Style: Experimental Rock, Post-rock (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Battles, Tool, Bull of Heaven
Country: New York, United States
Release date: 25 October 2024
Aesthetics is one of the most fundamental and easy to understand features of art: even with no training, I can tell whether I think something is pretty or ugly, and despite a surface-level simplicity, aesthetics can be a powerful tool to articulate complex emotions. Take Sumac’s The Healer, which spends most of its runtime indulging in fairly ugly ideas in the name of hope and optimism, turning aesthetics on its head in a way that is compelling and enjoyable. However, ugly aesthetics in the wrong hands can easily lead to disaster, as evidenced by today’s subject of review, Body Meπa’s Prayer in Dub, a release that eagerly foregoes consonance and other “traditionally pleasant” ideas in the name of chromaticism and experimentation with little payoff. Let’s discuss.
Body Meπa’s musical style is oxymoronic in nature, simultaneously indulging in jazzy improvisation and extensive repetition within a post-rock framework: a core background idea will lay the foundation of a track and repeat it indefinitely while other instruments explore around it, a role usually taken up by electronic soundscapes in the form of dire synthesizers, electronic pulsation, or metallic industrial grinding (“Etel,” “Adnan,” “Stones”). In theory, this songwriting approach is intriguing, especially as someone who thrives on repetitive soundscapes, but its execution here proves to be challenging at best and profoundly frustrating at worst, as despite the lack of radical changes within a track, it is nearly impossible to glean narrative structure within Prayer in Dub’s weaponized aesthetics.
Even from Prayer in Dub’s introductory moments, the listener is assaulted with ideas that do not agree with each other at all: the only mental imagery that I can muster from its pieces is the interaction of instrumentals that all hate each other. Sounds clash together in horrifically ugly ways, whether it be the chromatic guitar notes that standoffishly bounce off the underlying soundscape (“Etel”), drums aggressively building up into nothing as their climax is totally ignored by the rest of the instrumentation (“Scout”), or the grating interplay of harsh industrial noises and what can only be described as an overblown jazz flute sound (“Stones”).
The worst offender of all, though, is second track “Adnan,” which pushes Prayer in Dub’s negative facets to their limits: “Adnan” is introduced with a pulsating electronic noise which is at first somewhat pleasant and relaxing, but as the track progresses, the pulsating gets more and more intense, creating a sonic strobe light effect in the process. What began as something relaxing very quickly turned into absolute sensory overload, pummeling any instrumentation that may be underneath and overwhelming any remaining musical ideas to the point of unlistenability. For most of its runtime, it’s nearly impossible to hear anything outside of its oppressive electronic warbling, and when the pulsating finally capitulates in its latter moments, it’s replaced with equally annoying industrial sounds before once again punishing the listener with its original soundscape. Worst of all, the ideas underneath aren’t necessarily bad and would make a good showcase for some of the more listenable improvisation, but its execution leaves it all washed away under a sea of relentless electronic waves.
However, it would be unfair to say that it’s all unenjoyable and frustrating: the opening moments of “Scout” nicely balance repetition and improvisation by using a fully formed musical idea as its backdrop and building on it with some fun drum work. In its later moments, it begins to lose a bit of focus and fall back into amorphous rambling à la “Etel,” and I wish that it ended less suddenly, but at the very least there is a glimmer of interest present. I would struggle to call “Scout” compelling, but it is well and beyond the most convincing of Prayer in Dub’s pieces and comes the closest to a fully constructed song. Moreover, “Welcome” is a relatively chilled out piece with some pretty chords, and there are moments of “Deborah” that are enjoyable as the laid-back bluesy improvisation creates an air of relaxation, both of which are so desperately needed after the cortisol shot that is “Adnan.” However, these moments are not enough to save Prayer in Dub’s glaring songwriting flaws.
And that, I think, pins down Prayer in Dub’s underlying problem: no amount of repetition can save improvisation that has no backbone, and no amount of experimentation can stop a song without a core idea from falling into formless amalgamation. No matter how closely I listen, there’s almost nothing to hold on to, a feeling augmented by Prayer in Dub’s positively challenging chromaticism, grating textural choices, and inscrutable, amorphous song structures. I will admit that it’s not wholly irredeemable and there’s a good chance that I simply just don’t get Body Meπa’s point of view, but as it is, Prayer in Dub takes the “two extremes” approach to its limit: it’s simultaneously repetitive yet improvisational, simple yet unfocused, and frustrating yet utterly forgettable.
Recommended Tracks: Deborah, Scout
You may also like: Simulacra, Samlrc, NORD, The Mercury Tree
Final verdict: 3/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify
Label: Hausu Mountain Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
Body Meπa is:
– Greg Fox (drums)
– Sasha Frere-Jones (guitar)
– Melvin Gibbs (bass)
– Grey McMurray (guitar)
