly that separates music from those other types of media? Some would say it’s because music is too abstract and open to interpretation; its messages are too muddled to cause most people to cry. Others would say the average length of a song is far too short for that kind of engagement, and although it may be steeped in sadness and mourning, the feeling doesn’t stay with us for a long enough period to build any significant attachment. Another theory is that music is just an extension of the mood we are already feeling, meaning if you are already sad, listening to music can make you sadder, but if you are in your normal state of mind it can only do so much in terms of changing your overall perspective. I’ve come to these as well as various other conclusions through the years to account for my lack of emotional activity, but I still feel that my lack of emotional engagement is somehow my fault: maybe I just haven’t been listening to the lyrics enough, and I just have to concentrate more on what is being said.

Anyway, when I listen to Marissa Nadler I really wish that I could cry along with her deeply passionate tales of woe; for I know I’m not alone when saying that few artists working today have such a deep understanding of sadness. Her stories are ones of entrenching melancholia, starved lovers whose pains grow deeper with age and characters who carry a pervading sense of loneliness with them until death. While her music does indeed cause me to get emotional — from her tenderly sung lyrics, winding acoustic melodies and aching voice — I always become disconnected right before I start to feel something building inside of me, which is frustrating to say the least.

It’s an infuriating process to me — losing track of what’s happening in a song — and it’s the reason that, for the most part, I try to stay away from dissecting lyrics in the first place. Radiohead were the first ones that taught me this, as I used to scurry for hours trying to make sense of a lyric to Pyramid Song or No Surprises with little to no avail. I think the reason this happens is because music — particularly singer-songwriter music — is built out of events that are very personal to the artist’s own life, and as much as the artist may be “giving away” their story when their music is released, I feel a part of it does remain hidden within the artist, and us listeners are left to blindly fill in the blanks.

This is ok though, because we don’t need that extra bit of meaning — in the end it’s the artist that does. Like many of the world’s most prolific artists, Marissa Nadler doesn’t create her art to make a living, but rather, she makes art so she can live. The universe she has created through her 7 full-lengths is her way of sorting through her endless well of emotions, and a way to escape herself as well as any inner turmoils she may be facing. This I feel is what folk music has always been about, and why it has progressed so minimally within the last several decades when compared to other genres. No matter what tag you put in front of it — whether it be freak, or dream, or fuzz — folk has always been about honest, unclouded expression, and Marissa Nadler continues to define that with each passing album. Now it’s our turn to make our own universe.

Track Listing:

1.) Drive*

2.) 1923

3.) Firecrackers

4.) We Are Coming Back*

5.) Dead City Emily*

6.) Was It A Dream

7.) I’ve Got Your Name*

8.) Desire*

9.) Anyone Else

10.) Holiday In

11.) Nothing In My Heart

Album Highlight – *

Album Reflection: Xiu Xiu – Angel Guts: Red Classroom

by Rio Toro

Xiu Xiu: Angel Guts: Red Classroom

Similar Artists: Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, Joy Division, Einstürzende Neubauten

Genre: Post-Punk, Industrial, Synth Pop

Label: Polyvinyl

If you hadn’t noticed upon clicking this page, I’ve changed the name of my posts from “Album Review” to “Album Reflection”, and in case you’re wondering, the reason is because I don’t believe I’ve written what one would call a “review” in quite some time. I haven’t really even been talking much about music in general (at least in its concrete form). Upon this realization, I’ve decided this space is from now on going to be dedicated towards my personal experience with a piece of music. Questions such as “what is the color of this music” and “what does the music look like” are ones I will be looking to address. Still, it will all be taken from my personal perception of the music at hand, as well as the social and cultural environment I happen to hear it in. My goal is to see what intensive listening sessions to particular brands of music will inspire me to write, and interpret whether anything artful comes out of the other end.

This movement has spurred from my inability to explain why music sounds the way it does, or even what it sounds like in the first place. I want to learn how to paint the picture of my experience with an album as vividly as possible; and seeing how everyone hears music in different ways, I believe this is a step in the right direction. I will warn you that there may be some pretentiousness here, so if you’re not into that kind of thing then I suggest you spend your time elsewhere. While under some circumstances I may go back on my word to write an honest to god “album review”, pretty much, you’ll just see a mix of short stories, personal anecdotes, and narrative driven imagery from me from now on. Thanks to anyone who’s followed my writing up to this point.

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A Confession/ A Love Letter:

Xiu Xiu were the band that saved my life, or rather, they were the one that brought me into my truest form. There were acts that preceded them and acts that followed them that all lie somewhere in the ranks of my personal importance, but right now, Xiu Xiu — along with Antony & the Johnsons — lie pretty high up on that list, and I’m not sure where I would be today without them.

Before 2008 — the year I graduated high school — I would say I was (and still am to some degree) an abnormally quiet person. Of course, this was because I was a closeted homosexual; something I would find out was also true about many of my similarly quiet peers years down the road. I remember freshman and sophomore year, walking the halls beneath a veil, screeching alarms firing off in my head to tell me what I should and should not do to assure I would blend inconspicuously into the environment. I was terrified of humiliation, afraid it would rip me apart limb from limb and throw me into exile, causing me to lose the few close friends I had. Like many other struggling gay teens, I first thought it would be a certain substance that would relieve me from my internal pressures, which led me to experimenting with an assortment of uppers, downers and hallucinogens. This process went on for years until I realized the escape it provided wasn’t for me. In fact, It wasn’t until college when I discovered Xiu Xiu — a band who embraced a startlingly bleak and confrontational blend of confessional singer-songwriter and manic post-punk — when I started to realize that maybe it was okay to be as fucked up as I was.

And that’s the thing; as much as mine was a generation more accepting of gays in many ways, I still felt I couldn’t fit into any of the archetypes society had carved out for me. I doubted that any sane person could find my personality to be commendable no matter how tolerant they were, because no matter how hard they seem to be trying, the media still isn’t doing a very good job of showing how tortured the soul of a gay person is. It’s why such a large percentage of gays hate gay themed television shows (Looking) and why almost all of them hate Macklemore. With Xiu Xiu by my side though, it seemed okay, and at times even cool, to have an ugly and disturbing side that I had yet to unleash. The more I thought about it, maybe it was okay to be lustful over one of your closest male friends and think about them erotically every night before falling asleep. Maybe it was okay to want something so bad you were willing to bleed for it. Maybe it was okay to have gender dysmorphia issues, and to have twisted thoughts pop into your head, and to fantasize about who would be at your own funeral. Most of all, maybe it was okay to hate yourself, and to hate everyone around you, including your own family.

I’m dramatizing a bit, to be fair, but in essence it’s all true. Xiu Xiu were a group that took the self loathing elements I always loved from acts like Radiohead and took it to a visceral and painfully honest extreme, somehow helping me realize that maybe being myself wasn’t so bad after all. When many people talk about Xiu Xiu, they talk about how comical certain songs of theirs are; the song “Fabulous Muscles” being the clearest example. When it comes down to it though, I don’t think I’ve ever related to a song as much as I have to that one, as it perfectly encapsulates our tendencies to worship guys we know will never love us back. Jamie Stewart is a lyricist who is capable of so much, and although his words are initially penetrable for their inherent shockingness, repeated listens reveal deep insights, even for non-homosexual listeners.

While it didn’t hit me all at once like that explanation may have seemed, I do attribute the group to have provided me with one big push towards helping me be okay with the outcasted individual I was, and eventually, one that would be proud of it. In celebration of their new album, this is my dedication and love letter towards a group that I consider, quite inarguably, to be groundbreaking. No matter how many more albums Xiu Xiu ends up releasing, I will always listen to them, because as far as I’m concerned, they own my soul.

Track Listing:

1.) Angel Guts:

2.) Archie’s Fades

3.) Stupid In The Dark*

4.) Lawrence Liquors

5.) Black Dick*

6.) New Life Immigration

7.) El Naco*

8.) Adult Friends*

9.) The Silver Platter

10.) Bitter Melon

11.) A Knife In The Sun

12.) Cinthya’s Unisex*

13.) Botanica de Los Angeles

14.) : Red Classroom

Album Highlight – *

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