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Satie
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- #1
- Posted: 02/29/2016 17:12
- Post subject: ALC16 #4: Hymn of the Nephilim by Jónó Mí Ló
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Hymn Of The Nephilim by Jónó Mí Ló
Hymn of the Nephilim is my AOTY at the moment, and so I thought I'd run it by the old forum and get some discussion going on it. I think it captures a lot of the sensibilities and sounds that I try to get out there to a wider swath of the forums. Below is my 2016 Diary entry.
| Satie wrote: | Okay, I think I can be assed to actually give a fuller account of how I feel about this now after listening to it a couple more times. To catch us up again, Jónó Mí Ló, real name Jonathan Lockhart, has put out some of the most ambitious leftfield electronic mixtapes in the past few years, and he really caught my ear with End of Light #3 last year, which really pushed him to the forefront, in my eyes, of the apocalyptic noisy industrial sounds that are coming out lately. Lockhart's previous mix really upped the ante for longform, atmospheric pieces that don't really rely on much on dance music digressions at all. His music is unapologetically dense, introverted, and gradual.
Hymn of the Nephilim is among his latest releases, coming out in January of this year for Trust Magazine. It opens with some kind of sampled radio announcer that vaguely reminds me of Elysia Crampton's use of Spanish radio commentators and advertisements and FM radio tags to generate associations. Lockhart uses them more as a backdrop to slowly be phased out. The central uniting motif of the mix - if we can call it a motif and not a monolithic fucking force front and center - is a thick cloud of noise that's really reminiscent of Maurizio Bianchi's best works. Around this central plane, there is a revolving cast of very novel and gratifying textures. Skittering percussion that sounds like glass beads crossing across a metal floor, sine waves, static pops, and more aggressive percussion from things like helicopter blades are just a few of the sound sources Lockhart employs in the work. Far from being a progression in the traditional sense, Hymn of the Nephilim's structure tends to emphasize focus on the present moment. Any illusions of forward movement are more a result of time passed than themes unpacked. It results in a very dissociative listening experience given that a lot of the viscera that might be expected of noise or industrial music really only phases in to jolt the listener's sense of what exactly is going on. The lull of the static cloud in the center and occasional aberrations on its surface paradoxically make the work very accessible and tantalizing, if a bit inscrutable.
I'm curious if Lockhart intentionally summons visions of a specifically globalized "late capitalist" apocalypse in his music. It's perhaps a bit too tempting to link artists with provocative political imagery associated with their releases (gunshots, sickles and hammers on NON covers, etc.) to the present Moment as articulated in variously dire ways on the Internet by accelerationists, Dark Enlightenment folks, techno-libertarians, etc. I've so far departed from this kind of analysis in the case of NON and NON-affiliates, for example, because I think a general sheen of violent resistance is perhaps a bit too multi-directional to really package up nicely with my own vague impressions of where the zeitgeist is. This release is different, though. That might be because I know that Lockhart is intimately involved with (the founder of?) a Facebook group of which I'm a part that focuses extensively on sort of post-Jogging "alt right" imagery. The general sentiment seems to be a sort of tongue-in-cheek left accelerationism that falls somewhere between irony and sincerity when posting about Donald Trump-ian Juche or the reptilian origins of Hillary Clinton, inhabiting both modes at once in most cases, peeling back the layers of conspiracy theory to reveal a left critique and plan of action in a novel realm as simulated as the reality it references. Thus it's not a straight-ahead subversion of this very tenuous loose collection of "dark" signifiers, but it results in incredibly novel permutations thereof. This mix conjures images, for me, of the kind of New World Order that the far right and far left perceive with different amounts of nuance and creativity in opposing. This would make comparisons to Bianchi even more useful than mere surface-level aesthetic similarity. Bianchi, too, flirted a bit with fascist imagery in an expository way, perhaps most obviously on Symphony for a Genocide, which was pressed with visual and titular motifs relating to Nazi concentration camps. It seems that Lockhart's work exists in a similar space - toying with exposition of the Situation in ways that have dark resonances but as a result shimmer with a possibly revolutionary potential. It is a release to be revisited time and time again if you can manage. |
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- #2
- Posted: 03/01/2016 09:51
- Post subject:
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Oh man great pick Satie. Not too many observations to make that Satie himself hasn't already eloquently put (interesting info on the political side. Might have to look into that a bit more)
To anyone that might be dissuaded by various references to this mix's harshness or overwhelming industrial noisiness: This might be some of the most immediately accessible industrial-bordering-on-noise (+sound collage(ish) stuff abound) I've heard in recent memory. Hazy and intensely atmospheric, and Satie I think perfectly described the experience as dissociative; it definitely cultivates an atmosphere where linear time starts to feel all wonky (and I actively seek out releases that induce such a state so this is gold)
It's kinda like staring at this for a bit
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
ostensibly harsh and mechanical but quickly making way into subtle hypnosis
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RockyRaccoon
Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?
Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: Maryland
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- #3
- Posted: 03/01/2016 15:07
- Post subject:
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I think "monolithic" is a perfect descriptor for this. Satie eloquently described it best above, this noisy static that's constantly there as an anchor for your ears while other variations happen here and there. The whole industrial vibe is great, it sounds all so mechanical but simultaneously captivating. I'll be honest, the 30 minutes of the album went by fast, I never found myself wondering what was next, but rather I was just fascinated by what was happening at that particular moment in time, and because of that, the whole thing blew by. It's a really good noise record, it never gets boring, it's always engaging and it always stays interesting.
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meccalecca
Voice of Reason
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Location: The Land of Enchantment
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- #4
- Posted: 03/01/2016 18:59
- Post subject:
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This is certainly well crafted, with plenty of interesting sonic texturing, but it honestly does nothing for me personally as a listen beyond creating a specific sonic environment that I have little desire to exist within.
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Grzywa
Gender: Male
Location: Polska
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- #5
- Posted: 03/01/2016 21:49
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My first thoughts were like oh god, Metal Machine Music again. However, in the end it did make a compelling listen. It's incessant, and to me it sounds more like a portrait of a war than a revolution. Especially towards the end.
And I don't get a feeling that it's gradual. I actually think it attacks and surrounds you right from the word go.
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Muslim-Bigfoot
Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
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- #6
- Posted: 03/01/2016 23:11
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I wonder what percentage of the people in that facebook group are not in on the irony. It'd be hilarious to observe.
Sounds like my sort of noise music. Will give a listen probably.
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Gender: Female
Age: 38
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- #7
- Posted: 03/02/2016 03:06
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I really love how this moves, lots of varied activity adding the dynamics I crave in this sort of mass of sound. And I'm a big nerd for granular synthesis, and that's like all of this right here. Though there's a couple of sounds that did not work so well for me and took me out of it, some of the stuff with stable grain position + small grain size + higher density graincloud, like the pitch would be too clean and cut thru too much. But it's still a really well paced sound adventure so that's pretty forgivable. It totally gives me an M.B. vibe too, done with more of a contemporary tool set of course. Though I really don't hear the political angle in the music at all here.
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SquishypuffDave
Gender: Male
Age: 33
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- #8
- Posted: 03/02/2016 03:33
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Just here to say that I dig this one a lot.
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Satie
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- #9
- Posted: 03/02/2016 03:48
- Post subject:
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Glad to hear everyone's opinions on this and glad to see the feedback has been mostly positive. Just wanted to reply to a few things.
| Grzywa wrote: | | And I don't get a feeling that it's gradual. I actually think it attacks and surrounds you right from the word go. |
I mean, sure, in some sense, but I guess I was distinguishing it from like harsh noise wall music that is immediately really fucking loud and stays at a similar volume and intensity throughout. The dynamic range here is a bit wider, and there's a sense of development.
| Muslim-Bigfoot wrote: | | I wonder what percentage of the people in that facebook group are not in on the irony. It'd be hilarious to observe. |
It seems to have very few members and they're all within two or three degrees of separation from Lockhart. That kind of self-selectivity makes me err on the side of there being relatively few, but I agree that it would be fun to go through and find people who had ended up there out of a sincere feeling of resonance with their beliefs.
| Tap wrote: | | Though I really don't hear the political angle in the music at all here. |
Thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts. Yeah, I definitely am on the fence there. It was more an interesting aside with some outside context than anything I think I would definitively take from the music on its own.
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