Paul Jebanasam - mātr

A Closer Listen

Nine years have passed since Paul Jebanasam‘s last album, and mātr is only his third.  But as the new album demonstrates, Jebanasam has a different view of time. mātr (Sanskrit for mother and a permutation of matter) places humanity in the context of geologic time and asks questions of scale and responsibility. The cover photograph of hands extended to the sky suggests prayer, although the recipient of said prayer is not revealed: Mother Earth, an unnamed divine source, or a grand void that nonetheless captures the spiritual imagination.  The word “custodianship,” appearing in the liner notes, points toward a Judeo-Christian understanding, referencing the first chapter of Genesis, but custodianship implies preservation, a concept far different from that of dominion.

If all of our planet’s history were compressed into 24 hours, humans would only have appeared two minutes ago.  And yet they have used these two minutes to cause what may be irreparable harm.  One thinks of the line in The Matrix in which Agent Smith describes humanity as a virus. And yet, in this brief period of time, our species has also created indelible art, made spectacular scientific strides and moved toward the eradication of extreme poverty.  There is great value in existence; but is it all ephemeral?  What would mātr say?  And do we matter?

Instrumental music has a hard time conveying such concepts, which is where the track titles come in.  Together they comprise a short poem:  be earth now / leaves of stars / to hear you / I keep silent / breathe on this ember / and turn radiant / time trembles around you.  Jebanasam seems to suggest that the way forward is to seek balance with the flora and fauna, honoring Buddhist and Native American philosophies.

The music unfolds as a suite, seeming to channel the energy of disintegrating stars as it bubbles and bursts.  When combined with intimations of distant choirs, the drone takes on a holy quality.  If a church crumbles into dust, do the voices of the supplicants become the music of the spheres?  Deep chords suggest deep time, while piano notes anchor the album in the here and now.  The melodies seem time-stretched, like the lives of sequoias, suffused with a deep calm.

The album’s key moment appears in its center, as the drone pulls back to reveal the miked piano. Crossing the bridge from the end of “to hear you” to the beginning of “I keep silent,” this segment might be interpreted as humanity’s beautiful, blossoming, maddening, damaging two minutes of existence, or simply a reminder that we are here amid the drone, chattering beneath interstellar signals, hoping and dreaming and trying, for a blink of an eye, to makes ourselves known.  From this segment rises an electronic wave, imitating the sea, although it is unclear whether the wave washes over humanity or if humanity sails above it.  This future, at least, remains unwritten. (Richard Allen)