Take Five: How does that make you feel?
Exploring the power of art with Brian Eno's book, Vertifacts' microtones, Unrest's manic jangle, Iowa's checkered history, and Flore Laurentienne's lush songscapes
“Take Five” is posted each Friday, and offers five things I spent some time with over the course of the previous week. No criticism, no in-depth analysis, just a few things I think you might be interested in checking out. When the spirit moves me, I’ll post other things at other times.
1. Brian Eno — What Art Does
As I continued my fascination with Brian Eno, I was worried his latest foray into writing wouldn’t be terribly rewarding. What Art Does looks like one of those books you give someone as a stocking stuffer or a retirement present, a book full of platitudes and doodles. Thankfully, I was wrong. As was the case with the “Eno” film I saw a few times over the past few months, this book threatens to rewire the way I think about art and creativity. Most impactful is a short section on “fiction feelings.” Though my thoughts turn to books, obviously, he really means any sort of artistic endeavor that can be experienced that allows one to experience a feeling without needing to experience the event that normally triggers it. “You can read a novel and experience the horror of a prison or the beauty of deep love — but you don’t have to endure the real-world consequences of these things,” he writes. This is why people on the right want to ban books: they don’t want you to build empathy for those experiencing things you have not. “They tell you those things in advance of ever encountering them… so you have a repertoire of feelings about ‘fictional worlds’ in your mind.”
Ventifacts — 'Pacific'
Music, as most people experience it, is based on a 12-tone scale (think both the black and white keys on a piano), but of course that is just the standard that nearly everyone has agreed upon. I say "nearly," because as with anything, there are those who aren't content with what everyone else is doing. Among them are proponents of microtonal music. In the case of "Pacific" by the band Ventifacts, it involves a 24-tone scale, so instead of the semitone found between F and F-sharp, for example, you have additional, incremental notes in between. I first heard this scale when I found the band's 2022 remake of R.E.M.'s Chronic Town EP. These songs are practically woven into my DNA by now, and here they were suddenly jarring and dissonant. It was a bit much, messing with such a beloved touchstone, but I was intrigued enough to move on to the band's original music. There again, moments of beauty are nudged into uncomfortable territory by clashing notes that don't sound natural together. Given time, they start to sound more “right,” or at least expected. It is staggering to think of the millions of ways the 12-tone scale has been reconfigured to create everything from Tchaikovsky to Sonic Youth to Taylor Swift. Now imagine how much more could be on the horizon if we rethink the blocks upon which all of it is built.
3. Unrest — ‘Cath Carroll’
I basically spent the spring and summer of 1992 listening to Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted and Unrest’s Imperial ffrr, and those two albums still evoke a specific moment in time for me. Unrest made several noisy, disjointed albums before landing on a formula that paired manically strummed, jangly guitars, a ferocious beat and leader Mark Robinson’s sweet vocals to create mini pop masterpieces. They continued to perfect the formula on their final album, 1993’s Perfect Teeth, a record given a belated 30th anniversary reissue last month. Seeing this, I first went back to listen to Imperial, then cued up Perfect Teeth. Listening again this week for the first time in a long time, I was struck by the moment when the chorus comes in on “Cath Carroll,” the infectious single from that album. The freneticism of the verse falls away and Robinson’s vocals are layered to create a soaring confection as he sings “Cath Carroll’s gonna take me for a ride.” There aren’t many ways to feel 23 years old again, but this is surely one of them.
4. Jeff Bremer — A New History of Iowa
As with Eno’s clear explanation for the value of the arts and the way it makes clear the motivation for the right’s aversion to funding such empathy-building machines, it is obvious why the right also is also so scared of history. Learning why things are the way they are might help someone to devise a plan to make change, and we can’t have that. Reading Iowa State University historian Jeff Bremer’s new book about the history of Iowa at the same time I was reading newspaper headlines about efforts to send us back to darker days was revelatory. Bremer’s book doesn’t have “New” in the title simply because it is recent work. This is also a new way to look at things, a story that includes and accounts for Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians rather than simply telling the story of white settlers. It is an inspiring book, learning of the many firsts our state once celebrated with pride, yet also demoralizing as the reader sees just how little progress we’ve made as the state’s politics regress in a misguided attempt to recapture something that cannot — and shouldn’t be — restored. This ought to be required reading for anyone taking a seat in the Legislature, and any Iowan would do well to add it to their bookshelf.
5. Flore Laurentienne at Mission Creek
Though I am familiar with many acts that have come to the annual Mission Creek Festival here in Iowa City, I usually try to maintain my lack of knowledge about others, more interested in allowing an artist to make a first impression. Going into a performance by Flore Laurentienne last week, I had only seen a photo that made me think I was seeing a guy named Flore who played keyboards. Seeing the expected bank of keyboards as well as vibes, a drum kit, more keyboards and a string quartet arrayed on stage when I walked in, I was immediately primed for something special. The show did not disappoint. I believe the French Canadian group -- the guy is keyboardist Mathieu David Gagnon, who in this configuration was joined by five other musicians -- played its 2022 album Volume Iin its entirety. It was a beautiful, sweeping suite of songs, the best thing I saw that night despite, or rather because of having no expectations. I have listened to quite a bit of the band's music since, as well as live sessions that approximate what I heard Friday. The above session from KEXP in 2023 comes close, with the first two songs mimicking the start of Friday's set.