Tilman Robinson - CULTURECIDE

A Closer Listen

Tilman Robinson‘s CULTURECIDE asks all the right questions, without providing answers.  The album asks why we’ve allowed so many bad things to go on for so long: colonialism, climate change, economic inequality, technological dehumanization.  In a way, our species has committed culturecide.  In his native Australia, Robinson grew up hearing that one “people” was better than another, and was told to trust a government that spun its wheels.  Then the whole continent seemed to catch on fire, a deadly metaphor.

From this one might expect an angry album, or a sad one, but instead Robinson has produced a suite of songs that incorporate both harshness and beauty, as if to acknowledge the ugliness while pointing a way forward to a vision of the new world that might be built from the ashes of the old.  As most of the world is using isolation as a tool to battle extinction, now is the perfect time for reflection.

The album begins in urgency, as swift synthetic arpeggios plow forward into a bank of slow bass notes and beats.  The effect is akin to that of a young, energetic activist running headlong into a bureaucracy of red tape and ineptitude.  Neither side gives way.  Nothing changes.

“We Came For Your Riches” contains a timbre akin to chains, providing an aural reminder of servitude; “Bartholemew, Glowing” circles back to a percussive pile of broken glass, acknowledging that society breaks the same things over and over again.  In an unregulated race for the new, we discard the old: languages, cultures, wisdom.  The vicious cycle continues and accelerates.  “Teach Me To Destroy You” is dark and menacing on the surface, a stringed requiem rising underneath, like a delayed apology.

In “Proxy War,” a heavenly choir battles a deep rumble.  The winner is undetermined, although the choir seems to bend a bit halfway.  It’s difficult to sustain energy and optimism in the face of so much darkness.  But then the choir rallies, singing a little bit louder, a little bit higher.  Primordial forces are in play: the raging ocean, the darkness, the light.  The three-note clusters that end the album sound like additional questions:  is Gaia already doomed?  Will we ever learn to care about each other more than ourselves?   How much needs to burn before we notice the fire?  (Richard Allen)

Sat Apr 11 00:01:40 GMT 2020