Cerberus Vol.3(16)
Featuring … Gendel & Steinbrick/McLaughlin & Weathers/Ned Milligan/MOS-Man
Sorry for the slight delay in this week’s newsletter. You know the drill: work, kids, chores, repairs, delays, excuses, laziness. Though I’m wondering if Tuesday morning drops are better anyway…
But let’s just move onto the good stuff. I’ve been reading two books that are opposites in presentation but equals in terms of introducing Native American artists and work in unique manners. The first is Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band by Christian Staebler. A graphic novel, Redbone does have its faults (some of the art direction, it’s a one-sided story through member Pat Vegas), but it presents a solid juxtaposition between what the members of Redbone endured as entertainers via the Native American movements of the 60s and 70s (largely centered around AIM) in which they were involved. I’m also making my way through When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. It’s a fantastic anthology and often provides some syntax behind not only the authors but those who may have translated or subverted the source materials.
We’ve been playing a lot of the new Chronicles of Crime 1400 and 1900 series. You are free to read my review of both games if you are so inclined. And you should, board games and music are like cheese and wine.
Sam Gendel & Josiah Steinbrick — Mouthfeel/Serene
I was immediately attracted to this weird little avant album for two reasons:
- Sam Gendel is involved, and I’ve already mentioned how much I enjoy his comprehensively huge Fresh Bread (and he was a guest on the recent Carlos Niño & Friends album)
- I have a decade-old demo of a song I wrote titled “Mouth Feel”
Note, my “Mouth Feel” is not nearly as awesome as Steinbrick and Gendel’s. There’s something very Klasky and Csupó about the composition. It’s cartoonish in its sound, skirting free-form jazz and cable television diaspora. Occasionally a foot will end up in the pool of this miasmic brew of strange influences and sounds, with the ripples carrying through like the bleeps and blips of a mature Jonathan Wolff sitcom theme.
“Serene” is far more grounded and literal. The composition boasts the sounds of bustling wind chimes through the gusty wind, creating a magically colorful atmosphere en plein air. Unlike “Mouthfeel”, “Serene” is far more rooted in organic melodies and instrumental ideas. Yet both, despite their disparate ideas, work well together. Perhaps that’s just the parent in me, who spends the days listening to the herding stomps, plops, and wails of children only to surrender to a darkly lit bedroom with a quietly whirring fan at bedtime.
Ned Milligan — Enter Outside
A heavy rain greets listeners as “Lullaby of the Eaves” begins. Amidst the downpour, a lonely chime breaks up the repetitive din of the rainfall, like a bell tolling for a lost soul.
This is but one picture I can paint with my mind when listening to Enter Outside. Similar to the recent work of Claire Rousey, Milligan finds the musical in the seemingly mundane. However, everyday sounds are far from monotone or milquetoast. There’s always been value in listening to nature and heeding its docile or frenetic tones. This is the magic at work on these three tracks.
Go no further than “Pulling Out of the Driveway at Dusk”. How many times have we done this and how often have we taken this moment of potential serenity for granted? Milligan does not waste the moment, capturing the cricket chorus and the hymnal of wind chimes in the warm summer evening. At 11 minutes, this task-as-track becomes something more romantic as it unspools. Not because Milligan changes direction, but rather because the length allows the mind to wander within the composition to lost loves and kind memories. This is the whole of Enter Outside; a suite of subtleties that rekindles our love of the everyday and the wonders it provides.
MOS-Man — Datasette 1530
The work of MOS-Man presupposes the singularity happened during the 8-bit revolution. The idea of computerized plumbers and bulletin boards being and becoming corrupted by a pixelated dystopia is a crafty one indeed.
How it translates to the overarching story of Datasette 1530 is left to one’s imagination. However, the electronic hacking of the retrofuture MOS-Man provides is present throughout Datasette 1530. An angular work of granular synthesizer attacking basic melodies with an automated army of interrupting glitches, Datasette 1530 is an all-out assault on 8-bit-based music.
Despite its modest base, it nearly transcends its own woven story for something grander. “Interlinked” is a dark theme, wavering between cinematic grandiosity and video game monstrosity. It feels like an anthem that is meant for something greater, but its downscaled instrumentation keeps it in the palm of one’s hand: a controller in charge of creating a universe.
Nathan McLaughlin & Andrew Weathers — Mercury
The two-piece Mercury is a stunning work of modern music. Combining ideas of classical and folk, McLaughlin and Weathers create a piece that is as ready for an orchestral hall as it is familiar to the front porches of rural America.
In spite of the brevity of these two tracks (in total they last less than 10 minutes), there is no doubt a sweeping panorama to these works. Though inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s planetary scales and an ode to the first planet of our solar system, there’s something earthly about much of Mercury. It goes beyond the dulcimer and guitar that keep it rooted in clay and mud, but rather it feels like McLaughlin and Weathers are watching the celestial body from afar. Its presence in the night sky, as miniscule as it appears from our humble rock, has its own gravitational pull on its subjects.
Chalk this up to the use of the Hypophrygian diatonic scale. Considering its use in some forms of church music and medieval composition, it provides the mood of ancient earthlings worshipping a planet named after a Roman god. After all, Mercury was the god of eloquence (of which Mercury has plenty) and boundaries (and there is no greater boundary than space). And yet, with all this academic back-bending on my part, it’s truly the homespun nature of Mercury that appeals to me most. No matter if the soil beneath my feet is native or Mercurian, it feels good to step foot on it.
Twitter: @genxsaisquoi @cerberuszine
