meditations
I don’t meditate. I spend a lot of time in my own head (even more than usual the last few months, for obvious reasons), and it is, frankly, not always great for me. I suppose meditating wouldn’t be that, exactly, but I think I’d have to push through exactly that. I’d rather set my mind on something, a book, a video game, a program, a proof. Back when I wrote proofs, when I was getting close to figuring out a new one I wouldn’t even be able to sleep; my brain would hold the problem tight in its jaws until it yielded, and other considerations would take a backseat as much as possible. This is a fine form of ego annihilation: at the end you’ve created something.
Sometimes I can give my mind over to something less actively. These songs have that quality for me. They work through one idea and I can settle into it. Some of them contain repeated mantras: Midwife repeats How do I say it?/in every language? for about 4 minutes before finally coming out with I will never forget you. The music is simple and lo-fi, repeating the same figures over and over. It is warm and inviting even while a bit sad, a friend playing the guitar not for you, but with you, your participation extending no farther than listening but that’s all that’s needed for the moment.
In “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” by Broken Social Scene, Emily Haines repeats Used to be one of the rotten ones/and I liked you for that for the first half of the song until shifting to park that car/drop that phone/sleep on the floor/dream about me. One of the first concerts I went to in Cleveland, just a few weeks into the fall semester of my first year of college, was Broken Social Scene with Metric opening. I had only heard one BSS song and hadn’t even heard of Metric, but Pitchfork said You Forgot it in People was one of the best new albums, so I checked it out. The performance of “Anthems…” was amazing and unexpected for me, a band building an idea until we were all caught up in it. I know that some people experience that sort of collective surrender to music when dancing, but for me it’s only ever been during something like that, and I cherish when it happens.
Not every song here is so focused lyrically (really the only other example is Stereolab intoning You and me/are haunted by things/well beyond our acknowledgement for 4 minutes or so), but musically they all have a certain repetitive simplicity. It’s not ambient or drone; we’re getting more than the gentle swells of breathing in and out, but not much more. It’s more like the simple back-and-forth of a rocking chair or a swing set. It engages more than just your autonomic nervous system, but barely, only requiring a soft kick or push at a regular cadence.
By the end even this minimal level of definition is almost erased. Sharon Van Etten works through some relationship questions over a harmonium shifting back-and-forth between two chords, the only rhythm section a timpani/tambourine hit that comes at a steady interval. The vocal lines unfold at their own pace, untethered from even that basic parameter. We end with Julianna Barwick, who completely forgoes percussion, the starting and stopping of vocal loops the only way to track the phases the song passes through until about the halfway mark when a simple bassline joins in.
There, it’s over now. Do you feel more at peace?
Track listing
“Language”, Midwife, Forever
“Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl”, Broken Social Scene, You Forgot it in People
“Praise Be Man”, Russian Circles, Empros
“Anonymous Collective”, Stereolab, Emperor Tomato Ketchup
“Njósnavélin”, Sigur Rós, ()
“Sanctuary”, Ruby Haunt, Blue Hour
“Dinosaur Act”, Low, Things We Lost in the Fire
“Dsharpg”, Sharon Van Etten, Epic
“White Flag”, Julianna Barwick, The Magic Place