Modular and the Power of Suggestion

I stumbled across Modular in the artist recommendation area of Bandcamp one evening while doing the menial but necessary tasks associated with being a band director. Although it was my intention to employ it was background music in my office, it immediately resonated beyond this function. Rather than take note to further vet the album at a later time (as I ususally would), I ended up streaming it in its entirety several times throughout the evening.  It seemed to capture all the epic post-rock grandeur of Tortoise’s best work while paradoxically remaining as intimate as a jazz trio recording. The room seemed to feel empty without it and nothing else really came to mind that could effectively follow it up. 



By the time I was ready to head home, I was sold. I was eager to get Modular in regular rotation, but I was disappointed to find, as is increasingly the case these days, that the album was not available in a CD pressing. Not to be dissuaded by lack of access to my preferred format, I purchased the MP3 album as soon as I got home and in the weeks to follow Modular came to be standard evening music in the household.

I heard a curious balance between improvisation and composition throughout the album that urged me to look deeper into the album’s inner workings. Normally, this would mean combing through the CD liner notes, looking for recording and performance clues. Most MP3 albums are sadly lacking in this regard, but Modular came with a 36 page interactive PDF that implied the album’s scope was much broader than I had suspected.

These “soft” liner notes suggested that Modular was informed by a meticulous data gathering system that used movements of clouds, tectonic activity, water currents, and other natural phenomena. This data was gathered by six analog sound components, each specifically designed to process information from aspects of a given environment. Each track on Modular was somehow based on the data gathered from nature. Beautiful pictures of these components in their respective settings and graphic renderings of acoustic data drove this point home.

I was spellbound by this idea. The components presented in the liner notes seemed functional, and the way in which the data was used added a third dimension to the spectrum of improvisation and composition. There was only one problem:

I could not for the life of me understand how it was done.

I strained my mind's ear with every playing, trying to figure out how the data was being used, but I could account for most of Modular’s sounds within the synergistic musicianship of guitarist Dan Phelps, drummer Matt Chamberlain, and bassist Viktor Krauss.  Were sounds generated from the data and used as backgrounds? Was it used as an organizing principle for the compositions and improvisations? Were there subtle envelope filters draped over the performances informed by the data? Was it in the guitar effects? Was it in the melodic material? The possibilities were endless, and my inability to suss out the truth was maddening.

Finally, after several months, my curiosity got the better of me. I actually contacted Phelps through e-mail and asked him directly how he used the data that he had gathered. He replied in a timely manner and apologetically admitted the “scandalous truth:” the entire data collection aspect of Modular was a fabrication of the graphics team of Nate Manny and Gabe Kerbrat. Although that made more sense than any of the outlandish methods that I had imagined, I was still quietly crushed. I really wanted to believe in the potentials in the proposed Modular method, and I truly felt like the pieces painted a compelling picture of the environments to which they referred.

I was not the only one that felt this. While I was still questioning how much my impressions were informed by the liner notes, my wife picked the track Constellation for her performance art installation. In its earliest iteration, this performance was to take place outside under the stars, and she picked the song out from a lineup of contenders because of a connection she heard with this setting.  Weather restrictions ultimately forced it into our garage, but the change of venue did not constrain the track’s suggestion of the night sky’s vast openness.



Despite having a more conventional creative process than I envisioned, Modular still succeeds at capturing something essential about the natural environments that inspired its concept.  I am left to wonder, however, if this perception is irrevocably influenced by my struggles to decode its "mythos."  As of this writing, I am unsure if the concept drove the music or the music allowed the concept to emerge.  Only Phelps, Chamberlain, and Krauss can really answer this conundrum with any authority.  In either case, the album has survived intense scrutiny and still never fails to engage my attention in terms of both musicianship and concept.  My investigation of and experience with the album caused Modular to emerge as an absolute favorite listen this year.

Racing Around: The Relevance of Roger Waters' Question

As a founding member of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters’ career stretches back nearly five decades. Starting as the band’s bassist and occasional contributer, he emerged as a creative czar, forging a unique and distinctive style. His influence eventually co-opted the band’s identity, which made The Wall, for all intents and purposes, a Waters solo album. His solo albums, for the most part, feature the stylistic standards of this landmark album, which suggests the strength of both his concept and creative control over Pink Floyd at that point in the band's career.

Despite his respectable creativity, Waters has been teetering on anachronism for decades. His 1992 album Amused to Death was impressive, but seemed like an overthought paint-by-number rehash of past work. Beyond that, he has remained visible by performing The Wall and other classic Pink Floyd work in spectacular live productions. New music from Waters simply has not seemed like a priority for quite a while.  I was surprised, then, by the announcement in early 2017 of his new album Is This the Life We Really Want?.

Initially, I was only marginally interested. Amused to Death has barely been off the shelf since it went into my collection twenty-five years ago. Additionally, the first single from Is This the Life We Really Want? felt like a clear attempt to recapture the sounds of Pink Floyd in the glory days, and I was not convinced that I was willing to encourage such nostalgia plays. 

 
I discovered, however, that Waters wooed Nigel Godrich to produce the album. Godrich is best known for his work with Radiohead, and I often like to indulge in thinking that the artistic and commercial successes of both OK Computer and Dark Side of the Moon suggest a shared cultural relevance.  I was further intrigued by the rumors indicating that Godrich wasn’t necessarily a starstruck fan. He was critical of Waters’ solo work, particularly Amused to Death. I speculated that Waters brought Godrich in as fresh ears to help him dodge anachronism.

Godrich’s presence, however, did not have the immediate and obvious impact that I had imagined.  In fact, I was initially surprised at how little Waters innovated. Is This The Life We Really Want? is filled to the brim with Waters most distinctive tropes. In particular, it prominently features his far-reaching interest in musique concrete and found sounds. Waters has always shown interest in the explosive musical impact of glass breaking or the rush of a jet plane racing across the sky. His use of these kinds of sound effects over murmured radio broadcasts and minor key blues grooves is characteristically present throughout the album. 

So Waters was up to his old tricks, and that may seem like a criticism, but in the case of Is This The Life We Really Want? it is actually a backhanded compliment. Repeated listening to the album reveals it to be one of Waters’ most engaging solo efforts, and its success owes a lot to its overt references to his time with Pink Floyd. Perhaps with the band officially done and such a long gap since he took the spotlight with any new material, his identity can sell these allusions as authentic creations rather than overt nostalgia.  And yes, age has etched itself upon his voice, but his distinctive singing has had the the grizzled edge of an old man for a very long time. Any loss of range his voice has suffered is swallowed up in his idiosyncratic style, which has always been driven more strongly by lyric content than clever melody. 

While there are aspects of Waters’ unique musicianship that could garner criticism, he is inarguably a brilliant conceptualist. Lyrically, Is This the Life We Really Want? plays out like a collection of related songs connected to the question posed by the album’s title. This runs counter to Waters’ usual craft with linear narrative, but it gives him the freedom to circle around this question and examine it from a variety of angles.

Looking back on Waters’ career, he has always seemed more relevant when the cultural climate leans toward conservatism, and this also works to the album’s advantage. It seems as if time has raced around to come up behind him again. Is This the Life We Really Want? is clearly informed by and framed in the age of Trump and Brexit, and Waters’ characteristically blunt approach to political commentary feels pertinent as a reaction to the times in which we find ourselves. Not only is the album relevant, but the question that it asks is relevant, and the straightforward way in which Waters examines this question might make the album one of his more important statements.