Listening away for music. Is that possible?

Listening away, does the word exist? I did. And still do. For music. Just as you can look away from something, I listened away from the CD that was so thoughtfully sent to me.

Here's the thing. This autumn I received CD Wounds & Brutality through the post as a gift from Tom America- composer, musician, quirky creator. I have been a fan of America since 2011. He was a guest at music cafe Tune In- a Utrecht project of mine and associate Floor Wittink. I have liked the unorthodox work of this inventive exotic in music land ever since. If at all possible, I put something of his in listening specials and the like. Why?

Listening differently

America makes me listen to speech and lyrics even more musically. While I am naturally more of a sound, rhythm, and form listener of instrumental music. Meticulously, America dissects speech. Listens to its melody. For rhythm. Speech guides his compositions. In which he inventively conjures up great things with humour, love and an idiosyncratic approach.

Tom America. Image and photo Paul Bogaers

Game

What is there to discover immediately and what do I only hear after 14 listens? How does melody, rhythm and form respond, prelude, interject, support, imitate the text? Listening to his work is ongoing discovery, bursting into laughter and humming approvingly at yet another well-found chord or colour that supports the speech and text content. Or not. OK, so here's an admirer. I'm happy to pass it on.

And yet, so I listened away from his latest CD.

Cutting

Was it because I already had some inside information about working with poetess Delphine Lecompte? Her words about cooperation and results are not very positive, to say the least. I came across them in a interview months before I received the CD.

Stress

Was it because America regularly polled me- after his gift- curiously to hear what I thought of his latest work? "His album with Lecompte is the final chord," America says. Everything he has come to understand about speech melody over the past 40 years he could put into this album. "This is what I was looking for, now everything is coming together", he says.", I read in that same interview. I felt pressure. So that's how it goes with gifts and writing. Although I didn't promise him anything, of course.

CD Wounds and Brutality by Tom America and Delphine Lecompte. Image Brechtje Roos

Self-employed in tough times

Was it perhaps because of my own mode? While DIY stores, aeroplanes and shopping streets were teeming with people, theatres and music schools closed once again (November 2020). My zzp projects (so) did not fill up and even small-scale workshops were compulsorily rescheduled, rescheduled, rescheduled again, only to finally not go ahead. Which pretty much minimises the entrepreneurial spirit. As does morale. Giving buckets of energy and staying fresh and bubbly cannot go on forever. Love, warmth and peace is what I needed and have.

Contrast

And those are not the feelings that bubble to the surface for me while listening to Wounds and Brutality. And that's not always necessary at all, but right now it is. Cutting lyrics. With music that plays and does everything I described above. THERE is that love, warmth, attention absolutely. But I can hardly get away from the images the lyrics conjure up. Gloom, pain, harshness, mistreatment and the dark-grey-gore sides of life are rubbed in just as delicately. It's not what I needed and need.

Hitting

It does make me think. Just when in my social media bubble some discussions flare up now and then in response to the - for some woeful, superficial - statements about especially the comfort of music (art, poetry) in bad times. Music also does very different things, it is then argued. It opens ears. Hits where you don't want to be hit. Is indeterminate. Hurts. Rubs in. It drags you to depths where you'd rather not be. Out of survival, many ears and eyes now shut rock hard. As if images that are on your retina then also disappear. Situations become different. Sounds hushed. The outlined dulls. Don't stir, pray for yummy blobs of pink paint and everything 'sal regkom'.

Comfort

Not thinking about it. Staying silent, looking away, listening away is what I want quite often these days. Which of course half the world does on big worldly, political, social issues that call for tough choices. Losing yourself in beauty then. Seeking solace. Whether in nature,  blingbling Or is a 1,000-piece puzzle. Escapism. This CD makes me muse. What I then come across in terms of music content I'll tell you about in a listening project sometime. Later when I can again.

Stimulate

The timing of the gift of America is so-so because really- I often enough listen to music that is not necessarily at the top of my figurative music drawer. I just have a bad time with Lecompte's voice and charisma right now. I don't like the colour. Hardly any melody. One resounding poem goes. But after number four, I know the cruelty and harshness of text content comes in even more through monotomy. Good performance so. Above all, listen for yourself and notice what it does to you.

Fun of listening discovery

Unlike America, I detect nothing serene in Lecompte's voice. That palpable tension and contrast between performance and lyric content is too much for me now. But listen to this CD anyway- taught- out of respect for and curiosity about new work by Tom America. The fun of listening to discover America's work overcomes my tendency to run hard from Lecompte's voice. And that's what everyone should do: listen curiously. America is an unorthodox maker who deserves much more attention. As does a pot of money for good musicians performing his work at top level.

"His music to the quirky and compellingly read poetry of Delphine Lecompte is, in my opinion, the most captivating, original and clever music currently being made in the Low Countries." Thus Henny Vrienten- musician and composer.

Words that this Music Storyteller and admirer of Tom America's work wholeheartedly agrees with-when it comes to composition, music and approach. Wonder how it comes in to you. Will you let us hear from you?

Oh yes, my words read for free. Appreciate them via ... ahem... donation (I was quite long on it-read: hours spread over months ) or by sharing the article, for which thanks!

A suivre!