Music is an alchemy. I believe it is the most advanced technology that we possess. Making air wobble with mathematical precision, so as to vibrate our emotional strings. It is within this mysterious realm where great change can occur.
Making air wobble with mathematical precision, so as to vibrate our emotional strings
My mum just messaged me. She’s bought a new Android Alexa. She says she has tried 10 times to connect it. “I wish you lived closer, so you could sort it,” she says. It dawns on me that she doesn’t want to connect to a cold machine with no heart. She wants to connect with me. She’s 70, and with all that’s going on, I reckon it would be quite scary for anyone at this moment, especially the elderly. My advise to those people is—immerse yourself in music. As Andy Dufresne said in Shawshank Redemption, something along the lines of:
“There are places out there that can be conjured out of thin air. That’s the beauty of music. They can’t get that from you…haven’t you ever felt that way about music?”
With that angle. I start my review.
Music is an alchemy. I believe it is the most advanced technology that we possess. Making air wobble with mathematical precision, so as to vibrate our emotional strings. It is within this mysterious realm where great change can occur. The church knew this overwhelming power and used it to their advantage. A musician usually has a point to make. The listener may interpret an idea however they choose and spread its message and ideology.
Reviews are funny things. How am I supposed to tell you, using words, what something sounds like? Letters From Mouse—a quite simple, childlike term. It serves as a message from the very small. The tiny things we forget in a such magnified existence. In my own personal anxiety and despair, I only have to see a Common Chaffinch in a tree and it refreshes me. I am so very glad that we’ve not fucked this place up so badly (yet) that we can still enjoy birdsong.
The first track “Carnival of Souls,” sends out a similar vibe. Vocal messages such as “Within the Dark, Your Fantasies Get So Out of Hand” and “The World is So Different In The Daylight.” This broadcasts a sign to us. Don’t let the darkness over-shadow you. Stay in the daylight. I need to keep telling myself this, but it’s so hard with all that’s going on around us.
After a 48 second track titled “Before then” ends, we come to “Polkemmet.” There is enough variety and structural change in all the right ways that keeps your ears busy sending you to the wildest of places. This music needs your undivided attention! So please do not listen whilst sat at your laptop reading the news about the plague. Lay down and listen. Put your headphones on. Then, and preferably in darkness or with closed eyes, begin your journey. It is something I will certainly be doing once I’ve finished writing this review, whilst sat at my laptop reading the news about the plague.
The fifth track “Dunkin” is just incredible. I really can’t say anything more about it other than there’s powerful synth work at play. (Have a listen, and watch the video below.)
“So tired” builds and builds. Steady waves softly wash up some gentle percussive sounds. A little longer in and you’re about ready to drift off with the sleepy feeling it promotes, when out breaks one of the most colorful array of melody which ends the track with a very positive vibe.
To forget yourself and shed the ego a little, then the title track is the one for you. Samples mention the small life. The bacteria and the stuff unseen with the naked eye. I am unsure as to what kind of use is of the word proto here. Protomartyr? Prototherian? The album title track has a very playful rotation, in the same way that Plaid did at the end of the 90’s. But there is more to this album than the title track, so in my opinion, don’t go straight for that one.
“It’s not always clear” finishes this album with perfect closure. The fall of the curtain has you leaving the theater slightly confused and recalling your experience. Take from it what you will. Just as long as you’re thinking for yourself then you’re on the right path.
This is new dawn material for me, and now I need to take my own advise and listen to this in silent darkness.
Proto Human is available on Kahvi Collective.
