This is not a metaphor
This is a hike. This is a reflection on the year. This is an unqualified album review.
According to Walking Adelaide, the Black Hill Summit Loop takes two hours and is steep. On New Years Day, I heed no warning and set off counterclockwise up the steepest portion on the trail.
I pass a few people all going in the opposite direction. Is it bad luck or just counterintuitive to take a track counterclockwise? Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t need to know if I’m starting the year with bad luck already against me.
All week, I’ve been reflecting on this past year, as you probably have been too. I’ve concluded that last year, I was hungry. Ravenous for life, really.
I saw at least 17 bands,
went interstate 4 times,
traveled through 9 countries,
went to at least 14 art galleries,
posted 20-something blog posts,
finished 38 books (got part way through many more),
had 1 essay published in a Faber anthology,
had a few others turned down,
started my first full time job,
and the list could go on.
I wish I could count how many cups of tea I drunk and how much time I spent resting, or worrying, or laughing. If I had to take a guess, I’d say I spent most of my waking hours doing these three things and not pursuing the stuff that can be listed. But we’re trained to pull out the exceptional bits or what’s measurable and perceivable, which is to say what has a product or a physicality attached. There’s a kind of comfort in that. I will remember swimming in the mediterranean and dancing with various friends in various parts of the world. And I probably won’t remember all the time I spent idle and anxious (or anxious about being idle). It should make the worry even less worthy of being invested in, shouldn’t it?
At the top of the summit, I find a grove of tightknit trees and a pile of rocks that have been arranged into a clumsy pyramid by previous hikers. I stand sweltering next to the make-shift monument. I spot at the very top a tiny pebble—just a piece of white gravel really— that someone has gone to the effort to clamber up to place on the highest peak. No use really, from up there the view would still be obscured by scraggly gum trees. For not the first time today, I seriously question my sanity. ‘Why put myself through this?’ I lament. But I know that my thoughts often take this shade of despair right before a breakthrough. I learnt this much while writing my thesis. I turn and continue along the ridge.
Despite my initial feeling of dread, the descent is when the views are the best. However, the track is so steep I have to keep my eyes fixed on where my feet are falling (emphasis on falling). ‘Damn it, this is a metaphor, isn’t it?’ I think. And then post about it online. ‘Don’t let Chris see this,’ Cait warns. Disappointingly he does not take my metaphor bait, but he does entertain my newfound interest in Mary Magdalene. Rarely does anyone talk about the hike down. The focus is always on the climb and the view from the summit. It’s madness really, all that clambering to the top to immediately come back down.
There’s a lot to be said for come downs, I’m sure. I near twist my ankle for the second time. I have no idea what to do with my knees, they feel like they might give out under me without notice. I miss being elsewhere. I went on a hike when I was on the Cinque Terre and was elated on the come down. But it doesn’t have to be Italy. I’d take any elsewhere, honestly. It doesn’t matter where because everyone finds anywhere—besides here— interesting. No, it's bigger than that. When I’m elsewhere, I’m interesting. I’m more curious and adventurous and open hearted. Why can’t I live like that without having to uproot myself? Maybe, that’s what I’m trying to do on the side of this ravine.
At this point the endorphins must kick in or something because I feel better. I answer Cait’s question about the tarot spread they had done for the new year. They had pulled a lot of pentacles and swords. I have the urge to talk about the year ahead spread I had done for myself before leaving for my hike, but I keep it to myself. For January, I pulled the six of pentacles, which is a card about generosity and kindness. ‘Fuck off,’ I thought, half ironically. By June, I’ll apparently be wrangling eight cups reversed: ‘recognizing something is still missing despite your best efforts will leave you with only the option of letting go and moving on or trying one last time.” Then I’ll pass through the dreaded nine of swords (the anxiety card) to land me with the two cups (unconditional love) or death (ending/transformation). My overall theme for the year is Mary Magdalene (unconditional love).
It all seems very prescriptive when written plainly like this. And I am skeptical of how much meaning there is in these symbols. But I can’t be judgmental of the yearning for meaning that makes me go looking in the first place.
At a low point in 2019, I said to myself ‘if I cannot write I will read.’ It’s become a mantra of mine over the following few years. On the side of Black Hill, I stop on a rock to write in my notebook a new addition: ‘And if I cannot read, I shall move.’ In reality I’ve been moving and reading and writing in an equally fervent manner this year.
I finished Nick Cave’s latest book last week. The book took the form of a stream of edited conversations —between him and Sean O’hagan— about his creative process, grief, faith and life. Most reviews of the book focus on the grief, pulling quotes such as:
And
“It was as if the experience of grief enlarged my heart in some way.”
But it was Nick’s discussions about faith that moved me the most. I’ve been tossing and turning with the idea that the yearning/searching for something to believe in is belief. Or in Nick’s words: ‘perhaps God is the search [for God] itself’. I like the idea that there is something worth believing in and that propels me to keep looking for it. I also like that in these terms, God (or whatever is worth my belief) doesn’t require my devotion, just my curiosity. Maybe then, holiness can be innate and not a transaction of shame and absolution.
Halfway down my descent, the trail crosses a power line, which is alive; fizzing and crackling the air above me. The white Sand Ixodia flowers bob along appearing as if the ground is flowing below me. I put on my headphones, remembering that Aloe Vittoria has released an album that I’ve been meaning to listen to. It must be the electro pop potential of the powerline percussion that makes me crave electronic music. The request for it to be a local musician, must’ve come from the swaying Sand Ixodia, which is listed as a ‘vulnerable’ native flora by the Department of Environment and Heritage. (I found this out when I went looking for the name of the plant. Did you really think I knew the names of plants by heart?)
Listening to electronic music while walking in nature seems odd until you do it. The meaning— or potential for meaning— rises to the surface of the hills like pomegranate seeds in water. If electronic music is best enjoyed on bush walks, then I believe classical music is best enjoyed while lying in grassy parks. And pop music is best through headphones on public transport or played loudly in the car with friends.
Simply calling Aloe’s album electronic feels like a disservice. It’s more than its tools. If I had to try and summarise its themes, I’d say it’s an exploration of sociality, self, and love. It jitters at the cloudy cusp of the personal and political, and the murky temporal distinction between the then, a now, and a future whenever. I was hooked from the opening track, living, breathing, speeding, camera: a melodic track suffused with blurry vocals. It’s a doorway forming both an exit and an entryway through a collection of songs that flirt with the monotony of modernity amongst the pursuit for unconditional love.
I hope I haven’t completely misinterpreted the album. I might have to be a total nerd and reach out asking for all the lyrics. Aloe, if you’re reading this drop the lyrics. Specifically, is the lyric in I must prosper a little longer: ‘I’m still changing for the better’, or ‘we’re still changing for the better’?
Also, if you’ve got a sec, what’s your opinion about “experimental” electronic music such as hyperpop being described as ironic and post-ironic? To me, there is actually a deep serenity to artists such as Sophie, 100 Gecs, Arca, Eartheater, etc. They’re serious about being unserious. Do you think the joy /silliness/ridiculousness/excess gets misconstrued as irony? Is irony what we call joy for it to be taken seriously?
Anyway, thanks for being my soundtrack to my descent back to the plains and into the new year. I lose track of if I am reflecting on the previous year, or the climb up the hill, or what I want for the year head or around the next bend in the trail.
The songs reflect the best and worst parts of all of it back to me. Around the bend is another bend. It might be another metaphor or ‘so close to sacred, I’m considering religion’. Lizards dart across the rocks in front of me. “Holy holy holy / holy holy holy” sings Aloe. I consider repetition; how it can be nullifying at our menial jobs but sacred in songs, poems, footsteps, heart beats, lizards.
Late last year, Caroline Polachek said at an artist talk that she reveres (pop) music’s ability to ‘harmonize us with the world’. I have a lot of thoughts on this, which should be left to linger with me a little longer. My salient question is: do we want to harmonise with this way of being? Does remaining in harmony serve us or the Steve Jobs’ and James Packer’s of this world?
Popular music during my teenage years was twee indie songs with happy melodies sometimes concealing (at least on the first listen) disproportionately sad lyrics. (Some examples off the top of my head are: Last Dinosaurs, Foster the People, Two Door Cinema Club, Chairlift, Ball Park Music, etc. Tell me who I’m forgetting).
Now, it seems that the music I gravitate toward is made by somber idealists. This whole time, I’ve been resisting the urge to describe Aloe Vittoria’s album as ‘if lil peep was an optimist’. I don’t know why this line sticks with me despite knowing the genres (if we must remain tethered to them) are not the same. Maybe, the affects are similar for me? No, Aloe is not as abrasive and depressive. Maybe it’s because of fleeting lines like “she knows I’m pro-China, so she lets me inside her”, which mix facetious rap sentiments with more sentimental musical forms (like guitar riffs?). At a stretch, this could be reminiscent of the way peep mixed rap with emo and was dubbed a visionary during my impressionable years. Both stew messy mixtures of sex and love and nihilism and hope. Mostly, I think I just find the comparison to lil peep more funny than accurate —and maybe entertainment is more important to me than the pursuit of truth?
The last track on the album begins as I return to my car parked on the cul-de-sac leading to the trail. Song for ryan switches automatically from my headphones to my tinny car speakers. My day ends and my year begins with the repeated message ‘Everything’s right now.’
The meaning changes with each repetition of the line:
Everything’s right now.
Everything’s right, now.
I take an emergency muesli bar out of my glovebox, turn up the song and pull away from the curb / hill / year to head towards the ocean.
With joy,
From Roisin