Artist: Protomartyr
Album: Relatives In Descent (2017)
Label: Domino
Play Time: 43:27
Track Listing (Start Time):
- A Private Understanding (0:00)
- Here Is The Thing (5:18)
- My Children (8:08)
- Caitronia (11:50)
- The Chuckler (13:34)
- Windson Hum (17:18)
- Don't Go To Anacita (21:58)
- Up The Tower (25:11)
- Night-Blooming Cereus (28:50)
- Male Plague (32:15)
- Corpse In Regalia (35:37)
- Half Sister (38:10)
How to write about music? I've never attempted such things, and, since Ive decided to employ SteemIt as a guide through my unknown-unknown words and thoughts, I'll throw visual signs at aural signs, hoping to opera or ballet at the end.
I've decided on a phenomenological account through this album, so if it turns into poetry, we'll call it an extended ekphrasis...
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The album has been playing throughout my lengthy preface. We are midway in "The Chuckler." A fast strumming bass, distorted guitar, baritone voice in a cave or a grove in Norway. Fades already. Too late to catch this song or its lyrics. Protomartyr having been described as literary is prime for lyricism, Id wager.
"Windsor Hum." Horror movies. The sound of that lonely whale up out in the ocean. Something broke and now the guitar is been torn apart in some great black morass. "Want want want want what youre given.... Need need need need what you'll never have." Screaming from the vocalist. He, too, being torn apart in this black morass. The song doesnt fit my fancy too much. Overt anti-materialism is cool and all... But where are the pop melodies and r&b hooks? Thats a joke. And the lyrics hold truth like the Aenid: I need a sense of humor.
A band from Detroit singing about some city in California... It can only be a distrack. & it is! I dream of technology and kombucha. Mostly nightmares of the former and intense callings toward the latter. I feel offended by the song. I should be. Everyone should be. Rock died because of Anacita.
I heard the next song on the radio. The lyrics have little to do with burning libraries, but its a nice image in conjunction. Ive always loved the word "defenestrate" (to throw from a window) and all kings belong in the street.
"Night-Blooming Cereus." A song called after a cacti and said «Youre my favorite.» If youve never seen a cereus blossom at night, I suggest you read the passage below and, then, head out across the sands in search of deities and yourself and bat flowers:
In the old city
In abandoned shells
On a desolated edge
Amid the death of all things
Not under the scornful eye or the corporation's hand
Only in darkness does the flower take hold
It blooms at night
As I drink from my cup of tea,
I remind you to drink water.
My friends and future roommates have arrived.
I turn the volume down.
Listen to the album.