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Endaural Hour Episode 002
Dancing to Horse Lords
TRACKLIST:
(Excerpt) South Georgia Sacred Harp Singing Convention, Georgia Agrirama, Tifton, Georgia, part 2 (Excerpt) from the South-Central Georgia Folklife Project collection (AFC 1982/010), American Folklife Center, Library of CongressHorse Lords - Mess Mend (5:42)
Horse Lords - Against Gravity (7:49)
d'Eon - Waiting Room (3:09)
James Ferraro - Sim (2:54)
Grimório de Abril - O eremita e o leão (7:00)
Terrestrial Tones - The Sailor (6:32)
Grimório de Abril - The River Used to be a Signal (3:42)
SCRIPT:
Welcome to the Endaural Hour! I'm your host, Alex Tripp.
We'll start today's show with some thoughts on an incredible concert that I recently attended. I saw Horse Lords and the Seattle Sacred Harp singers.
I'm not too familiar with the Sacred Harp style, I'm pretty sure this was my first time seeing a performance. There were 9 singers gathered in an inward facing square, with the audience on the outside, catching whatever spilled out. They sounded loosely organized, and spiritual! Sort of like this:
[Clip of South Georgia Sacred Harp Singing Convention, Georgia Agrirama, Tifton, Georgia, part 2]
The practice originates with New England Protestants, but I was unaware of that at the time, I thought it was an Appalachian thing in the moment. It's one of those social singing activities, where they use shape notes to make the sheet music more accessible. It's generous to the performers, which allows for more individual charms to shine through, the sorts of qualities that could easily end up getting polished out in other singing practices.
But when the group first started performing, I couldn't make sense of *any* individual's presence. I struggled to tease out the separate lines from the total mass of voices. All I could hear was one big sound. I got a bit overwhelmed!
But then I noticed that the performers were all doing these hand movements, to keep time. I couldn't spot any sort of primary timekeeper, and it didn't seem like everyone's movements were always lining up. But I would pick one person and track their action, and then I'd attempt to quietly mimic it in miniature, with my own smaller moves. I was able to listen with my body and physically divide the time, and it was like the music opened up. I was hearing it from the inside, I could take in all the components and appreciate how they functioned together. The individuals were revealed.
I am a big fan of this kind of listening, and I find it's at its best when you can commit with your whole body, with dancing. So it was wonderful to have this mindset engaged at the start, since I was fully prepared to be spending this time marooned from the motion until the headliner came on. Though I can't imagine a lot of concertgoers came in with that mindset, Horse Lords aren't treated like a band that you can dance to. There's a review from Andy Cush for Pitchfork that went as far as saying the band is "more likely to induce thinking about moving your body than actually doing it". But I've found that I do some of my best thinking about Horse Lords when I'm moving my body.
There's been a bunch of music that I've enjoyed in the past 10 years that felt like it represented an ecstatic pursuit of an impossible constancy, with interlocking arrangements of shifting patterns, where their connections seem driven by a goal of creating and celebrating a total oneness that cannot help but evolve over time. The kind of stuff you'd hear from bands like 75 Dollar Bill, or Natural Information Society. I put Horse Lords in with that grouping, but as they continue on, I kind of feel like they just make Horse Lords music. The idea of ecstatic constancy probably still gets at some of what they're doing, but it feels like an increasingly inadequate description, in ways that I'm not sure how to explain.
Let's take a listen to "Mess Mend", from their most recent studio album "Comradely Objects". I don't need to tell you what Horse Lords sounds like. Horse Lords can tell you what they sound like. And when we'll come back, I'll *prove* that it is possible to dance to this.
--------Horse Lords - Mess Mend
And we're back. OK, so you may be thinking, "how could anyone dance to that?". I understand how you might've been thrown at the start. Even though that was totally some rave piano, it was all microtonal or something? And the timing was weird? I can't blame you for getting disoriented. But the pulse of the song kicks in right after! Here, let's take a listen:
[playback of Mess Mend with a max threshold gate applied + some other filtering]
You hear that? That sounds pretty steady. This pulse maintains its pace under the *whole track*, right up to the ending. Let's bring in a little bit of the rest of the music, so that you can hear the way it sits.
[playback of Mess Mend with more of the rest of the music audible]
This sounds like it makes a lot of sense! There's a lot going on between these divisions. But I don't think it's too much trouble to find a way to move through this music, once it's viewed with this emphasis.
[music stops]
OK, I have to come clean about a bit of deception from earlier. When I quoted the Pitchfork review, I took it out of context. The original statement, which was about this very song, said that "“Mess Mend” would *murder* the right dancefloor, perhaps *the first track* of its kind for a band more likely to induce thinking about moving your body than actually doing it". The intention of the statement was that *this track* is actually danceable, so I'm not saying anything different when I say the same . But what *is* the right kind of dancefloor? What aspect of this music requires this special dancefloor? I think it's a reference to parts of the music like this, where you have four beats
[4 beats segment 1]
followed by three beats
[3 beats segment 1]
followed by four beats
[4 beats segment 2]
followed by three beats
[3 beats segment 2]
A lot of people might be saying, 4 + 3, + 4, + 3... that adds up to 14! That's not one of the usual numbers! I might dance wrong if I'm not doing the appropriate division here! Well, guess what? It's always gonna be divisible by 1! Even when the numbers are *more different*. So, why not just focus on that, and then try to see if the music can lead you the rest of the way.
Because if you listen to music with an ear toward its suggestions, where you have an incentive to follow its directions by way of motion, then *even if you make a bad motion*, you'll still have this opportunity to hear the music in a new way. And the world will keep moving, even if you fail! It may sound like I'm asking you to play some kind of Super Mario romhack with totally unforgiving expectations for frame-perfect executions, but so long as you're not knocking over people, it's unlikely that you will bring everything to a stop just from making some mistakes on this.
Ok, let's listen to some of their older material, with an ear toward dancing. Let's listen to "Against Gravity", off of The Common Task.
--------Horse Lords - Against Gravity
Wow, isn't that just the best? So, this track was played at the show, and I was dancing to it! I'd listened to this album a whole bunch, so I already had an intuitive grasp of where the pulse would be appearing. But there was something I noticed during the show, where the drummer was hitting these imaginary drums before he started to hit the actual drums? Maybe I'm showing that I don't know the advanced drumming techniques, some of you all out there might be going "oh my god! she doesn't even know about the secret drums!", but I can't say I'm especially familiar with people doing this. Using the secret drums, I could more easily anticipate where the pulse would be landing, like it was a sneak preview. Through all of my experience with the recordings, as well as this visual cue, I was able to get into some steady movement in no time. But, since I knew this track so well, that also meant that I was immediately anticipating the unison blasts. You know, this part:
[Unison blasts from Against Gravity]
I wasn't sure exactly when it was gonna come in, but I was moving with this absolute readiness to jump into this more rigid time, and when it hit, it was *so satisfying*! I've loved this moment for years now, but I had never felt it the same way I felt it on this night. It's not just entering this moment, but I was ready for the exit, too.
[Exiting unison in Against Gravity]
Having this offramp was a significant part of what made the moment so cool. Let's extract the pulse again, so that I can show you.
[Exiting unison pulse in Against Gravity]
You hear how it picks up the pace? You get the slow knocks, and then the more rapid ones? Here's how that sounds on the rest of the music.
[Exiting unison pulse + the music in Against Gravity]
There is a new steadiness that gets established, and as soon as you can see it, you can grab it. Navigating the music with this access to correct expectations requires a significant familiarity with the band's music, I don't think you'd be able to sight read all of this. But I think this is totally within reach of many of the people who know the music!
Now, I'm not saying I had the easiest time with my intentions of keeping moving. Sometimes I'd lose my footing, and I'd have to try to focus in on one aspect of the percussion, or I'd pay attention to how the individual band members were moving, to find my way back into the music. But I fully believe that my attempts helped me get the most I possibly could out of the experience, and even if it's just something as basic as an attempt at some simple hand moves, like what the Sacred Harp singers do, I think you will find that some cool things can happen if you try and see where the music tells you to move.
Our next two pieces of music will be tied together by their unabashedly artificial sound. So, I have spent many of my days this year with d'Eon's new album, Leviathan. And on Boomkat's recent blurb for the album, they compared it favorably to James Ferraro establishing the Utopian Virtual sound on Far Side Virtual. Now, don't get me wrong here, that is great company to be keeping. But I think the differences between these albums have more meaning than the similarities.
We'll start with "Waiting Room", from d'Eon. The album is full of delights, but one of my favorite bits is the way this track opens with all these instruments, tightly synchronized and establishing the scene with a hint of nervous urgency, but then this one instrument comes in late, stumbles around, like it's awkwardly trying to make its way to its seat while everyone's playing, managing to find it's place and get in sync right at the end of the first section. It's such a good move, and really helps propel things forward in such a fun way, I'm a big fan. We'll take a closer look at that after we get back from the music. After the d'Eon track we'll hear from James Ferraro, with "Sim". You'll know when it comes on, especially once the robot voice starts to welcome you to Sim City. OK let's see how these two sound together!
--------d'Eon - Waiting Room, James Ferraro - Sim
Welcome back! So, let's go back over what I was saying, about the instrument that stumbles in to the d'Eon piece at the start[d'Eon clip 1]That one. I love that one. So, listen again to this portion, where you hear the instrument join in with the rest of everything.[d'Eon clip 2]It's off and then it joins, right here[Emphasize end of d'Eon clip 2]Ok, so that was great, but it gets even better! This trick repeats with this other instrument that comes in, right here[d'Eon clip 3]It feels a bit more sure of itself. And that's like some kind of foreshadowing, because rather than joining the unity, it jumps into a lead role! You'll hear it in this next clip, it drops out for a moment, and then the switch hits, and it is right out front![d'Eon clip 4]I think that kind of thing would be fun no matter what, but the way you have this sureness translating into a lead role, contrasting with the initial stumbler becoming a part of the whole, there's just something about the difference between those two outcomes that makes the whole thing feel extra compelling.
I don't really look for this kind of stuff in the James Ferraro track. And I don't think that's a problem. His album feels like a pure pop experience, like it's all right up front, a perfect little looping thing that keeps getting bigger while it drills into the pleasure center of the brain.
But it's not like that kind of structural difference is the only thing setting these two apart. The artificial nature has a different significance to the meaning of this music. The world of this album has *wifi*, and I wouldn't have the same expectation with d'Eon's. That's not just speculation on my part, Far Side Virtual track 7, "Palm Trees, Wi-Fi and Dream Sushi", look it up, it's in there.
This means that this album is going to have more to offer in the way it speaks to the moment we're living in, right now. *Social Commentary*! I don't know if the specifics of that commentary actually matter, like, there's the main qualities that are indisputably present in the music, simulations of physical realities, global-scale capitalist entities, virtual assistants. But then the way you get to relate that to your own lived reality, that's up to you.
For example, I have a genuine affinity for the way things sound on this album. I remember when it came out, and I heard some people saying stuff like "James Ferraro is trolling people with his musical talent", and I was thinking, what the hell?! I thought we liked it because it sounds good? There's so much *humanity* in the negotiated presence of the initially soulless corporate features, with the agency of the individual coming through in the noise of the mix and the combination of the instruments, it's like they're so deeply integrated into a life that they can't help but be stained with dirt and sweat, making it inseparable from any idea of a spirit. But this interpretation is likely informed by the ways I've made sense of this world, and a change in that could change how I hear this music.
This is the kind of thinking that the album sends me down. The kind of stuff where, if I'm not careful, I might accidentally end up catching a college credit. Less focus on the specific compositional details, more of an overall big picture message. In this way, the artificial nature is integral to the identity of the music.
So, what does d'Eon gain from the blatantly artificial aspect of the music? For my own engagement, I find it's just more inviting this way. d'Eon's work feels like it could be taken to the concert hall and translated to the appropriate physical instruments. But it would gain the weight of the history of those spaces, and I feel like that would be too much of a distraction. In this more modest form, I find that it is easier to focus on the charm of these compositional decisions and access the full joy of appreciating everything that these melodies are doing. This music puts a grin on my face and sets my spirits higher, and I don't think there is any other presentation of this music that could lift me up any more than this.
But anyways, while I clearly disagree with the comparison, I can't be mad at Boomkat for making it. I know I have a tendency to draw connections that may not hold up under scrutiny. For example, there's this amazing label called Municipal K7, you should go back and listen to every single thing they've released, because it's all top notch. Their latest album, from Grimório de Abril, is no exception. Something about what she's doing on this album, the particular way the sounds feel like they're shoulder to shoulder without feeling excessively crowded, the vocals feeling like they're curling upwards and drawing in some texture in the process, the sense of a desire to *go places* being channeled through timbre, it all kind of reminds me of a feeling I'd get with some of the music I was listening to 20 years ago.
So I'll play the first track off this Grimório de Abril album, and then we'll hear something from Terrestrial Tones, an obscure collaboration between Avey Tare from Animal Collective, and Eric Copeland, from Black Dice. I feel like there's a similar crowded sound energy, and something compatible in the vocals as well.
--------Grimório de Abril - O Eremita e O Leão, Terrestrial Tones - The Sailor
And we're back! So, with this comparison, it might feel a bit like I'm going "yeah, it's a huge coincidence, this music that I thought was cool 20 years ago, it's relevant to the cool music that's happening today. Everything I've done just so happens to have left me equipped for this current moment, my past has been constructed in the form of a solid foundation for my present, where no brick has been wasted", like, yeah, how convenient! And even from my perspective, I'd say that it doesn't make sense to look at what these two share as some kind of primary classification, it feels more secondary. I still need to figure out the main context for this new music.
But I still want to say they're both fried in the same kind of oil, even if their recipes are different. Is there a *non*-metaphorical way that this can be explained? Well, there's this noise at the start of the Grimório de Abril track, the thing right here that is not a guitar:
[Grimório de Abril noise sample]
That sound, right there, I feel like that has something in common with the beat on this Terrestrial Tones clip, it's like they're both coaxing something into keeping time rather than directly drawing the divisions.
[Terrestrial Tones beat sample]
Though now that I listen back, those are also pretty starkly different. With the Terrestrial Tones track, there's all the synths.
[Terrestrial Tones synth sample]
And those seem like they're quantized enough for it to get contagious, so that the fully delivered vocals catch it too!
[Terrestrial Tones vocal sample]
And then on the Grimório de Abril track, the coaxed noise percussion isn't quite as prominent, the main drums sound like they are real things getting physically hit, with intention.
[Grimório de Abril drum sample]
You know, actually, there's another one of her tracks that we should listen to, one of the synthy ones. This one probably makes the differences even more stark.
-------Grimório de Abril - The River Used to be a Signal
OK, so I think the evidence is probably going to show that this specific comparison doesn't make that much sense. But I wanted to make it! There's a part of me that really wants there to be some kind of sense to them together. And I think it's good to nurture this part of my music listening. I get how it could be selfish if I was insisting that this was the way that people *had* to understand the music. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't ever reach for these kinds of comparisons, because it's a lot of fun seeing what kinds of thoughts come back.
Well, that's all for this episode. I'll be trying to get these out bi-weekly, so I'll see you again in two weeks, with some more music and thoughts to share. Thanks for listening!
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