Soft Abuse
The Franciscan Hobbies : Masks and Meanings (US,200?)*°
I am not so keen on acoustic "experimental" folk that makes endless tracks based upon useless patterns and tons of textured and coloured sounds, but I decided to try at least one of the Jewelled Antler releases after having read some reviews of releases on this label. Salvador Dali had the opinion about abstract painting that it was a defragmented part of what was commonly used in old art in details, in the new 'abstract art', often without reaching the same level of techniques from before. We can wonder if something similar can be said about abstract painting in sounds, even when guitar picking is one of the elements. I often says that when a human level is reached, like with the integration of the voice, and the recognisable tale, the music is uplifted in all its sound ideas. However when starting from a tale itself translated in a recognisable pop song structure, music itself could have been forgotten in its productive process, and musicality can be extremely limited where the continuation of ideas is more about the effect than any contributing creativity in moods, ideas, feelings, etc. Purely ever moving textures on the other hand, as performed here on the first 4 tracks, at the same time could hide musicians with limited techniques and ideas, but with simple means and sounds we can make something beautiful as well. But is there enough invention in sound itself ? How much is really derived from a "sound invention". How much music does not become another habitual passing moment, not even with that feeling of a unique moment in sound ? The variations of these compilated sounds can be endless, all without being really anywhere, at moments a relatively fine mood recalling forgotten puppet's houses, with a constant feeling of emptiness with no approach to human contact. I like most the track "Plough drawn by toads" because of a certain tension in it, making the track work more vibrantly organic. But it still does not happen enough to give it a pure individual power of its own. The next track repeats the sparse ideas of the earlier track in an endless and boring way. And also the closing track falls asleep in its own minimalism. A special notice I want to give to the beautiful artwork, booklet & (interesting) pictures. Are there meanings behind the masks ?
Original label (with a lot of releases with similar experimental folk drones):
