Landscapes For The Mind:
Why even our best music feels unsatisfying.
By Luc Seacroft
The internet & democratisation of technology has opened up the potential for a myriad of creative expressions and aesthetic mastery, it has given everyone - artists and audience alike - the space with which to express and define themselves. Though it has not just made this possible; it has essentially made it compulsory, due in part to the ever increasing role technology plays in our social lives that make engaging with it into a kind of competition. With the tools now at our disposal; the ‘competition” becomes increasingly not about using the tools, but how we use them. Whatever the medium, every new avenue opens up at least ten more variables to get right. Ever increasing choices, definition and quality has arguably left many of us stilted and confused. Music, a vital human expression, particularly seems to have suffered this digital purgatory. There are legitimate questions to be asked about what happens when we fail to navigate this realm of obsfucation and opportunity, and perhaps more crucially, what happens when we succeed.
“Beyond the age of information is the age of choices.”
- Charles Eames
1. Landscapes For The Mind.
Caroline Polachek’s Album ‘Pang’ (2019) is not just a good album, it represents a peak in both visual and musical achievement: The imagery is as sophisticated as it could be and the music is as intricately produced as humanly possible - this is not to say it is good, that is more subjective, but what it is, is the conscious use and logical conclusion of several prevalent “trends” leading up to its release. From the neo art-nouveau designs and “cool” David Rudnick-style typeface used throughout; the visual expression of the Album, in it’s union with heartfelt hyper textural songwriting via the PC Music precision of the production, creates a multi-media sense of cohesion and intentionality that is rarely achieved. It is this precision that makes it important - not the subjective quality of the work. ‘Pang’ forms it’s own audio-visual mythology and inhabits it completely. With this, Polachek represents the new paradigm of recording artist. She is not just a Songwriter, she is supreme commander of the aesthetic.
Even the name ‘Pang’ evokes the mythical quality that the music and imagery creates. The name refers to a pang of hunger (in this case, hunger of emotion) but is likely more than partially chosen on the visual and sonic merits of the word, alone. Polachek is a self described “Formalist”. Formalism emphases compositional elements: experiential qualities like colour, texture or shape over “content” (This is best conceptualised visually, as musical shape and texture is just as real, but far more abstract). With little more than the name itself in mind; “Pang” could easily be a far off land, shrouded in myth and mystery. The stylistic choices of the album - both musically and visually - conjure a blurred sense of temporality. While remaining contemporary and largely synthetic, the album plays with era and eschews it all together; merging the practically medieval with pop modernity, further contributing to the sense that this album is from some mythical world beyond our time and locale.
In a Press Release statement for the Single ‘Door’, Polachek says “I feel totally out of control of most things in the world, but can at least build landscapes for the mind.” - and this is exactly what she does. A major influence for the album’s visual was Steven Meisel’s 1998 Versace Fall/Winter Ad Campaign, a central feature of which is a literal landscape, which Polachek recreates. The visuals are strikingly similar, Polachek seemed to follow the “great artists steal” mentality’ yet she has analysed her influences so astutely that her appropriation feels less like theft and more like an art form unto itself. This well studied aestheticism is the finely chosen application of established artistic language. It is satisfying in it’s superb execution and can hardly be blamed for it’s thievery in a time when so much output already exists, much of which goes unappreciated. In this case it has been put to good use; however it generally lacks vitality because it is so damn specific. The magic(k) of 21st century aesthetic appropriation is pale in comparison to the 20th century randomness it owes its heritage to. This is partly what PC Music (the collective to which ‘Pang’ Producer, Danny L Harle belongs) is: Well studied aestheticism, albeit implemented differently enough to be uncanny or ironic or - in the ultimate statement of meta-irony - not ironic. While this particular use of this approach has been successful, the approach itself might have bleak implications for musical culture generally.
Above: Single Covers from Caroline Polachek’s 2019 Album ‘Pang’
Music conceptualised as a place rather than a monologue or other more standard forms of story telling, effects the very shape of the music itself. Joni Mitchell’s songwriting - which is still very visual - runs on a kind of irreversible time (Debord,1967); songs reach a certain point, then go in directions they would not have before or will not go in again as the events the protagonist goes through changes her and us. Compare this to the modern production-centric approach which conceptualises music first and foremost as a landscape - and one divorced of time at that. It’s a virtual reality style engagement where we slide into a foreign world and have a look around there - the design of the production is now paramount. I place skepticism on this newer perspective not to idolise tradition, but because while this is undoubtedly the modern way (and there is no way back), it is flawed. This point of contention goes back to the 1960s when Phil Spector praised his hit Single ‘Be My Baby’ as a “great story” and dismissed Brian Wilson’s magnum opus, ‘Good Vibrations’, as “an Edit Record”. And in a sense, he is right. It is, as Spector says, not “a great story”. Spector uses cinema as a metaphor, comparing his song to ‘Rebecca’ and The Beach Boys’s to ‘Psycho’, both of which are widely considered great films. ‘Rebecca’ and ‘Be My Baby’ being superior, he argues, on the grounds of being a great Story and not just a spectacular telling of a story, perhaps a lesser story. As an “Edit Record” though, ‘Good Vibrations’ is at the very least, a monumental achievement. it is what it says on the tin: it functions as an abstract vessel for a feeling and sets the stage for the music of the 21st Century; music that is to be judged on purely sensory grounds.
Below: Excerpt from Steven Meisel’s 1998 Versace Fall/Winter campaign
2. The Cultural Landscape.
The extent to which making music this way is a problem, is open to debate. I find popular music - especially albums - to be a sacred, but quite imperfect art form at the best of times. It could afford to be imperfect in the past, when the criteria was not so detailed and the average ear not so finely tuned. Perfection is not a value unto itself; it is a set of values ordered hierarchically: In the past the goal of musical production may have been to capture the recording as cleanly and accurately as possible, leaving the qualitative dimension to the musical and linguistic choices made using the instruments at hand. it is not completely different now, but there are more instruments at hand. The modern recording artist is more like a film director than the songwriters of old; they must act as auteurs, holding - or at least being seen to hold - absolute control over the sum of disparate parts across multiple mediums. This can be partly attributed to the loss of the album as a physical product: without being grounded in an object, the music must find new ways to assert that it exists. Asserting existence means asserting an identity; placing parameters on the idea’s representation so that it may be placed in a cognitive setting where the songs are to live. This is the primary motivation for making music into a “place”. Abstraction, renders quality itself abstract. We have adapted to ever expanding abstraction by using these techniques to house the ethereal content. These “landscapes” - defined by cultural signifiers implemented through production, a trap snare or an electric strum - are in theory a style to simply slip on, in the hope that slipping it on will provide quality. - it will not. We need these Landscapes but we could do with something happening there too.
Being a musician in the 21st Century has necessitated a more sophisticated aesthetic approach for all involved (as has simply being a person). There is almost no escape from having to, not only make good (sigh) content, but display incessantly that every single aspect of an artist’s output means something; even down to how you type (some post updates exclusively in capitals, others use no capitals at all). Only, i am not sure that one does have to make good art, I’m not sure that is much of a consideration. Far more importance it seems, is placed increasingly on the knowing application of cultural signifiers; signifiers of coolness, signifiers of quality - but not quality itself. So much focus is put on the package, on immersive pseudo-coherence; so much focus on the reception of the ideas, that often the actual ideas are disingenuous or not there at all. Maybe we are simply gifted with tools that we are not qualified to use. To some extent, the Aesthetisation of everything is a natural progression of the rule “if it can, then it will”. The desire for meaningful coherence ( now the supreme value ) and the desire for authenticity are intertwining snakes that sometimes clash with one another. “Content” (a disgustingly vapid yet completely understandable term given the circumstances), in it’s attempts to be perfect, can often seem a little airless. Clarity, skill and technical excellence - in and of themselves - do not yield interesting results.
Good Artists know this and will sometimes enlist chaotic, unexpected and emotional help through various means. Perfection - which seems both impossible to achieve and unsatisfactory when we get close - is often countered with the introduction of randomness: Brian Eno embraced “planned accidents” in work on David Bowie’s Berlin trilogy of Albums (1977-1979), using Oblique strategies, A series of cards with instructions (sometimes musical) to be drawn at random, the writer William Burrows popularised the “cut ups” method of cutting up various pieces of text and putting hem together at random. More recently, Mac Demarco used tape and cheap effects on his recordings because he liked the imperfections it threw in, and the inability to edit it enforced upon him. Sooner or later though, the randomness becomes replicable; it becomes an Aesthetic to inhabit and as a result, a commodity.
The aesthetic is hard to escape. Even Lo-Fi music - the purported antithesis of clean and careful presentation - is more of a conscious style than an accidental quality. Mac Demarco is another totemic figure in the recent history of (independent) popular music who, for a Lo-Fi Artist, has achieved incredible fame and influence - or rather his “Aesthetic” has.. The warm and fuzzy analog quality of his recordings became a defining feature of his music and is probably why it has become so influential; with the dreamy-dirty aesthetic providing welcome relief to the all too careful musical landscape that surrounds us. Mac’s later recordings document a different approach, an attempt at simplicity. With virtually no effects, clean recordings and limited layers, his 2017 Album “This Old Dog” leaves us with only the central idea and little to adorn it. The album received less favourable reviews than it’s predecessors, I believe, precisely because of it’s clean and cold execution. The culture embraced Demarco for his charm and warmth - a charm and warmth that they could inhabit by proxy - in an otherwise sterile and humourless time. The Aesthetic he had created had become popularised, paralysed and was clearly running it’s course and much of his audience just as soon rejected him for refusing to dress up his melancholy in any more than it warranted. “Mac Demarco” - which started in the name of unpretentious practicality - became an Aesthetic, synonymous with the man himself.
Above: Mac Demarco in 2015, by Emma Swann.
Below: Google search suggestions for “Mac Demarco”
3. Landscaping The Barren Garden:
The Hyper Aesthetic Approach defines much of the cultural output of the 2010s and is in many ways synonymous with over production; hands going wherever they can and nullifying everything as a result. Over production or overworking an idea, putting layer upon layer on the track or canvas, may sometimes provide novelty but ultimately gives us more variables to get right and does not succeed in covering up whatever is or isn’t underneath it. Goldfrapp, the synth-pop trip-hop duo, are a perfect example of the splendour and trap of the hyper aesthetic approach. Rocket, one of their catchiest songs, has a strong but naive melody and boldly establishes a simple and distinct sound world - yet Allison Goldfrapp herself has denounced it as “too on the nose”. It lacks irony, but that is it’s charm. Her critique of the track is valid but shortsighted; while the track may be “light”, it is a perfectly whole entity, with perfect prosody in it’s unity of medium and message. There is nothing unnecessary about it - it has a point and it makes it. In this regard it is just as strong as their most acclaimed work. What the group generally do is switch dramatically between image and sound “worlds” with each project (something I’m familiar with). Having this as their priority though, has often been at the expense of some of their best ideas; the scene is set but nothing is happening. In my opinion, the “trivial” Rocket is head and shoulders above a song like ‘Everything Is Never Enough’ (the title of which is ironically a perfect summation of it’s flaws). This song from 2017’s ‘Silver Eye’ is highly aesthetically pleasing and thematically in-keeping, but it is about nothing and is not committed enough to it’s non-sense to make this work in its favour. At their finest, Goldfrapp - like many post-2000 artists - create enthralling and original music that touches and delights, and at their weakest they are pure production.
Maybe we are looking to expand the role of good music beyond it’s essential purpose. When even the most acclaimed output doesn’t quite feell right, it’s tempting to ask the question: have we reached the end of (musical) history? The closest thing to the progressive or avant guard in music is not obscurist sound-art, but the semi-parody of Artists like 100 gecs or Ayesha Erotica. As Cultural Critic and Podcaster Anna Kachiyan says, “if being avant-garde until very recently meant spamming the cultural register with transgressive gestures from the Duchampian and later Debordian playbook, today it means something akin to full blown assimilation with the object of critique.” If you can’t beat ‘em, join them. Overwhelmed by the shades on our palette that all look grey, the only signifiers that hold any weight are the ones we already deem trash, only trash is transgressive now. Perhaps as we have become saturated in veneer; “Quality”, as we know it, feels suspicious and light - this is the negative outlook.
In some ways art is hard and only stimulated by imagination; delving into chaos gives us ideas but the, dive is not always enough. Fruitful yet nebulous ideas require conscious shaping - something that many artists struggle with because it is the exact opposite of what they have to do at the start of creativity and the proliferation of options leaves uson less concrete ground. What some artists do then, is overly emphasise a Piece of Art’s aesthetic merits; working to develop the “atmosphere” without sacrificing the potential that was at it’s genesis. Consciousness is in play but as a beautifier, not a judge, resulting in a kind of pseudo perfection. What can happen it seems, is if what is underneath is strong enough, a kind of aesthetic emerges, it may be less sparkly than the ones we choose but it’s probably more durable - this is the positive outlook.
It seems that In conscious pursuit of dazzling aesthetic, there is also conscious pursuit of depth. Superfluity may have given us more scope for artistic “Sin”, as opportunity for depth has come with opportunity for false depth. For every dud produced by a 1970s artist, there are ten contemporary would-be master pieces - works who’s flaws are more insidious and vague, and therefor somehow more offensive. They come across as “sins” and not just “flops” precisely because they should be good, it’s uncanny and uncomfortable. As a result, what we have are copious amounts of well researched impressions of artistic achievement; a culture so cross referential that it is grounded only on rose tinted memory of itself. Even Polachek’s ‘Pang’, the modern Success Story of pop-meaning creation, is a little tainted by how much we are compelled to admire it. As Joni Mitchell says “the trick is if you listen to that music and you see me, you’re not getting anything out of it, if you listen tot that music and you see yourself, it’ll probably make you cry and you’ll learn something about yourself, now you’re getting something out of it”. Sadly these days, we see a lot of the artist and little of our true selves. While there is ample sociological cause, there is still concern. It is our pretensions to darkness and overly cinematic landscapes - only without an actual plot - that has given us well crafted but essentially empty art. Overvaluing the aesthetic leaves us meandering in realm after realm, searching for intrigue only to find ourselves unsatisfied and alone.
References:
Debord, Guy. 1967. Society Of The Spectacle.
"How Old Disney Movies, ‘Magic: The Gathering,’ And PC Music Influenced Caroline Polachek’S Pang". 2019. Pitchfork.Com. https://pitchfork.com/features/moodboard/how-old-disney-movies-magic-the-gathering-and-pc-music-influenced-caroline-polacheks-pang/.
‘Art In The Cloud’ Kachiyan, Anna. 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJCMrwzYjUg.