A Closer Listen
Richard Skelton never intended his Imperial Valley series to be this relevant. The project was initially inspired by Dorothea Lange’s Dust Bowl photography, captured in rural America during the Great Depression. These albums, originally credited to CF Moore, were a recreated history comprised of field recordings, samples and sombre drone, the initial salvo offered in evocative packaging.
It’s one thing to attempt to reflect the Depression Era, to reflect the plight of migrant workers, to delve into history and art and to honor a bygone era. It’s quite another to realize that there might not be such a thing as American Memory, or even worse, that American memory is split between wealthy white recollections of the way things were (favoring the good ‘ol boys network) and a history that few seem to have learned from and many are willing to repeat. One need look no further than the plans to imprison migrants in Guantanamo Bay and ship others to detention facilities in El Salvador, while blaming them for the nation’s ills. (A recent helicopter crash, according to the current president, was the direct result of hires in diversity, equity and inclusion, three things the current administration is already in the process of dismantling.)
The music of Imperial Valley is slow and ponderous, seemingly without hope; the spoken-word samples are bitter and dour. And yet, in the current climate, one might argue that they are not dour enough. There seems to be no bottom for the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. As the first narrator claims “magical powers make people disappear,” he is not only speaking of physical disappearance, but the ways in which unseen people slip through the cracks. In some instances, conspiracy theories prove to be true; and the old-fashioned talk of “the devil” and “pure evil” beg revisitation. The implied violence is conveyed by harsh cymbals, something rare for the composer, a punctuation of conflict. The next narrator speaks of humanity as God’s mistake, the philosophy of someone who has found the heart of hell on earth. Reverberating guitar chords enter the foreground, cutting through the drone.
Halfway through the opening side, the phase “not just to do something small, but to do something worthwhile” suggests that there may still be some hope, but is swiftly undercut by the next: “I can’t understand people smiling, it’s all beyond me.” It’s not apparent if the sample has been slowed, but the slow speech implies learned helplessness and depression. As the album develops, it becomes a tapestry of voices in fog, pouring their bitterness into handheld microphones, unaware that others will hear them nearly a century later. Is this how they would want to be remembered? Would a single narrator be pleased that nothing has changed?
A folk melody bubbles through in the sixteenth minute, a glimmer of sunlight in the cloud, still not enough; and then a near-silence followed by anger. To those too often disappointed, even a single sunbeam can seem a cruel taunt. Skelton raises the energy level as the first side winds down, as if to encourage the now-deceased narrators to give it one more try; he knows his efforts are in vain. Crickets chirp over a forlorn piano; one side sinks, another rises.
The brass fanfare that opens the second movement is measured and deep, less coronation than funeral. How do despots entice the poorest people to support their causes? By distracting them from the real enemies. In the distance, a rail car passes, a reminder not only of transportation in 1930s America, but of the forced labor that built the rails and the death trains of Nazi Germany. Is it nothing to you, all who pass by? And all the while, the drone, the drone, like a buzzing in the mind, a migraine of limited prospects and taunting thoughts.
If there is any nobility in being broken, Skelton finds it here. By continuing to give his narrators a voice, he highlights the need to listen to today’s lost, indigent and poor. By honoring Depression-era migrant workers, he underlines the importance of all such workers, not only to the economy, but to the patchwork quilt of America. The American memory may not run deep, but the recovery of an honest narrative is crucial to its future prospects. (Richard Allen)
Sat Mar 01 00:01:01 GMT 2025