Cerberus Vol.3(22)
Featuring Dean Blunt, Noveller, Higher Lows, and Jordan Munson
You’ll have to forgive the abbreviated volume of Cerberus this go-around. As some of you may know, on top of a day job I also edit and write for a board gaming magazine (I happen to write for a few board gaming outlets because I’m a nerd who also likes journalism). I may have also enjoyed a bit of a break recently to do some record shopping because I’m also that kind of nerd.
I’ve also been enjoying Annalee Newitz’s Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age. Their book is a great combination of academia, archeology, and modern history with a narrative flow. And guess what? We’re always doomed to repeat history!
So, let’s not make that mistake by ignoring the parables of these records…
Dean Blunt — Black Metal 2
Blunt has always provoked emotion within his work. Music is but a mere tool to coax some feeling from those who happen upon his pop compositions. But there was a point where Blunt’s work was being blunted by similar melodic tropes and ideas; he wasn’t stagnating, but he was clearly searching for some new meaning in his work.
Along came 2014’s Black Metal, which provided Blunt a close to a particular chapter in his musical career up to that point. His notable collaborations w/ Inga Copeland were ending, and he was releasing much of work via mixtapes and random digital drops. But Black Metal was an adventurous, near rock-and-roll idealism that toyed with the genre without completely dismantling it. Yet it stood in some contrast to Blunt’s more soulful, glitched, and cut-up works before it.
Then Blunt retreated back to the same old drops, always teasing ideas but not fulfilling them with the same reverie and style of yesterday. Now, seven years later, Blunt has dawned the Black Metal mask for its sequel: Black Metal 2. The results are no dissimilar to the first, though a lot of the pop and rock has been stripped bare into a distillation of their most bare elements. “Sketamine” is a simple guitar riff and percussive beat, that if not for the rising and falling strings accompaniment, would be quite sparse. “Nil By Mouth” follows a similar idea, replacing the background strings with vocals that come in and out to add subtle texture to what is a folk rock song with hip-hop propulsion.
Unlike its predecessor, which favored lush, expansive rock inspiration, Black Metal 2 is frequently mixing genres with much of the pomp of those styles being stripped away and scaled back into miniature tunes that can’t muster the energy to go longer than 3 minutes (save album closer, “The Rot,” which is the most realized and fleshed out song).
Noveller — Aphantasia
Sarah Lipstate’s previous works have often taken listeners on journeys of extended patience. Hers is a world of swirling effects and looping phrases, slowly building upon each to create compositions that speak to the grandness of music. Though it may lack harpsichords and powdered wigs, there is something classical about how Lipstate crafts her work.
Aphantasia does not abandon those grandiose and courtly ideas, but it does reduce them down into vignettes that showcase Lipstate’s ability to forego formalities and immediately find the interesting vain in any musical idea. This has been demonstrated by Lipstate’s recent film scoring work (which harkens back to her early days of combining visual elements with her own musical accompaniment). “Rune (for Silent Guitar)” is dense, dark, and cinematic, with what sounds like Lipstate’s heavy breathing providing a percussive blast of wind to the ominous tone of the song.
But other adventures are taking place throughout Aphantasia that document Lipstate’s other musical tangents. “Summer is Heavy” is a track I first heard when stumbling upon one of Lipstate’s videos testing out a new guitar pedal within her already sizable effects arsenal. Lipstate has long been experimenting with pedals, but the song’s immediacy and pop tendencies were striking even in what was a demonstration. It’s not that Lipstate has shied away from creating “catchy” songs, but much of Aphantasia seems to be Lipstate finding enjoyment in exploring notable riffs that immediately find their mark.
Aphantasia may not be a traditional Noveller album, but that’s why it’s quite clever. It’s a snapshot of where Lipstate has been and where she’s going. It’s a fantastic tease of some of the more cinematic work she’s been undertaking (some of her compositions are featured in the recent Anthony Bourdain documentary, Roadrunner), the work she’s been doing creating effect pedal demos and being a notable presence at NAMM (pre-COVID), and her gig as part of Iggy Pop’s touring band. Some of these things were slowed or put on hold due to the pandemic, but Lipstate’s creativity has continued to propel her forward. If anything, here’s hoping that on top of the continued long-form compositions, Lipstate is teased into crafting an album of nothing but 3-minute pop songs.
Higher Lows — Higher Lows
Jon Bernson’s work has spread across multiple musical acts (Exray’s, Window Twins, Ray’s Vast Basement) and outlets (TV, film, etc.) over a two decade career. But nothing has hinted at the lounge lizard effect of Higher Lows.
Using various budget and thrift store Casio keyboards, Bernson has created an album with sweeping dance anthems in the package of bizarro pop. Bernson’s voice cuts through the Casio beats and melodies with a Mark Knopfler quality: direct, droll, and dedicated to the message. Which, you may be surprised to know, Higher Lows’ self-titled has plenty of.
“Fahrenheit 450” speaks about the planetary plight of our ongoing and escalating climate crisis. “Gods of Survival” hints at the ordeal of a homeless person navigating the perils of living on the fringe. Bernson’s juxtaposition of upbeat, canned music as a narration device to tell these stories in the form of pop is never challenged by his musical accompaniment.
In fact, the plastic sheen these instruments provide actually furthers the message. They speak to our disposable consumerism and the subjects in which Bernson has channeled his energies and insights are but some of the victims of this grim outlook. But Bernson’s not trying to pile on, he’s trying to enlighten and enliven by not forgetting those left behind or ignored. It’ll take a few listens to combine these two off-kilter ideas into the robust, cohesive mini-musical Higher Lows provides. But it’s worth those revisits.
Jordan Munson — Make a Killing Year
Munson’s work is the inspiration of having worked with Ellen Fullman while helping at a music festival. Make a Killing Year is not quite the same work as Fullman’s long string, but it does play with resonance and frequency with similar ideas of stretching out sound and finding particular notes and sounds to toy with. Munson achieves this with a broken autoharp and depending on which version you listen to (the Remix has a few more tricks up its sleeves whereas the titular version is just Munson’s instrument), it can take you to differing heights and the lowest of lows.
With either choice, Munson’s work reverberates in one’s bowels, making the soul dislodge a bit. It’s a deep, sinister piece of drone that captures the mood of the pandemic: a pun-inspired portmanteau of the dividing line of the last 18 months between those who made a killing during the pandemic (those who championed the idea that for the economy to continue some should sacrifice themselves for the good of capitalism) and those who were sadly killed due to the pandemic.
Here’s hoping Munson continues to explore the ideas and influences he picked up around Ellen Fullman, eventually freed from the yoke of a pandemic and inspired by the brighter forces he encounters. Yet, Make a Killing Year is a stark, engaging piece that signals Munson as a new idea maker in drone.
Twitter: @genxsaisquoi @cerberuszine
Email: Send submissions, suggestions, and payola schemes to cerberus.zines@gmail.com
