Wednesday, May 21, 2014

MP3 REVIEW: Marlo Eggplant “After the Storm” (ilse music)


                I first heard Marlo Eggplant on cassette, then found this album, “After the Storm”, and a work from MOMA for a Name Your Price Download on Bandcamp, though there are at least four other releases by Marlo Eggplant floating around on various Bandcamps as well.   It is in my intention, now hearing Marlo Eggplant for the second time, to review anything and everything that I can with that name attached to it.

                When “After the Storm” begins, there are some random piano crashes, dead air and a quiet, almost humming lull before the piano returns again.  I feel like the piano crashes on some level are the end of the storm and as it gets quiet it could be the calm afterwards, but the fact that they then return kind of throws me off.

                The first part of this being so quiet though is pretty accurate as to what it sounds like after a storm.  When the storm is happening it’s noisy, people are in a panic and if it’s night time some of them can’t even sleep.  I’ve lived through several Houston hurricanes and I can tell you that those few hours or so after it’s all over but before people start coming out of their homes to assess the damage is perhaps the most peaceful you will ever find your neighborhood.

                This becomes thought provoking and almost existential on some levels.   The fourth track brings out some static loops, which sounds almost like punching a clock, and it takes a slow build into the fifth track which sounds like water and almost eerie as well, like Friday the 13th.  

                On some levels, once normalcy can be restored (which does take a while), it doesn’t feel quite the same either—like someone who has gone through some horrific, or at the same time imagine an entire town being burnt to the ground and rebuilt.   

               In those horror movies they show you the events that cause such damage, but rarely do they show you the rebuilding efforts and the after effects.   That is exactly what this piece of music here accomplishes and anyone who has ever been through anything resembling a storm should give it a listen.  

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