summer(isle) thoughts on a spring day
I don't know what to say about the new Anne Laplantine/Momus collaboration Summerisle except that it is one of the most wonderful and challenging things to have hit my ears in a long time. After hearing it, I am convinced that Anne Laplantine might be a genius. And what luck to have Momus supplying his voice, intricately woven into and giving the texture a very human immediacy.
Apparently there is a story behind it all, based loosely on the film Wicker Man. But I find that the story sort of gets in the way of the music itself, which is extraordinarily tightly crafted electronic music made up of snippets of acoustic instruments, speaker hum, field recordings/ambient sound, and of course Momus' voice. Upon listening to it, my first response is that this is an album that is realizing the potential of computers in music, without resorting to tiresome fetishization of the technology itself. I would put the music of Fennesz in this category as well, as some of the best music being made with electronic machines. At the same time, I'm afraid his music is so closely linked to the genre of "laptop music" that it limits him in a way that I don't think Anne is. I also think he worries about the sustainability of the laptop as a musical instrument, but Anne seems to have pushed these worries aside, instead pragmatically using the computer for what it can do, and avoiding its limitations. I think Anne uses a computer, whatever brand it might happen to be, purely as a sound-making tool, like an acoustic instrument. I don't think she's making a conceptual statement about the role of technology in society, she's not talking to the kids who grew up on video games (there are no Pac-Man sounds on this CD, that I could find anyway), and she's not holding up the laptop as a priest holds a crucifix, showing us the one true way in these dark times. Instead she seems to be focusing solely on the sound itself. She is using the machine just as a tool to make sound, in the most enlightened and lovely way, and I can't say enough good things about this CD. And now I'm gushing, so I'll stop.
Interview with Anne on Twisterella here.
Comments
Roddy, I completely agree. This really is Anne's record, and she really is a genius. I gave her some pretty unpromising grunts and vocalisations and she went away and turned them into these fragile contrapuntal compositions which are and are not folk music, and are and are not computer music.
I remember hearing the 'Thyme' track for the first time. Anne was DJing on the sidewalk outside Neue Berliner Initiativ with little plastic record players, and slipped the track into the mix. It was so plaintive, and went so far beyond my expectations, that we hardly noticed that a rainstorm had swept up the street and everyone else had run inside. Despite making something impossible, unsingable and unplayable, Anne really had created a sincere folk song. It's the musical equivalent of reverse-engineering Windows 95 or something.
Even Anne's LiveJournal is startlingly fresh:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/alaplantine/
Posted by: Momus | April 20, 2004 8:06 PM
I remember thinking upon hearing it for the first time, that this is something I really don't understand, and it might be a for-real new thing. And then i just fell in love with the album, and the honeymoon still isn't over.
Yes, I think you're right, I think much of it is really sincere folk, but certainly transcending it at the same time, somehow resolving all of those paradoxes tied up in pop vs art, irony vs sincerity, etc... (as you eloquently said in your last comment).
It's definitely incredible music, thank you both for it.
Posted by: roddy | April 20, 2004 8:24 PM