King Vision Ultra’s Pain of Mind uses interviews with prisoners and a schizophrenic to penetrate the power of voice, and Childish Gambino’s “This is America” arranges past and contemporary popular music styles to explore the tensions latent in identity.
The effect of hearing “This is America” for the first time was instantaneous. This was not necessarily because of the music and its video. It was moreso because I was relatively indifferent/annoyed by everything I’ve heard from Childish Gambino in the past (I hadn’t heard his single from 2016, “Redbone”, until after “This is America”). Everything he did seemed clumsily forced. I wasn’t a fan. I still don’t think I am. But what C.G. achieved with “This is America” is a wonderful collage of sounds that really push pop music to its structural brink. Or so one would think.
“This is America” is an overtly political record, and when it comes to its political overtones, I wouldn’t say that there’s much new here (for completely arbitrary reasons, I’m trying to restrict myself to the song, and not reference its visual counterpart). Though C.G.’s political concerns are certainly justified, it’s looking at blackness as an artistic site for expression that interests me most. There’s a lot going on in the song stylistically; sound effects, roots, trap, the lingering sense of a narrative. This breadth of styles, however, are all rooted in an unmistakable blackness. There’s no escaping this feeling. Blackness is the theme keeping this song together, and without that context, I doubt the song would make much sense (one could also say that, without this context, the song probably wouldn’t have been made at all). But the song doesn’t solely rely on this thematic framing. C.G. also finds a stability in its use of contemporary pop tastes. However, this stability is achieved from the sonics of pop music and less so with its structure. Eschewing pop’s typical mechanics, what results is not only a playfulness, but an interesting contrast that not only serves the song’s pop ambitions, but also its political ones. As pop music, “This is America” is willing to accept it’s reliance on the assumptions that come along with the style, but isn’t willing to leave unaddressed. C.G. uses pop music’s sounds, but not so much its delivery. In a lot of ways, this ambiguous, though nevertheless curious and jubilant, outsider perspective to the ways of pop music translates well to the ways in which blackness is presented; a site for both joy and agency, as well as hindrance and pessimism.
Much like the song’s ambiguous positioning through an adoption of and challenge to contemporary pop mechanics,“This is America” doesn’t present blackness as either a strength or a curse. Instead, it finds an intriguing stress in how blackness can both liberate and pacify oneself. Blackness is presented as both a source for hope, and a source of fatalism. But, unlike many of those around him, C.G. doesn’t want to resolve this tension as much as attempt to translate it into art. The song represents this tension through a reliance on certain sound cues, specifically the musical forms that have come to define the black American experience. Through art, C.G. was able to recreate a dialogue concerning the intricacies of being black in America today, while never planting himself in any position other than artist and participant-observer. A messy state of racialized ambiguities represented within the foundation of pop tastes. One of the most elusive singles I’ve ever heard, which makes it all the more gratifying for me.
By pressing the edges of what can be readily recognized as pop, C.G. reinforces the malleability and the openness of the style. “This is America” shows how absorbent, yet definable, a space pop music has created for itself. Before one thinks about challenging its structures, ‘pop’, as a style, has already made a pocket within itself for these new challenges to be absorbed, and accepted, as a part of the ‘pop’ landscape. C.G.’s song doesn’t resist this, but doesn’t succumb to it either. Instead, “This is America” reorients it; the end result is a song that uses the tensions between norm and experimentation, in the musical sense, to delve deeper into the interplay between identity and individuality.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My favourite record of the year is one I’ve only been able to sit through three times (the third of which I felt obliged to, since I wanted to remind myself of it for this review). This isn’t because King Vision Ultra’s Pain of Mind is overly long (it clocks in at a respectable 48:20), or because it has a particularly challenging stylistic take. A lot of it can be attributed somewhat to the subject matter. Pain of Mind intercuts sparse, gritty New York hip-hop production with the testimonies of ex-convicts describing their experiences of prison, and an interview with a person struggling to find the words to describe what it’s like to cope with schizophrenia. Heavy material indeed, but I don’t think it’s exactly this that makes the record so hard for me to listen to. What causes me pause is the masterful way that King Vision Ultra organizes all of this into a cohesive deconstruction of the human voice and the weight we place in its significance.
(Sidenote: I won’t be going into this records musical aspects. This is a decision primarily made for the sake of brevity. The production is fantastic; sparse, neurotic, choppy and abrasive. Perfectly suited to the subject matter. It’s particularly the opening moments that stand out for me. The highly edited voice sample being repurposed as a percussive pulse is a brief, but significant, establishing of what’s to come. But, and it somewhat pains me to say this, the production is certainly secondary to what intrigues me the most with this tape. What you will soon see, if you haven’t already, is that I’m focused on how voice is being presented, and explored, in this project. Because I have so much to say on this topic, I won’t be speaking too much on the brilliant hip-hop instrumentals backing these interviews, instead deciding to leave you with this short paragraph.)
By placing the voice into a space for deconstruction and analysis, a lot of the things we take for granted become less so. This has the potential to result in a disturbing, yet inspiring, appreciation for how the voice, in both its sonic and linguistic characteristics, has always and continues to be the most powerful tool we have yet to come across. How KVU places the voice in such an analytical light is by looking towards the fringe; the ways in which a voice can shape an incredibly hostile, scary and debilitating environment, stripping the voice of all its usefulness and assumed structures. In the testimonies of ex-prisoners, the voice in prison is presented as senseless and loud. Disembodied, the voice becomes something in and of itself, simply a noise. It holds no purpose other than as an environmental buzz, whirling around. Shouts directed at no one and with no response. What is a voice without the intent to communicate? What is a voice whose only purpose is to remind oneself that they have a voice, and know that an anonymous person is forced to listen, though they can never respond? The catharsis of call and response is violated, giving the voice an unearned agency meant to replace the agency forfeited by the prisoners as a result of past actions. It is rendered self-serving, and to be the listener as opposed to the speaker, according to the testimonies on this record, is to experience a sensory bombardment one can do absolutely nothing to remedy. The voice, in this case, is not a source for justified expression, and certainly not a source for conversation. It’s a source of psychiatric trickery and distress. Either you will punish those with ears through relentless shouting, in order, for a moment, to feel as though you’re in control, or you will be the hearer, trying, in futility, to make sense of all this racket. In the former case, it is a brief respite in which one is no longer the prisoner, but the imprisoner. For the hearer, however, it’s soon realized that hell isn’t fire and brimstone, it’s a world of meaninglessness, stunted purpose and loneliness.
In reality, one isn’t one or the other for a very long time. The roles of listener and speaker, much like typical circumstances, oscillate for each and every one, the ensuing parade of noise developing its own momentum, but without the guided context of the everyday world grounding it all. When the voice is placed under such strained compression, removed from any mutually recognized context, and the arbitrariness of language is in full display for all to wonder at, nothing can seem more destabilizing and hopeless than the anxiety realized when their voice means absolutely shit inside a prison cell.
In order to come to such generalizations regarding the voice, KVU makes a provocative comparison between the experiences of prisoners and the internal turmoil of a person diagnosed with schizophrenia. The intimacy is almost too much. Detailing the voices in their head, the interviewee is constantly wavering between the conversation unfolding both outside and within themselves. Pauses, hums, haws, laughs, trembling vocal chords are present throughout their answers, but are without a clear place for those listening. Is the interviewer causing these lapses? Is it that the interviewee is uncomfortable with being recorded? Or are these reactions to something in their head? I won’t pretend to understand the psychological aspects of schizophrenia, but what I am certain of are the social aspects of speech and how schizophrenia throws a wrench into the efficacy, and connection, that language gives us. To be unable to satisfy one’s own questions, to not be understood, to not feel like one can either reciprocate, or be reciprocated, in a discussion, is a frustration beyond comprehension for most of us.
The superficial argument is clear; there’s something deeply unsettling about a voice without place, without context. Even moreso on the surface is the argument that the experience of prison is akin to the experiences of schizophrenia. Though I can understand why one would come away with this latter interpretation, I believe that this comes with more pitfalls, compared to viewing this project more generally [for one, I wouldn’t think, despite all the struggles rightfully associated with it, that someone with schizophrenia would like to be seen as a ‘prisoner’. Looking at the fallout of Shane Dawson’s YouTube series on Jake Paul and the liberal use of ‘sociopathy’ as a tool to diagnose (and characterize) Paul, instead of as a nuanced and diverse psychological condition, we should be careful not to overgeneralize psychological pathologies]. Though I’m relatively certain that KVU intended this project to be a comment on prison, and all the power to them, I implore that this project be understood as extending beyond the evaluation that prison experiences are similar to schizophrenia, and vice versa. This project goes deeper, moreso than any art I’ve encountered, into the dynamics of the voice and the power it has. This is not only because Pain of Mind shows the voice in a different context than we are typically used to, as a site for stress and mayhem. What makes this such a marked achievement is how it presents the voice as such through the best medium we have to make sense of it: the voice.
Like everything powerful, the voice is a double-edged sword in constant motion. Though the content of the words presented are disheartening, there’s no avoiding the fact that the pain caused by the voice is being expressed through voice. It’s in realizing this that I became enamored with this record. What KVU ingeniously displays is how this paradox of the voice is what makes it so socially productive. It is only with the voice that we are able to analyze the voice. This isn’t to say that we will ever make better the dire circumstances presented in Pain of Mind. ‘Talking through it’ could certainly help on an individual basis, but is hardly grounds for coming around to a more generalized idea of how to treat those suffering from the anxieties presented here. Instead, what we’re left with is the fact that, the voice, in whatever time and space, will always be ready to address the problems it has itself created. The ouroboros is not trying to devour itself into non-existence; it devours itself in order so it can continue living, reflecting and adapting to its former self.
My Top 10 Albums of 2018:
1. King Vision Ultra - Pain of Mind (Hip-Hop Instrumental/Collage)
2. Low - Double Negative (Rock)
3. Hermit and the Recluse - Orpheus vs. the Sirens (Hip-Hop)
4. Octavian - SPACEMAN (Hip-Hop)
5. Closet Witch - Closet Witch (Powerviolence)
6. Portrayal of Guilt - Let Pain Be Your Guide (Hardcore)
7. Snail Mail - Lush (Rock)
8. Lolina - The Smoke (Art-Pop)
9. H.I.R.S. Collective - Friends. Lovers. Favorites. (Powerviolence)
10. Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs (Hip-Hop) / Listen on Spotify
10. Dödsrit - Spirit Crusher (Black Metal/Crust)
Honourable Mentions (I take note of records I’d recommend each year, so these are basically ordered on when I heard and noted them)
• Gulfer - Dog Bless (Emo)
• Cardi B - Invasion of Privacy (Hip-Hop)
• 03 Greedo - The Wolf of Grape Street (Hip-Hop)
• Barrio Sur - बड़ा बड़ा शोक (heart break) (Ambient/Rockabilly)
• Playboi Carti - Die Lit (Hip-Hop)
• Jam City - Earthly 000 (Dance/Mix)
• Kanye West - ye (Hip-Hop)
• SOPHIE - Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides (Dance)
• Dedekind Cut - Tahoe (Ambient)
• At the Gates - To Drink from the Night Itself (Death Metal)
• clara! - Reggaetoneras 3 (Dance/Mix)
• YOB - Our Raw Heart (Doom Metal)
• Birds in Row - We Already Lost the World (Hardcore)
• Backwoods Payback - Future Slum (Sludge)
• Channel Tres - Channel Tres EP (Dance)
• Deterioration - Lupara Bianca (Grindcore)
• Mitski - Be the Cowboy (Rock/Pop)
• KEN Mode - Loved (Metal)
• Yves Tumour - Safe in the Hands of Love (Rock/Dance)
• P. Adrix - Àlbum Desconhecido (Dance)
• Gouge Away - Burnt Sugar (Hardcore)
• Christina Vantzou - No. 4 (Ambient/Classical)
• Délétère - De Horae Leprae (Black Metal)
• Terror - Total Retaliation (Hardcore)
• Agrimonia - Awaken (Black Metal/Crust)
• Turnstile - Time & Space (Hardcore)
• Grouper - Grid of Points (Ambient/Singer-Songwriter)
• Armand Hammer - Paraffin (Hip-Hop)
• Evoken - Hypnagogia (Doom Metal)
• 700 Bliss - Spa 700 (Hip-Hop/Dance)
• Tragedy - Fury (Crust)
• Svalbard - It’s Hard to Have Hope (Melodic Hardcore)
• Joyce Manor - Million Dollars to Kill Me (Emo)
• Rolo Tomassi - Time Will Die and Love Will Bury It (Melodic Hardcore)
• Sear Bliss - Letters From the Edge (Black Metal)
• Rosalía - El mal querer (Flamenco/Pop)
No comments:
Post a Comment