This blog started with my attempt to discuss Ocrilim's Annwn, but I realized in the process that I wasn't going to even start to understand the album by just letting it play while creating the blog. Since that time, I've played it 4 or 5 times while working in the lab. A decent amount of the time, my lab activities don't require much of my attention - I'll set up the experiment, and then have periods of 5 minutes while I wait for the system to take the data, then make a small adjustment and do it again. Also, there is a lot of low frequency noise from the equipment. The bulk of the action on this album is in the higher registers, but of course that makes it an incomplete listening experience. In this environment, Annwn works pretty well. The activity keeps the music from ever getting monotonous, but when I do focus on it, it's complexity makes it very interesting and keeps me from getting bored during the tedious parts of my work. So I guess I could describe Annwn as great background music...for the demented.
Today was the first time I ever sat down and listened to the album in its entirety. That's 80 minutes of nothing but 7 tracks of distorted guitar and bass playing abstract compositions. According to the CD case, there are two bass tracks, 2 lead guitar, and 3 main guitar tracks. Most of the time the music is so complicated that I can't pick out the individual lines, and even when it slows down everything seems to just blur into one pulsating wall of sound. I could definitely pick out 1 bass and 3 guitar lines at various points, but I certainly could never differentiate more than that. I don't think it's necessary or even desirable for the listener to be able to do this, but it makes it all the more unfathomable that Mick Barr can compose this stuff.
For the first couple tracks, I was flying through this without a problem. Part 1 is my favorite track on the album at this point (and also the one I know the best), and Part 2 had me in awe of the brilliance of Mick's playing. But each track seemed to over stay its welcome a bit after the 10 minute mark, and by the time Part 3 rolled up, the introspection kicked in. Why do I listen to stuff like this? There's still an hour left. Can I survive that? Thankfully it was only a momentary weakness, because by Part 4 my strength was largely back. There was only one point when my mind wandered to something completely different, and that was the end of Part 6. So I guess I survived.
Part 1 exemplifies what I like most about this album. It starts with each instrument repeating a single note at the same speed, but each instrument is picking the note rapidly so the sound kind of pulses, and it's a really interesting noise. There are various points throughout the album where a certain sound is sustained like that, but Part 1 is the only track that builds the entire piece around it. The sound seems to swell at times. I don't know if it's the strings bending or what, but it's great. This sustained sound has a kind of ambience, and it is periodically interrupted by bouts of Mick's traditional Orthrelm-style shredding. The shredding reappear more and more frequently as the song progresses, until it completely takes over. This interplay is one of the only times in the album where it's pretty easy to see the structure of the song. For some reason, though, there is a point after this where it sounds like the track should logically end, but it continues in a seemingly unrelated way. Maybe Barr just couldn't stand to make such a linear track. Or maybe I haven't listened to it enough to see the connection.
A number of tracks on the album have sections where everything slows down and the music becomes more ambient, and those are the parts that grab me the most. For one thing, they always act as a release since Barr's shredding can really numb your mind after a while. But I also just think it's interesting that he's able to create ambience by layering all these heavily distorted electric guitars over one another. It's hard to hear exactly what he's doing that's creating the effect.
I think it was really helpful that I had let the album wash over me several times before trying to focus on it for 80 minutes, because most of the songs have what I'll loosely call a hook which, if you recognize them, help provide some sort of reference in the general cacophony. Occasional riffs even seem to have an emotional arc to them, similar to some of the catchy yet undeniably-Barr riffs in Krallice songs. The funny thing is, these riffs don't seem to occupy any preferential position in the songs. It's as if it's only by chance that they are less mechanical and alien than the other guitar lines. And that kind of sums up the question that the listener has during the bulk of the album. Does any of this mean anything? Is this a purely experimental exercise meant to inform Barr's future playing, or is it intended to be an actual listening experience? Barr has said in an interview that he wouldn't care about his music if he wasn't the one playing it. Sure, that may be nothing but self-deprecation, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't really pay any attention to how a listener would experience this record.
The only thing that changed this perception was Part 7. I was fully expecting the album to end completely uneventfully, in the same way the previous 75 minutes had progressed, as if to say "I didn't tell you to sit through this". But that's not what happens. Part 7 is by far the most accessible and melodic song on the album. As I result, I actually think it's one of the less interesting, but it sends an important message from Barr. "I know that this album hasn't been the easiest to sit through. But yes, I really do know what I'm doing. Come back for more".
I think I will be.
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