Inspiration comes in the the most peculiar ways. I was listening to Iceland-via-Australia artist and producer Ben Frost, who is playing the highly anticipated Big Ears Festival next weekend in Knoxville, and I ran across a comment from a young woman named Sybilla Poortman on Last.fm for the track "Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water" from his 2006 album Theory of Machines. She said of the song, "I want this played at my funeral, awesome stuff." That gave me an idea. Try out a new feature about songs you would want played at your funeral. I had Sybilla try out for the first cut to see if this peculiar inspiration could actually work as an interesting topic of conversation and I think she did a magnificent job. I present you with the first edition of TMC Requiem for Ben Frost's "Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water".
Danny Perkins wrote this as an introduction to my post as a guest contributor on his music site 'The Milk Carton'. Here's what I penned down:
It’s all about intensity, whether I listen to Verdi or Muhly, Joni or Jónsi, Swans or Joy Division. I’d like to thank Danny for giving me the opportunity to write on music once again, as it’s been years since I penned my last review for an underground music mag called Fake. I had the privilege to interview musicians like Jim O’Rourke, Oren Ambarchi, AMM & Felix Kubin – all of them still among the best in their field.
I’ve seen Ben Frost perform live twice and was quite literally blown away by the sheer intensity and power of his music. It invades all senses simultaneously and is not for the faint-hearted. Sounds that will resonate inside your ears, your mind, your body. Taking nothing for granted, Frost is always engaged (as well as engaging), questioning and pushing boundaries.
This kind of music is sometimes referred to as noise and that’s fine with me. Noise to me means hearing music in everyday sounds and enhancing it. Appreciating it is a gift of the senses, like being able to distinguish new, meaningful forms in things that have been broken, torn apart, or crammed together. It’s discovering new meanings in ideas that have been rejected or misunderstood.
Why would these sounds be fitting for a funeral, my funeral? There are two sides to that question. Of course you would pick music that meant a lot to you for your own funeral (if you get the chance to pick it). But on the other hand, you wouldn’t be around to enjoy it, would you? So choosing that particular music is a message to the ones you leave behind as well. And the last thing you want is to send them away screaming in terror because of the auditory onslaught you condemned them to suffer.
‘Forgetting You is Like Breathing Water’ grants us the best of both worlds. It combines a ‘noise ethic’ with a wonderful ear for gorgeous sounds. It’s everything the title implies: “I would choke & drown when I try to forget you”. The elements and nature in all its raw and unsurpassed beauty are very important in Frost’s oeuvre, as is the notion of breathing, in nature and through the elements. Breathing air means life, breathing water means death. Breathing fire means creation. Ashes are beginning as well as end. The cycles of nature should run their course so that we will never forget.
The piece enfolds like a procession march, unrelentingly building up through sustained rich drones that solemnly ascend in slow motion (an acquaintance of mine who teaches music at UCLA recalled Stravinsky’s Orpheus upon hearing it). There’s chiming electronics at first, with a heartbeat drum pulsating throughout. Then the heartbeat fades and gives way to grief as acoustic strings take over, surrendering to a majestic, thankful kind of grace that urges us to remember - and move on.
Posted first on The Milk Carton
No comments:
Post a Comment