CEM - FORMA

A Closer Listen

FORMA is a very unusual album, one that many will not expect from the renowned DJ CEM.  Composed to accompany a live painting performance by Mauro Ventura, the album opens plenty of room to dance, just not in the expected, club-like way.  One might instead call the album club-adjacent, especially its center cuts, or an expansion of club themes.

Allusion is also central to the release, personified by the sound of bells: as listed, “doorbells, meditative bowls, farm cowbells, Shinto bells.”  The first is an interruption, pleasant or not; the second and fourth are used in worship and ritual; the third connotes a lazy afternoon and a song by Blue Oyster Cult.  The overall sense is that there is tension between the regimented and the freeform, the bells that rule the night and day an implied presence, along with the timers and work bells, the warning bells, and the belief that every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.  Many angels are elevated in the course of FORMA.

“The Calling,” for example, implies both the beginning of work and of worship; they each share an aspect of summoning.  Hearing the first bells, one also thinks of a cat, called to a meal; or Pavlov’s dog.  The modern equivalent of a bell is a ring tone; there is no escaping the fact that bells rule the modern life even more than the ancient.  This seems to inspire “Bells Corrupt,” which leads to the question, “do absolute bells corrupt absolutely?”  As the bells grow in power, we hear the first echo of CEM’s former life, a persistent beat that grows in strength and menace along with clanks and metallic hits.  This leads to the album’s centerpiece, the two-part “Industrial Satire,” an homage to Limpe Fuchs that contains a ghaita sample.  The stereo effects are particularly sharp; as the bass rumbles, one is drawn into the industrial world and the album reaches its percussive peak.

From this point the album momentarily retracts.  The seven-minute “Statue Garden,” the album’s longest piece, begins with muffled conversation before settling into an ambient sheen.  As the bells and clanks and rings are washed away, one considers an alternative way of living.  Driving the point home, Gertrūda Gilytė narrates the closing piece, her voice approaching the speaker as she gushes over art in a manner that makes one question the narrative.  Her voice is manipulated just as she approaches the word “sincerity.”  To which bell will we respond?  (Richard Allen)