![]() Still no melody, and as soon as one seems to emerge, we have the return of the chaos, space.Īs Gilles Deleuze wrote of Francis Bacon, “there are no feelings” in space, “there are nothing but affects, that is ‘sensations’ and ‘instincts’. A pattern begins to emerge after a few minutes, perhaps a trace of a 4/4 rhythm coming from one set of trap drums penetrating a fainter 6/8 rhythm from another, the bass physically discernible as a third rhythm. Six instruments (two guitars, a bass guitar, an organ and two sets of trap drums) are tangential relations the more contradictory they sound, the more complimentary the audience finds them. We begin with formless music, “space” as it has been termed in the Grateful Dead lexicon, “whose complete semblance is accepted and imitated by painting” as Hegel points out about musical texture. ![]() ![]() Taking as my starting point a piece such as the Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star”, in which a simple rhythm and melody gradually decomposes, but is sometimes still discernible from one of six instruments, for upwards of twenty minutes. I argue that improvisation is not merely utopian, but at its best, it is the sound of revolution. This is the proverbial “cold stream” of music appreciation, a satisfying exercise but more Apollonian than Dionysian. The other “way of listening”, the one I am proposing here, is a utopian “warm stream” appreciation of improvisation in music. In learning how to listen to music, one is often implicitly taught to predict where a song would go. It is music played together with the audience as active participant by its mere presence. It is my contention that there is a utopian quality in improvised music, that is to say, music that is ‘written on the spot’, or performed live - primarily jazz, rock and bluegrass music. Like the hidden erotica on a Camel cigarette pack, utopian impulses cannot be unseen – or unheard, its mark indelible like ink that will never wash away. Yet, like a mole burrowing away, utopia can be found in the strangest of places, which once apparent become obvious. ![]() More properly, the dream of utopia is a dream we cannot categorize according to the binary of nightmare and “sunshine daydream”. Not always a “good dream”, it can just as well be a nightmare. The dream of utopia is difficult to find. The amount of detail crammed into the record signals that this is a highly deliberate piece of work, where not even the smallest break between riffs was left to chance.Part I: The Ecstatic Configuration and the Dream of Utopia Obviously, the performance aspect is without reproach: everyone is on their absolute A game and everything appears flawless. It doesn’t feel like the members of Utopia are showing off in any way either, I feel like the amount of virtuosity is sufficient in capitalizing on each end that needs an extra kick like that. I’d like to underline that the chaotic mathcore edge and the progressive leaning are sometimes delivered in a manner that’s filled to the brim with technical prowess. It’s a highly eclectic approach to blending styles, yet there’s something about it that feels organic - it just works. Take, for example, the second track, “Full Length Biography”: it starts with an electronically infused, groovy yet dissonant segment, which is then topped off with a crazed frenzy of shrieks, only to dive into some atmospheric stuff which bares some semblance to jazz, only to get back to the whirlwind of chaos at some point. It can be extremely chaotic and brutal, serene and groovy, straight-up progressive madness, sometimes all within the same song. I don’t think I’ve heard anything like this. Then the ornaments and the façade seem to take cues from jazz, and ambient or post-rock. Its fundament definitely lays somewhere between mathcore and metal, while the frame seems to be a progressively inclined thing which also draws a fair deal from sludge. I’m not exaggerating, it’s so much that I’m still having trouble piecing all the threads in my head and honestly, I think I’m going to stop trying. There’s a metric fuckton of things going on in this record. Initially I was tempted to chalk the album to the mathcore area of things, but it’s not that simple. Upon ingesting the record wholly, I caught a fair glimpse at what Stalker and respectively, Utopia is. The album art is fairly abstract and vague, but as soon as I started listening to the first single I knew I was in for an absolute treat. I didn’t know what to expect when I saw this at first. I have to emphasize that this time, I mean it in the superlative sense of the word when I say that this album is fucking wild. I like to use the word ‘wild’ a lot, whether it’s casually or in reviews.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |