"Penetrating the Void": An Alarming Wormhole Into the Troposphere of the Musical Psyche, the Fruit of Witch Is Goral #1
‘Penetrating the Void’: An Alarming Wormhole Into the Troposphere of the Musical Psyche, the Fruit of Witch Is Goral is a submitted music review column. This is the first in a series.
Matteah Baim: Death of the Sun
This music is certainly the fruit of the goral witch. Matteah Baim, in her voice, is simultaneously the goat-antelope and its shepherdess. Death of the Sun is almost not music: it is odor, it is a lingering shell, an upside-down levitating cliff, it is what happens when you close your eyes and white light remains in bat wings. It is a glorious, fecund tropical island with lots of waterfalls and silent trees and nothing dangerous. Just don’t be skittish, you know?
This is what happens when I listen to it: I put this record on the hi-fi, sister, and it just grows. It grows until the record is a few thousand miles wide, and I’m on it, and there’s just a big black glossy vinyl expanse all around me, and lightning gets reflected in it. It’s a good place to get lost in, though scary sometimes. You should go alone, because that’s the kind of thing it is: the title is not lying to you. Think about it, think about the sun dying and how bad that would be, or rather, how sad it would be—because the record isn’t bad. But it’s not sad, either.
What would happen if the sun died? All the humans in the world would gather to say goodbye. The sun says goodbye back, she asks you to lean close, to watch as she turns purple and her molecules soften. Goodbye, sun. I love you.
The album cover is really fucking cool. You can see it at the top of this article, or wherever it is. That’s Matteah on the cover, throwing her guitar up into the air. Isn’t that nice? Someday when I can, I want to just draw continually for a week. I think this album will help to make that possible.
Dennis Cook wrote a review of her album for jambase, and it’s on Matteah’s myspace page. You should check it out if you want to read more about this album before you listen to it. He calls the album a “visitation,” and I’m stealing that from him for my writing, because that’s what the album is. You don’t put it on. It visits you.
-Loren Auda Poin
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Your cat is a goat-antelope.