Inspired by the writings of Mark Fisher, Present Tense is about “mourning an imagined future.” xor (Asheville, North Carolina’s Matthew Boman) cites “old space age photos” as a prime example, lamenting that “there used to be so much optimism about what humans were going to achieve.” The feeling is common, as a seemingly unending barrage of bad news has caused a worldwide malaise. And yet, Boman ~ who saw his own community flooded during Hurricane Helene, but was also part of the rebuilding ~ does more than lament; he also plunges forward in hope. Building a community around the album, he commissions seven different filmmakers to produce videos for the tracks, underlining the value of collaboration and the possibility that things may yet improve, even if those jetpacks never appear.
This means there are two ways to listen to the album: as a standalone work and in tandem with the videos. Without visual accompaniment, the music undulates and flows, exposing an undercurrent of melancholy. “Unwound” seems to reflect expectations unwound, but also the unwinding of time, turning back the clock to a more innocent time, or more properly, a time when we as listeners felt more innocent. The piano notes convey this nostalgia, floating in a thick electronic ether.
The keening glissandos of “Anomie” are among the album’s saddest; the word has a dual meaning, a breakdown of ethical standards in society and a personal sense of disconnection stemming from a lack of purpose or ideals. The piece sounds like mourning, reminiscent of hired wailers. But xor doesn’t stay in this place too long; soon there are banjos and brighter chords, a heart swimming against the current. “Swells” is awash in distortion, but quiet clarity eventually emerges. “Wave Returns to the Ocean” can be interpreted in different ways, from the world-weariness shared by Ecclesiastes (“All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again”) to the comfort of cycles: if things are this bad now, then surely the better times will visit again soon?
Still, there’s no escaping the fact that the penultimate piece is titled “Hell.” Sartre wrote that “Hell is other people,” but Boman believes the opposite. Yes, other people – especially those who make decisions for the rest of society – can make life seem like a living hell. But community – especially an artistic community, as is the case here – can be a counterbalance. And to be fair, if one didn’t know that the track, which is primarily peaceful, bore that title, one would never imagine it to be so, even with the embedded sample; the chords are louder than the words. And as Ashlee Booth plays cello on “The Malady of the Infinite”, one feels more sadness than anger or fear: a sadness that even in the playing is preparing to turn toward the sun.
And now we inject the presence of others: directors who were given no guidance on how to interpret the tracks they tackle. XOR (capitals for the video, small letters for the album) turns “Unwound” into a gorgeous celestial abstraction, awash in aqua and purple tones; Tony Rolando picks up the thread for “Anomie,” decorating clouds in swaths of purple and pink, transforming the tone of the piece from resignation to wonder. Mica Rutkowski layers images of reeds and streams, at times tracing the paths of individual leaves and the resilience of a single twig. LAP transforms a dance into a series of Rorschach blots before XOR returns to turn trees into kaleidoscopic sparkles. In Tristan Turner’s hands, colors and squiggles momentarily adopt the outlines of architecture and human beings before releasing and reforming. Brett Naucke’s reflection of “Hell” is surprisingly the warmest and least abstract of the renditions, returning to home movies and yielding a nostalgic tone, the ocean ever in sight, just beyond the horizon. Finally, Madalyn Wofford’s spherical images in “The Malady of the Infinite” imply pupils and sunspots, with bright splashes of color suggesting wonders beyond the imagination.
This brings us back to the Present Tense, and the question, “what do you hear in these sounds?” Instrumental music is particularly susceptible to subjective impression; and yet, it is remarkable that the videographers find beauty, calm and peace in an album intended to personify mourning. In their hands, the overall theme changes, suggesting a far different question: how do we choose to view the world? The very reminder that we have such a choice is an incredible encouragement. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 