Yann Novak - The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past

A Closer Listen

The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past vibrates ever so slowly, dilating like a time-traveler’s portal. Listeners reaching deep into the crackling speakers will watch one’s body dissolve into sound waves, emerging in a universe resembling our own, in every way, except for one small point: It’s devoid of humanity. Neither a Star Gate episode, nor an astrophysics thesis, Yann Novak’s dystopian reality, quite chillingly, could be our future.

Whether humanistic or mystical, Novak’s four glacial, noise-specked recordings urge evolutions of mind through revolutions of heart. In order to better see ourselves, The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past claims clarity in stillness, quietly mirroring our collective reflection.

“Radical Transparency” creeps within a murky bog. Buoyed by a chilly drone, the pressure increases, snarling static squeezed by throbbing vises. Birds—the only creature left in sight—sing brightly, oblivious to the looming storm.

The birds persist on “The Inertia of Time,” clouds clearing to reveal uprooted trees, roofs stripped of shingles, cars crushed beneath power lines. Silky organ wafts over the wreckage. A Geiger counter sweeps flooded streets as rescuers—their Hazmat masks fogging with breath—lead survivors into a fallout shelter.

Signaling the end of sun-warmed skin, “Casting Ourselves Back into the Past” resumes with the same eerie clicking. A pendular bass pulses beneath mechanical drones: Is that the humming of distant traffic, as evacuees flee with family house pets, or the whirring of an underground air duct? The miasma crescendos: distortion tapers to a drizzle.

The morning after evacuation, “Nothing Ever Transcends its Immediate Environment” rustles from cold ashes. White noise scours synths clear as contrails. Merging voice with airy vibrations, a sudden deluge purges Novak’s wordless chanting.

While bearing hope amid a market crawling with sound bites, mangy memes and Twitter tantrums, Yann Novak spares no nerve for the cynic. Until our minds mirror our hearts, some leaders of the free world wag tail at shirtless autocrats while barking at rocket regimes. Until our minds mirror our hearts, failure to grasp time’s circularity will forecast our downfall. Pondering sanctions and a nuclearized peninsula, The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past rumbles with reflection, revealing portals to what we’ve neglected. Before it’s too late. (Todd B. Gruel)