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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