What is the Meaning of Art? Mar 1 – Mar 7
As an annoying car is running its annoying engine outside a window that isn't mine since I'm not home I finish writing about a horrible/beautiful poem about war, as has been my habit, and I'm listening to Jason Molina sing, as is sometimes my habit (these circumstantial aspects may matter) and wonder if art really matters for anything. If we feel loss we then find the art of loss. If we feel love we then find the art of love. If we feel anger or confusion, then we find that art that imitates or alleviates and whatever-ates. Art springs up from the ruin like a new flower, but the house has already fallen. The house is always-already falling. Is the house destined to fall? I digress. What is even the point? I have established a good portion of my adult life on the foundation that there is a point. I write books, I write books about books, I write about music (thank god I don't write music), and I am in the process of translating the most untranslatable book imaginable into Hebrew, have been for the last more than two years. So, all this is the house of CDs I have built on the foundation of art mattering, of giving solace, perhaps, at times, giving strength. So, I wonder – Is that true? Or is it just something we do. Fine, something we do "to stay human" or whatever, but is that any better than, I don't know, being irrationally angry at people? Sucking our thumbs? Chewing at our fingernails? Is it just a bad habit? Was Plato right?
Keep safe.
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A Forest of Stars – "Ascension of the Clowns," from Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface (Post-Black Metal – Prophecy Productions). Art doesn't matter and so this blurb won't matter. I find my soul needlessly attracted to a certain brand of shouted-vocals-am-I-a-poet-person set within a black metal atmosphere, and I guess A Forest of Stars is a founding parent in that tradition, though it goes back to Code too, or whatever. It's a British thing. I like it and the new AFOS is good. Will it save lives currently trapped under heaps of concrete? No.
Leila Abdul-Rauf – "Andros Insidium," from Andros Insidium (Drone/Experimental – 20 Buck Spin). Art doesn't matter so this too doesn't matter. But Leila Abdul-Rauf matters, matters in so many ways, all of which pretty bleak, but, unless you've been missing the point, this is a bleak post. Vastum is the best, it's true, but Abdul-Rauf's output as a solo artist has been even better of late. Yes, recommending a song that depicts rape and emotional and sexual abuse isn't a happy thing. But in a sea of art that doesn't matter, this, I think, does. Also, interesting it's on 20 Buck Spin. It's interesting. But doesn't matter. At all.
Trelldom – "By the Word," from ...By the Word… by (Avant-Garde Black Metal – Prophecy Productions). This is the second straight time I have listened to and written about a new Trelldom album while being temporarily away from home due to war. Which leads me to a) comment to you that if you ever wondered what a music blog written by a person who lives on the mouth of a volcano might look here, there you have it and b) very much appreciate my connection with their meaningless music. All music is meaningless. Sorry. But, if it is meaningless, might as well make it as beautiful and strange as this. The previous album was high on my 2024 list which itself is fascinating. Because I just told you nothing matters and yet here I am linking to past posts and lists because apparently the ego never truly dies.
遠人之歌 – "萬千落木," from 天問 Tianwen (Black Metal – Pest Productions). Again, really, this album will not save a single human life. It might, perhaps, make someone feel a little less terrible, but even that's temporary. The album will end, sleep and night will come, the dreams will come, my daughter might have a nightmare where she's kidnapped with her brother. And she might state thusly in a calm, even curious voice. Which you don't know is how she chooses to do so for your sake, for her sake, or, worst of all, that her soul has been so corrupted by this unlivable place. Whatever, right? Life, right? You take the punches, right? Black metal, what a gift to the world!
This will not be usable for a social media post by the label. Which is a shame. Good people, and cool record. So it goes.
Erbeet Azhak – "Only the Vile Will Remain," from Only the Vile Will Remain (Black Metal – Amor Fati Productions). That festivals still go on, that people still release music is unbelievable to me. Not because they shouldn't or because it doesn't make sense, I live my life too. It's just unbelievable. My kids and their cousins (that's where we're staying, might have to go back home soon because as much as running to the shelter with small children in the middle of the night might suck, family sucks too sometimes – they're lovely, but you can imagine the complexities) made orange juice on the lawn yesterday. We might have heard some distant bangs, but it was a beautiful day. So who the fuck am I to judge anyone doing anything? It's just weird.
Kommodus – "A Cicada's Dreamless Seventeen Year Sleep," from Dreams Of Blossoming Rust (Experimental/Lo-fi Black Metal – Independent). But what about making a statement? Huh? Isn't it my duty to make some kind of statement? Denounce a war of aggression, denounce imperialism, or at vey least denounce the cynical machinations and manipulations that lead whole countries to commit spiritual suicide while bombing other countries? That all seems right to me, it really does. I like all those posts, I share them. All of them right. But this is my page, my pain. Coming here expecting me to make statements – all of which factually correct – is like coming to a person hit by a car and stating that he had fractured his femur in a Data-from-Star-Trek voice. Yes, you are right.
Exhumation – "Subterranean Ways," from Sacred Oath: Temple of Death (Death Metal – Carbonized Records). Art matters exactly nothing, zip, but friendship is still a cool thing. Exhumation aren't my friends, maybe they are, who knows, but I feel like their friend. Both because they're nice and because they're one of the best death metal bands on planet earth. Does it matter? No. Does it give me meaning? No. But at least I'll have a couch to crash on in Indonesia. That might matter some day. Anyway, yeah. Fuck everything. I should mention this is from a split with Funeral Chant and that it's amazing. And means nothing.
Den Edele Dood – "Poisonous Treachery," from The Great Poison from the Stars (Raw Black Metal – Independent). I can't say this doesn't matter. I think Maurice de Jong would have been a spiritual man, a holy man, in some other time. He is attuned to a vibration in the world that most people just aren't. I wrote down the name of the album and it made me think of falling missiles. Which made me think of the great English-Welsh poet David Jones, who wrote of "chemical earth." There's a way of looking into life, just life, and saying: "It's just life." But there's also a way of seeing it as a kind of lived-in mythology. Not of giving it "fake" meaning – so, I know the missiles aren't poison from the sky – but by shifting what is happening in "real life" into a completely different world and maybe finding solace in that. There are, naturally, pitfalls to this idea. Escape from reality, being one. Fetishizing power and tradition, that too. But there's also something in the simple admission that whatever we have may not be enough to survive whatever we're living through. I think there's value in that.
Incandescence – "Confluence," from Hors Temps (Melodic Black Metal – Profound Lore Records). I'll put on my reviewing hat for a sec since I'm tired. I didn't think my current state of mind was one receptive to music of this type. Not that I don't like it, I love Woe, but, I just didn't think it. But this album not only turned me around (in a very non-turning-around moment in life) but I'll just go ahead and say something like "sleeper AOTY candidate). Great drums. Drums always matter. They alone matter.
BONUS: La Torture Des Ténèbres – "The End of Our Memories," from The Final Century (Lo-fi/Experimental Black Metal – Independent). An art-doesn't-matter post seems to not necessitate a "bonus," but a) new LTDT is always a great occasion and b) if there was ever a music that sang the song of nothing matters, this rotting corpse will be cement, and oh-by-the-way I have a soul and memories and pain it's probably them (with Sleepwalkers). Might be her best so far.
FIVE MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
ONE: Portrayal of Guilt are releasing a new album. Two singles out. Doesn't matter.
TWO: Fugazi have released the Albini sessions for In on the Kill Taker, as a benefit for what seems like a lovely organization run by Albini's widow. A wonderful thing that actually matters. Fugazi matters forever.
THREE: New atmospheric and nice split with Au Clair de Lune, Falaise, abriction, øltreluce, to writhe love on her arms, and Vëlhx.
FOUR: I liked this from Eveale (black metal).
FIVE: New Coscradh is nice after a few listens. This track especially.
ONE LAST THING, PROMISE: Keep safe.
