By Kev Scott
Let’s get the controversial statement out the way at the top of the review: this is not music. Hold on though, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth listening to. Nor does it discredit its worth as an album. But, yeah, it’s not music. The collection of seven pieces pulled together by Yes Blythe are best described as soundscapes; pieces of aural art if you will. They exist to challenge as much as entertain.
The project from Manchester-based Callum Higgins was, incredibly, recorded over two and a half years ago – with only 30 copies ever made. Now, with a extended 250 copy run of hand-made albums, Keep the Faith comes housed in a package including a hand-stamped CD, tracing paper sleeve, stitched five page booklet, and a printed fabric insert all bundled in a screen printed brown paper bag. As mentioned, this is art.
Keep the Faith is an apt title given the slow building ambiance of opener ‘Teach Me All You Know’, which eventually gives way to a piano melody that is quite exquisite and comes to dominate the track. It doesn’t change direction much though. Rather, it expands, having picked its direction, and forges towards its crescendo – disrupted in parts by electronic drone, speech samples and something that resembles paper rustling. It provokes as much as it charms.
‘Before You Let Me Go’ is less melodic, more haunting. The one repetitive note driving the track sounds like a ship’s beacon breaking through fog. The note extends into ‘I’ll See It On The Way,’ a track that has been written to disturb, and maybe even anger the listener. The ceaseless barrage of sharp roars runs throughout the eight-minute track (imagine your de-tuned radio channelling a demon and you’re getting there).
This is the point though – music is designed to make us happy or sad. Higgins has gone further, pushing buttons to trigger different emotional responses – granted some of those responses will be to hit the ‘next track’ button – such as ‘Take The Dark Out Of My Day,’ a piece whose relentless high-pitched piercing does evoke genuine anger. It’s incredibly bold, possibly off-putting, but never dull.
The piano returns, thankfully, on ‘I’ll Keep the Faith Now’ and a pleasant enough melody underpins the track. Again, we are happy. This is repeated through, in an emotional rollercoaster – to steal a lazy cliché that will probably piss off Higgins as much as ‘Take The Dark Out Of My Day’ pissed me off.
Some will see it as political statement, some will see it as a comment on mankind’s destruction of the planet, others will see it as pretentious drivel. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? And does it really matter? This is art after all, and whatever the artist’s intentions, once it is in the eye (or ear) of the public, it is at the mercy of subjectivity.
In short, it’s like the soundtrack to a dystopian film where nothing in the world is as it once was. You’re not going to dance to it, or play it in the car. But if you listen to it, you’ll be provoked; you’ll smile, frown, and hear something you’ve never heard before. That in itself is satisfying.
