Cerberus Vol.3(20)
Featuring Dolphin Midwives, Arushi Jain, The Reds, Pinks, and Purples, Shuta Hiraki, and Répéter
I’ve continued to fall down the jazz rabbit hole in these past few weeks. It’s a life of crate digging and perusing the Acoustic Sounds website to carefully curate what I might add to my collection on those days when our household budget allows. Welcome to modern life for what’s left of the music-loving middle class. Thankfully, there are other records and styles of music that bring me utter joy, needed respite, and required meditation. I’ve thought about starting a YouTube channel, showing my ugly mug, and running down these finds but eh, that’s too much work.
Speaking of YouTube and videos, here is footage of some sort of guitar camp where J. Mascis and Kevin Shields jam for a couple of minutes (and throw in a quick “Smoke on the Water” riffage) and yeah, you know you want to hear it.
Dolphin Midwives — Body of Water
It’s been covered countless time that pop — for all its Clear Channel algorithmic banality — has countless iterations where expansion and experimentation are possible. Of course, this is possible in just about any genre but most 21st century creatives have yet to return to traditional rock or jazz motifs in an effort to completely reinvent those ideas into endless possibilities, save for a few key examples. Yet, pop music in all its glories is still the fertile area where those with endless imaginations find solace.
Sage Fisher’s latest is the residual effect of this pop-as-experiment resurgence. As Dolphin Midwives, Fisher has transformed voice and harp ideas into unrecognizable, and irreplaceable pop dissonance. Body of Water triples down on her creations, with her lilting voice often obfuscated by modulation and discord. And yet, there’s something very simplistic and unaffected by her continued manipulation. “Bloom” begins with Fisher’s voice wavering by effect before it pierces through the veil to reach Kate Bush heights of emotional weight. The skittering melody also gives way to this angelic voice before strange cuts and glitches obscure it in new, clever ways to throw off the rhythmic expectations.
However, it’s the constrained ideas that stand out on Body of Water. “Fountain” focuses on a beautiful harp melody, minimizing the reversed melody that hides underneath; both playing off each, creating a striking canvas to showcase the reverberating strings until both fade out at different times.
Despite the often disconcerting and unsettling sounds Fisher and producer Tucker Martine coax from Body of Water, it is an uplifting, elegant affair that expands the pop palette, adding a new, vibrant mix of colors.
Shuta Hiraki — 絹雲 Cirrus
Hiraki’s work on Cirrus is striking in its minimalist approach, even to field recordings. The hope is to capture a moment and with it, a feeling. Hiraki does just this, even if the sounds of the Japanese landscape hold their own cultural meaning and inclusion. But Cirrus speaks to how we all internalize sound-as-memory and return to it when we need it most. Having had a basement bedroom for much of my youth, the warm drone of a running furnace in wintertime takes me back to the cool of that basement and the comforting feeling of that hum. The sounds of distant bells and chimes (“Promontory”) or an open, slightly eerie night (“Weir”) provide a glimpse not only into the nostalgic waxing of Hiraki but takes me to places and times that are etched into the code of my internal computer. It’s well worth the journey, especially when in a meditative and contemplative mood.
Répéter — Bad Twang
A moody, swinging western-twinged soundscape greets those adventurous enough to step into the thoroughfare of Répéter’s Bad Twang. This post-Spaghetti Western, part of apocalyptic surf record sits nicely as a continuation of the avant-twang of The Tango Saloon fifteen years removed.
As Répéter, Martin Yul Werner mixes the various iterations of Fender jaguar-influenced music into a plucky town Sheriff, patrolling the rapidly expanded gold rush coast town for the ne’er-d0-wells and con artists who make the (almost) honest living of the town’s other citizens hellish. Bad Twang is all in its name: a dusty, moody record that surveys the broken western landscape of a bygone era and takes it to a modern setting. Now that bandit town is stretched across an interconnected world where every two-bit prospector trolls the high plains of the internet to con good people out of their hard-earned dollars, a song rooted in both the American west and the African north (“Excellency, Black Pyramids!”) speaks to the nature of this world that is closing in.
Bad Twang also operates firmly in the present. Counterfeiters and spam artists conjure great stories of what’s happening out in the wastes and gray areas of the world wide web, such as the digital swamp-romp of “A Lifetime of Broken Dreams”. Bad Twang is the wild west soundtrack of the 21st century, complete with foreboding omens and first-person-looter-shooter gun fights all for the glory of Twitch viewers.
The Reds, Pinks, and Purples — Uncommon Weather
When Glenn Donaldson sings the choral refrain of “Don’t Ever Pray in the Church on My Street”, speaking to the rumors “he cannot repeat” — it’s easy to miss the missive he’s firing off that is all too common due to the continued corruption of religious institutions. But this is the power of Donaldson’s pop: if you’re focused on the melancholy melody, it’s easy to forget the message because it’s convenient to attach one’s own sentimentality to the music.
Uncommon Weather slyly operates in this sector, combining lachrymose songwriting with midtempo pop in the same vein as many 80s college radio heroes (R.E.M., The Cure, The Smiths, and The Ocean Blue to name but oh so few). The familiar twang of a time and place brought forward to speak about modernity and yet, so classic that a song such as “The Biggest Fan” still has the same impact where the narrator chastises another person for claiming to be the fan of a band without being able to name the records. Turns out musical gatekeeping is as old as time, but Donaldson casts his narrator in the wrong by the subtle accusatory tone of song.
This well-worn trip back to a specific pop-rock sound is welcomed, especially with Donaldson’s talents as a composer and songwriter. Considering how Donaldson has dabbled in all forms of psychedelia in the past, this shift toward a Rickenbacker jangle is just the latest and greatest advancement of these explorations. Even if you’re meet with the disdain of Donaldson’s narrators, this is definitely an album full of song titles you’ll forget but you will be its biggest fan.
Arushi Jain — Under the Lilac Sky
The idea of intentional listening is nothing new. However, it’s often been part of musical gatekeeping. Whether this is the dress code and price point of affording an orchestral symphony or the high cost of audiophile stereo equipment, turntables, and vinyl pressings, the idea that something must cost a considerable amount and have strings attached is laughable.
But there is nothing laughable concerning Arushi Jain’s debut, Under the Lilac Sky. The India-born musician asks listeners to listen to her synthetic compositions at sunset. And thanks to digital music that can be streamed on even the most derelict piece of internet-enabled tech, Jain’s work democratizes the process of intentional listening.
The rewards are plentiful. As Jain embraces the remorse she feels as her home country continues to see high tallies of death due to the ongoing consequences of the pandemic, there is a celebration, and spiritual fulfillment that uplifts Under the Lilac Sky. Despite needing some vehicle with which to listen to Jain’s music, she asks us to untether and focus on the time of day and her repurposing Indian classical music, ragas, and our own “western” music conventions for a more holistic purpose.
“Look At How Far We’ve Come” is a symbol of this ambition. It’s a galactic journey directly into the sinking heart of the sunset; an aural interpretation of the burnt oranges, cascading reds, and fading lilacs of the beautiful star that grants us life. Its warmth is represented in Jain’s enveloping tune, her voice acting in place of the celestial body. It’s an uplifting, drifting spiritual that reminds us that in spite of the ruin we’re witnessing, and the attacks from those who wish to oppress us, we have come far even if there are still many kilometers left to trek to reach the highest mountain peak, to touch the sun and kiss its cheek ourselves.
Jain is also unafraid to openly touch the nose of truth. “Cultivating Self Love” is an undulating, pulsating composition that requires us to scan ourselves, to face our fears, and to ultimately believe in ourselves on a daily basis despite the stimuli and obstructions that force off from the path of self-realization. Again, Jain’s work turns heavenward for inspiration as the melody begins to blast off into the deepest reaches of space, taking us back into the star stuff from which we are forged.
Jain’s work is not only a bridge between her native influences and those of the modern western world, but of the heavens and earth. All of it, even in these rough times, speak to the renewal and growth we are able to receive like communion when the sun sets. Every day we have the opportunity to start again — and while that will always be much harder for some, as society gatekeeps who has access to what goods and services that could help them, it is within us to be the sun for someone else’s world out of good faith. This is the power we derive from music — not selfishness, but selflessness.
Twitter: @genxsaisquoi @cerberuszine
Email: Send submissions, suggestions, and payola schemes to cerberus.zines@gmail.com
