Dismantle Slash Build

I just read a J.G. Ballard story about a man who lives in a psychiatric complex by a hospital. He quits his job and begins to lie to his wife so that he can spend more and more time sitting on the veranda separating things that he sees from space and time. He does this so that he can no longer identify them as anything more than shapes and colors, a psychedelic and introspective break from reality. Eventually even the distinction of shape and color fade away and he disappears into his mind. (Actually, he walks into a lake after "dismantling" his wife.) It's beautiful to hear Ballard describe the process of dislocation, but as you read, you begin to realize the destruction that comes with absolute commitment to dissolution. A little bit of dislocation gives you perspective, but, as the man's friend tells him "by any degree to which you devalue the external world so you devalue yourself."
I think this battle between destruction and construction is explored with a sometimes sad but always beautiful elegance in Phosphorecent's songs. I'm including a couple here because of the breadth of his work and because they're so good. When I hear them, I get that feeling of Friday afternoon dissolution of the universe, hip-up to a wooden bar. Stepping away from the sometimes tightening screws of day to day life feels so good, but in time you can disconnect completely.
Algebro steps away into a land where Algebro is king, to the dreamland where he's perfect. The song itself hints at the beginning at what it will become, delicately transporting you on the steady disarming platform of Thom Cathcart's voice. It's interesting that Algebro and Phosphorescent both lament rhyming in their songs.
In the Civil Wars' video, John Paul White's loose bow tie says it all. That visual should be the centerpiece of this mix, a stepping away from formalism, crossing the border. The Civil Wars go down into Barton Hollow, a mythical space where the devil lingers and a baptismal river runs through.
These songs examine the idea that to cross over to another place or another way, you must release your old definitions while building new ones. The risk and the gamble is that you could lose your grip on the world as you know it but you could also grow into a whole new sphere of better experiences more integral with who you are.
Buke and Gass dismantle listeners expectations on a visceral level, turning the song structures inside out and exploding sonic expectations so that we leave with a different perception of how songs can twist and turn. Heavy and lithe at the same time, Buke and Gass perfectly illustrate the concept of dismantling and relocation so that their spinning melodies leave listeners standing at ninety degrees to the world they knew before the song.
All this heady talk about breaking away from reality and gripping back, I had to end on a joy note. There's something about the solos in Delicate Steve that playfully jibe with the borderlands. There's no vocals for definition but colorful sound shapes lurching and shifting in myraid prismatic combinations. "Go ahead," they say, "toy with reality."

The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow


Phosphorescent - The Mermaid Parade

Phosphorescent - Reasons To Quit

Algebro - Algebro is King

Buke and Gass - Your Face Left Before You

Delicate Steve - Wondervisions