A Review of Veckatimest

In his conversion, the apostle Paul notes how he was once a pharisee and a zealot who violently persecuted early Christians.  These pharisees were known for their strict adherence to law and failure to welcome new ideas.  Paul however, turned his back on his hateful past and his conversion process began after a miraculous encounter with the divine.  What does this have to do with independent rock in 2009?  Bear (!) with me a moment. What I find interesting in this story is the following overlooked passage. After Paul's encounter with God, he says the following, "neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus."  What exactly is in Arabia? Nothing. And that's the point. He sought respite and solace in a place removed from society where he could think, draw inspiration, commune with the divine.  Vecaktimest is one of the Elizabeth islands off the coast of Massachusetts.  Like Arabia, there is nothing there.  Uninhabited, uncontaminated, a small (16 acre) island outside of space and time as it were.  This sets the stage for an album that was inspired by such a place, and "in the end" becomes a sonic sanctuary of inspiration in its own right.

Let's get to the point. The vocals on this album are absolutely gorgeous. Unlike their previous endeavors, every member of Grizzly Bear now shares a vocal role in the music. Having fine tuned the vocals in a church in New York, the reverberation on both Ed Droste's crooning as well as the backup vocals sound quite spiritual at times. On some tracks the melodies are direct and welcoming, but more often they reward the careful listener with subtlety. This isn't to say it's a snoozer however.  The sun-pop sound of tracks like "Two Weeks" will get you out of your seat more than anything Yellow House had to offer. "Two Weeks" in fact is the poppiest, most upbeat song they've written to date, yet this is not to say it's weightless.  It sounds slightly anachronistic, and certainly evokes nostalgia for the pop of a much older time.  Oddly however, it retains an emotional depth that adds plenty of heft.

This isn't the only sound you'll get from Veckatimest. Grizzly Bear pulled no punches and there are touches of psychedelia, folk, funk, and rock among many others.  The sounds are often so interwoven that it's hard to pick them out.  Sonically the album brings in the crisp, plugged in sound from the magnificent Friend EP, yet while on Friend the guitars frequently crescendo into raucous cacophonies, here they are subdued - used to complement the vocals as well as to help shape the soundscapes.  You'll hear the same prominent drumming sections found in "Knife" and "Central and Remote" from Yellow House in Veckatimest's "All We Ask", "Cheerleader" and elsewhere, but despite a few nods to their previous work, this album is undoubtedly a step in a new direction.  

Upon pressing play for the first time, the opener "Southern Point" might make you double check your CD player (or more likely, your iPod) to be sure you didn't fire up the Doors instead of Grizzly Bear - something I definitely didn't expect.  After you've reaffirmed your selection and settled back in your chair you'll quickly notice that Grizzly Bear's penchant for structure changes remains intact. On first listen, "Southern Point" almost sounds like it's going in too many different directions, but the acoustic guitar sections pull things together coherently, and you'll find yourself longing to return to hear the chorus erupt.  From here the album bursts into the piano pop of "Two Weeks" before moving into a quieter mid section that adds substance and character to the album. More patience is required, but it pays off in droves.  Here, the melodies are haunting without bragging about it, and the moments of release after building up tension are very satisfying.  Moving into the second half of the album, things pick up a bit more with "Ready Able" (a personal favorite) devolving into a psychedelic synth crescendo matched with (once again) gorgeous vocals.  Most of us have already been familiar with "While You Wait for the Others", but the studio has been good to it, and if we are going to call it a pop song, I think we might also have to call it one of the greatest pop songs ever written.  It's just... ridiculously brilliant.

On Veckatimest, the music and vocals are very much at the forefront while the lyrics seem to take a back seat.  That's not to say the songs aren't very well written however, from what I can tell (can't seem to find too many published lyrics yet), the song writing has also taken a step forward.  If there is a theme here, it seems to be about the space between lovers and all the uncertainty and emotion that goes with it.  Yet it's more than that.  On "Cheerleader," Droste sings, "I'm cheerleading myself... I should have made it matter... chance is on, nothing changing."  Such sentiments of regret, isolation and futility are not only a nice contrast to some of the more upbeat sounds/words in the album, but they also suggest that more is beyond the surface.  Veckatimest opens with an ending, and ends with a beginning.  The chorus on "Southern Point" declares, "in the end... you'll never find," and the closer explains, "this is... a foreground."  This suggests that as we reach the end, we realize it is only the start of what is to come.  It must be noted how delicate and beautiful this closer is, and just as importantly, what it means to the album.  While Yellow House closed with the open ended question, "what now?" Veckatimest ends with the declaration that this is only the beginning.  To me this describes the album as a whole.  Much of it is a breathtaking, attention grabbing foreground, yet you realize in the fuzzy distance, there exists a place outside of space and time.  As the first words of the album articulate, "Our haven on, the southern point, is calling us."  The album itself calls to us much like Paul's Arabia and Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest.  If we will look beyond, we'll find something astonishing.  This is what Paul must have experienced in Arabia.  Take the trip to Veckatimest and you might find some truly transcendent moments.  

UPDATE:  In my zeal to review this album, I realized a few things.  First of all, I could have written 10 more reviews and none of them would have been similar.  There is a lot to discuss here.  Particularly human frailty ("we all fall through" -While You Wait for the Others, "if we're all faltering" -Fine For Now).  All that aside however, the reason for this update is that the official lyrics are obviously available and as it turns out, I (and the rest of the internet) had the lyrics for Cheerleader dramatically wrong.  The proper chorus is, "I'm shooting them myself, I should've made it matter... God let it go, it doesn't mean a thing... Chance and sow, nothing changing."  These words are immediately much darker, more compelling, and infinitely more interesting artistically than we previous realized.  Chew on that one for a bit.

Untitled

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing.  That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute.  After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die.

"Due to sheer convention we call those things true that we agree to call true.  Then, crucially, we conveniently forget that we have reached this linguistic consensus - in fact, we need to forget to allow our confidence in the language we have agreed upon to exercise its full effect."

I might be wrong

I could have sworn I saw a light

coming on

I used to think

There was no future left at all

I used to think

Start again begin again

...

Nothing at all

What would I do?

What would I do?

If I did not have you?

Open up and let me in

"Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts."

Pessimism?

An experiment by its very nature divorces phenomena from context.  How are we to understand one without the other?  Value free science is an oxymoron, and an attempt to think otherwise is not only mistaken - it is an attack on truth.  Epistemic problems for science are even greater for religion.  Religious attacks on science and vice versa are juvenile, for both are deeply problematic epistemically.  A polemic against science is not a eulogy to religion.  Skepticism of scientific explanation can be quite liberal (as it is in my case).  In any pursuit, there is danger when we embrace our own knowledge to the exclusion of our own ignorance, tragedy, pessimism, and irony.  

"What is the significance of the tragic myth among the Greeks of the best, the strongest, the most courageous period?  And the tremendous phenomenon of the Dionysian - and, born from it, tragedy - what might they signify? - And again: that of which tragedy died, the Socratism of morality, the dialectics, frugality, and cheerfulness of the theoretical man - how now?  might not this very Socratism be a sign of decline, of weariness, of infection, of the anarchical dissolution of the instincts?  And the 'Greek cheerfulness' of the later Greeks - merely the afterglow of the sunset?  The Epicureans' resolve against pessimism - a mere precaution of the afflicted?  And science itself, our science - indeed, what is the significance of all science, viewed as a symptom of life?  For what - worse yet, whence - all science?  How now?  Is the resolve to be so scientific about everything perhaps a kind of fear of, an escape from, pessimism?  A subtle last resort against - truth?  And morally speaking, a sort of cowardice and falseness?  Amorally speaking, a ruse?  O Socrates, Socrates, was that perhaps your secret?  O enigmatic ironist, was that perhaps your - irony?"

--Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

Science has not necessarily attached itself to the absolute blueprint of the nature of reality.  On the contrary, it is often a very poor explanatory tool - successful at predictions, but unsuccessful at truth.  As it conflicts with phenomena, science contributes very little to the meaning of life.  Clock time is not lived time.  The former is a fabrication - an arbitrary social contract to govern (in many cases in brutal fashion) our activities.  We have blurred the line between the two.    

"A long time ago, man would listen in amazement to the sound of regular beats in his chest, never suspecting what they were.  He was unable to identify himself with so alien and unfamiliar an object as the body.  The body was a cage, and inside that cage was something which looked, listened, feared, thought and marvelled; that something, that remainder left over after the body had been accounted for, was the soul.

Today of course, the body is no longer unfamiliar: we know that the beating in our chest is the heart and that the nose is the nozzle of a hose sticking out of the body to take oxygen to the lungs.  The face is nothing but an instrument panel registering all the body mechanisms: digestion, sight, hearing, respiration, thought.

Ever since man has learned to give each part of the body a name, the body has given him less trouble.  He has also learned that the soul is nothing more than the grey matter of the brain in action.  The old duality of body and soul has become shrouded in scientific terminology, and we can laugh at it as merely an obsolete prejudice. 

But just make someone who has fallen in love listen to his stomach rumble, and the unity of body and soul, that lyrical illusion of the age of science, instantly fades away."

--Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

My goal is perhaps much like Nietzsche's was in The Birth of Tragedy - "to look at science in the perspective of the artist" and "at art in that of life."

The Letter Killeth, but the Spirit Giveth Life

Thanks to my friend Hillary, I recently came across this monologue from Nick Cave.  It is absolutely magnificent and must be shared.  I suspect it will be of more interest to those who a) have a penchant for religious thought and/or b) are at least vaguely familiar with Nick Cave.  These however, are certainly not mandatory prerequisites.  I realize few people read my blog, but it would be interesting to hear some thoughts.  

Part 1

Part 2

Veckatimest

Perhaps I'm a bit early on this one, but May 26th is going to be an important day for music this year.  About a week ago, Grizzly Bear announced and titled their highly anticipated follow up to 2006's Yellow House.  The new album will be called Veckatimest, named after an uninhabited island off the coast of Massachusetts.  Before I continue, I must say that I acknowledge the possibility that the new album could be ambitiously mediocre, or downright terrible making the author of this post out to be deeply mistaken.  That said, if any release this year is going to challenge Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion for album of the year it's going to be this one (granted the year is still very young).  Some of the new songs have been kicking around talk shows, radio programs, and live performances for some time now (over a year even) and they have been impressive to say the least.  The songs seem to have in no way compromised the artistic integrity of the band while at the same time, they seem to offer a more direct, accessible feel.  The anticipation for the album is going to (if it hasn't already) reach a fevered pitch by May.  This could be a big break through moment for the band.  As much as I love Merriweather, I'm going to be bold and say that Veckatimest is going to be even better.

As experimental rock albums go, Yellow House was brilliant, yet even after repeated listens, it demands a level of patience from its listeners that few are willing to give.  The aesthetic experiences here are reserved for those willing to put in the time.  I remember upon first listen appreciating the ambition from a distance.  What initially drew me into the album was actually the challenge rather than any immediate connection to the music.  After accepting the challenge, my ears slowly coaxed the album's humanity out from the layers of instruments, voices, and structural U-turns.  One's patience particularly pays off during those moments of direct and disarming beauty (on the fadeout in "Knife" for example - the vocals fade leaving only quiet percussion to decrescendo with plaintive piano chords).  Given the way the band plays with structure, these moments of direct beauty can catch you off guard at times.  The magnificent closer "Colorado" leaves us with the open ended, but perhaps slightly rhetorical question, "what now?"  This question is loaded with uncertainty and must inevitably be answered by the listener.  The obvious answer is, "I don't know."  What this answer means however will vary among listeners.  For some, the "I don't know" will express their inability to connect with the album, their unwillingness to be patient and with a shrug of the shoulders they will pass it by.  For others however, the "I don't know" will express a humble confession.  This confession is the beauty found in the uncertainty of an aesthetic experience.  This, "I don't know" is both devastating and liberating.  It is an end in itself.  The phrase is perhaps all we have to offer when trying to describe the sublime with words.  All great art has this respect for the uncertain in common.  It must be felt more than described.  

In a much less abstract sense however, Grizzly Bear is preparing to offer a different response to the question, "what now?"  The answer is, Veckatimest.  

Higher Quality Pleasures

I'm finding that it can be rather difficult to maintain a blog and get a master's degree at the same time. I've been meaning to contribute a post for weeks now. Apologies aside, here are some thoughts. It starts off dry, but gets better so don't give up after the first couple paragraphs.

In a succinct but powerful quote, Mill provides a penetrative, teleological insight into human nature: "It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied." Less of a formal argument and more of an illustration, the quote describes our capacity, and our proclivity to transcend our base, egoistic desire to satiate the insatiable carnal pleasures. One of Mill's important observations is that we all have some higher pleasures, and that we all have the capacity to pursue them in greater quality and quantity. This seems to block the accusation of elitism to an extent. It seems that a by-product of free society (more accurately as a result of general slothful apathy) is a strong sense of relativism that permeates society. Often we hear the arguments that it's simply a matter of what one prefers in life. One person might like classical music, while another likes Limp Bizkit (sp?... that may have been the first time I have ever typed that, it brings an unpleasant prickle to my palm - like petting a hedgehog against the grain). "It's just a matter of what you like," they say. No objectivity can be proved. Yet the quote still remains, "it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied." Few would disagree with this (unless they're being particularly obtuse). It's true that one particularly human trait is the ability to reflect inwardly. A level of examination, reason, and autonomy is uniquely and exclusively available to human beings. This doesn't necessarily mean that we are required to engage in exercising such a capacity, but at the same time, doing so is a primary component of a meaningful life.

To an extent, this all feels like beating a dead horse (and I will probably just keep beating the poor dead bastard), but I think there are some more interesting things to say about the higher quality pleasures. First of all, a fault of the higher quality pleasure camp is that we tend to think that our particular subjective higher quality pursuits make us more human than others. We fail to recognize that the scope of higher pleasures is rather wide and attempting to rank one higher pleasure higher than another proves to be rather difficult if not impossible. For example, a higher pleasure could be a love of a spouse, a friend, a parent, a child. Indeed what could be higher than love? Yet this is clearly of a different classification than say, a refined taste for art and music (or is it?). The point is that there is an extremely wide range of higher pleasures. The implication however, is that while everyone is capable of higher quality pleasures, they most often will avoid as many as they can.

The reason for this of course is that we have an aversion to pain. Higher quality pleasures cannot be understood or achieved without pain. No one particularly enjoys sitting through a lecture on Kant's transcendental unity of apperception, it doesn't feel good. We don't particularly like staring at an abstract painting. It initially brings confusion and one's immediate reaction is to move on. There is nothing enjoyable about running 5 miles. Your legs ache, your lungs feel like caving in. Writers often say that writing is not particularly enjoyable. It is a very painful process. All of these instances of pain however, lead to a higher quality pleasure and indeed make our lives meaningful. Higher quality pleasures come loaded with constraints. Morality for example is a constraint, though to one who has made a life of cultivating higher quality pleasures, it seems much less constraining. I think this is partially what Christ meant when he taught that "the truth shall make you free." The willingness to confront pain, to sacrifice yourself for something greater, something higher, lifts the burden of constraint and allows one to lead a meaningful life of higher pleasure.

We can take this a bit further. There is a symbolic, aesthetic sense to viewing this struggle. The world at its most basic, scientific level is teeming with violence. Think of evolution, think of basic laws of physics such as friction, think of supernova explosions. Anything that exists is a product of violence - we come into existence through extreme pain, followed by a world of violence that slowly (or in many cases quite quickly) takes its toll until sooner or later we die - a perpetual, cyclical process of creation and destruction. On the one hand it is understandable that we would try to ignore this fact. It can be unsettling, but on a teleological account, it seems that human beings were destined to embrace this truth. It is part of our purpose to exist in a world of violence - yet by this same teleological account, we were given reason, autonomy and an ability to reflect on ourselves. What makes us supremely human is to reconcile both facts of human existence. I find that the works of art that truly speak to me embrace and celebrate this fact. It is both ironic and tragic then, that we decide to ignore these facts and indulge in as many lower quality sensory, carnal pleasures as possible. We run from that which makes life worth living yet the pain is absolutely necessary and unavoidable. Through the conflict, meaning is born. Our higher quality pursuits are a metaphor for existence itself.

All of this said I tend to agree with Mill that individuals are not solely responsible for the neglect of higher pleasure pursuits. It is perhaps more a problem of government, society and the institutions we are affiliated with. It is important to reemphasize that all have the capacity to pursue higher quality pleasures, so it is worth our while to share with those who haven't cultivated very many. This said, it is equally important to share with those who are in constant pursuit of higher pleasures as well, for we all could use a greater insight to a wide range of them. I know I could use more exposure to many more. I also know that these are the very things that make people interesting. When it comes right down to it, the most important character trait that is going to interest me in a possible girlfriend is her pursuit of higher pleasures. The other stuff is important of course, we all need our lower pleasures. Balance is important, but it is the higher quality pleasures that truly make a life meaningful.

In Pitch Dark I go Walking in Your Landscape

He walked through the alley, ruminating over the elongated lampshades surrounding each light shrouded in freezing, grey fog. He thought about dying.  The fog submerged and stifled the traditional morbidity, which typically surrounds the subject.  Approaching the bridge, the Thames stared back at him through the fog like a featureless rift in time.  His eyes sought something, anything discernible.  A ripple, a wave, a fold, a line, anything to which his eyes could hold.  Nothing. Unintimidated he set foot on the bridge unable to look away from the void.  Past experience told him there was a river down there.  

Lyrics echoed in his mind.  "Our bodies floating down the muddy river."  

"A new year," he thought.  "Get in shape, save money, set goals, go to church, kick bad habits."  A wry smile dismissed the cliches into the abyss below.  All but one.  He peered through the fog across the bridge.  Blackness.  The curvature of the bridge led to the afterlife.  To the End.  To the Silent.  Perception and interpretation extend only so far, until there is Nothing.  Did the start of the bridge necessitate the end?  

The fog thickened.  He had walked the bridge many times, but never in such weather.  He knew the bridge carried those who would traverse it carefully and securely to the other side.  He knew if the fog dissipated, he would be able to see a breathtaking cathedral.  "Bad habits," he thought. Habit harbors comfort.  Comfort repels growth.  What could be more habitual than unexamined consciousness?  Self reflection is a uniquely human trait - even more, uniquely ignored.  

Upon his return home, he found his phone ringing.  He fumbled for the light, tried to release himself from the fog and answered.

"Were you asleep?" a female voice on the other end asked.

Sitting and wiping his eyes he ventured, "... yeah, sort of."

Happy New Year everyone.  Rerum Causae is back up and running again.  Lastly, check out this photo.  It is an incredible 360 degree view from atop St. Paul's Cathedral.  Keep in mind there is a statute to this day that no building within a certain radius of the cathedral can be taller than it.  Pretty cool.  I tried to upload a version, highlighting the window of my place, but the file is just too large.  Instead, this post will include a super fun activity entitled "Find Mark's window!"  Here's what you do.  1)  Make sure the photo is enlarged.  2)  Find the Tate Modern (ooo where could it be!?)  3)  Look to the top left of the building to find the words "Tate Modern Collection"  4)  Follow the words to the left and you'll run into a building behind the Tate (my hall of residence!)  5)  Count 3 windows from the lower left corner of the "T" in "Tate Modern Collection"  6)  Revel in the possibility that you found me before someone else.  7)  Continue from now on to do everything I tell you to do, you are now in my power.  Wasn't that fun?