on sound

before christmas, all my speakers seemed to be following my own path of slow exhaustion. many words were written, thankfully a portion of them were creatively motivated - but then the writing of creative work, knowing that it will be judged on a 1-100 scale and contribute towards one's degree, end up having the effect of the production of many more words than are actually handed in. add to that the ability, in an appendix, to explain one's creativity (which at first becomes a task, and then a liberty, and finally a monolith), and we have what can only be described as an intensely productive final few weeks. a final few weeks that inflamed the nerves along my left shoulder, up my neck, and behind my eye.

all my speakers started to rattle. there was so much stuff all over my desk, fanning sheets of paper, spilt and molten wax making rivers through empty glasses and mugs, cracked biros as bridges and pivots of vibrating sound. my computer speakers started to sound as if tey were failing, and i believed that they were, such was the sheer amount of shake and (death)rattle that emitted from their radial surroundings. even the keyboard - fairly new and in constant use - shuddered beneath my fingertips, so that i felt the keys before touching them, felt them shudder as i rested a thought upon my hands, and left my fingers tingling and numb after an afternoon typing.

my cd player, who's speakers have always buzzed, ignored the taps that usually put them right; or heeded them for moment or minutes instead of the usual space of time that passed between having to lean over and swing at them again with the back of a pencil. even my record player, who's massive, wooden panasonic's never buzz through sheer weight, somehow became duller through the corner of the mattress, lost the bite of the violins.

but now i am back, and they are back. i sat listening to xela yesterday, and falling asleep half-hallucinating to sunn O))), and the tones were perfect and uninterrupted. it seems obvious that the speakers were not worn out, in the way that you or i are worn out by work, or writing, or running. but we wear it out, all the same. we chose the sounds that will seemingly destruct the atmosphere around us when we haven't the strength to do it ourselves; we produce difficult listening environments with old drafts, empty books and spent pens collecting dust around suffocating speakers. we wear our sound as our coats, freezing as we realise we chose this song for background music rather than something to listen to.



i'm not sure if it's the weather, but the weather has never affected it before - i've been buying a lot of ambient music. now, this isn't the stuff i'm complaining about in the previous paragraph - i don't mean background music, i mean drone music or noise music. there's even something about it that refuses to be background music, jumping into your head through your ears, or sometimes through the eyes.

bj nilsen, earlier tonight, came straight through my ears. there's is a moment, about eleven minutes into the first track on 'the short night', where an enormous bass note swells up and drones on for a good while. by all logical possibilities, the sound of this bass note is so strong and so loud that it seems like it must cross the entire spectrum of sound, not only drowning out all the other frequencies but overcoming them and crowding them into a corner. and this is something that i love about 'the short night' - after a few seconds, above this tremendous deep sound, you can hear the sounds of wind, and the sounds of moving water. it's not as if the wind is anywhere in particular; it could be in the middle of an iced-over lake, or on the top of a factory. wherever it is, it's loud and directionless and strong. the same with the water - at first i thought it was trickling, as in a small waterfall. and then it seems more like a stream, with the sound projecting of the middle of the running water rather than it's conversation with the rocks around; or even a river, with the current jumping to the surface and down into the bed, sliding vertically around corners. it's this type of thing - where thoughts of frequencies are interrupted by actual wind, or, as a counter-argument, the patronising 'relaxation' or 'meditation' or 'background'-ness (any shutting eyes or quiet stereos at quiet parties) is kicked in the face with a long, stubborn drone of agressive, difficult rumble - that i love about this type of music.

a couple of days ago, it came through the eyes, where polmo polpo was playing in the lounge. i got the album on vinyl for christmas, and since the only record player at my parent's house is in the lounge, it was hard to make space for an album who's first side is less than breathtaking. so christmas at my parent's came and went, and on the lounge record player i listened to xela's amazing 'the dead sea' a lot, and to the fuck button's picture disc single (picture discs still scare me), and to moondog's 'snaketime series' when getting ready to go out somewhere - it's a surprise party record. and i listened to the first side of 'like hearts swelling', the polmo polpo record, and then i had to go somewhere or do something.

so it was not until a couple of days ago that i managed to reach the second side, sitting at home, in a lounge that was more my own. i didn't really have any great expectations for it, seeing as how, as i said, the first side was less than spectacular and under his own name, sandro perri's 'tiny mirrors' was nice, but not amazing.

out of the blue comes this side b, and out of that revelation in itself comes a beautiful argument for vinyl. i'm reading camus's 'the plague' at the moment, for a course, and i was reading it then on the sofa. i'm reading about doctors arguing about contagion and quarantine, about rats dying with blood in their mouths and people with pulsating glands but, almost out of my control, i'm seeing this image relating to the polmo polpo record. the last track has a constant rhythm of confused and contrary beats, tribal instruments and looped elelctronic sounds coming together, and while it repeats at a constant pace it is nevertheless cacophonic. and i'm lying on the sofa and i see this loop as a confusion, more precisely the confusion of a city, in the evening when some are still working, and some are trying to get back from work as soon as possible, and others are running in all different directions going to shops and trying to do things before the day closes. cars are stopping and starting, and refusing to start and haulting at traffic lights like an old cartoon, and people are walking too quickly along blocks, bumping into each other, walking in rounds and the squares of the street.

and above it all, on the top of a building, there is a man with a violin, his eyes closed, trying delicately to drown out the confusion below - he sweeps the bow quietly and tentatively, not as if to become louder, but as if to encourage silence to join him in his playing. and then i realise that it's not just one man on the roof, but a quartet, and they're getting ready. they're testing the air with conflicting notes and textures from their instruments in much the same way you would roll a ball of putty in your hands to warm it before sculpting a figure. they're getting ready, and they all start at different times, so it's not a big classical burst: it's a parallel to the city below. they're just as unrhythmic and directionless as the rushing masses on the streets, but the difference is a plea for the aesthetic, for once - even if they are panicing and as confused and uneasy as the rest, they are trying their hardest to sit still, and convey their anger and speed through the vibrations of a bow, the plucking of a string, the shaking of a reed.




bj nilsen - front

polmo polpo - like hearts swelling