The few brave readers who for some unknown reason like what I write here – if there's any, I mean – probably are starting to wonder why I don't write about actual recent releases. I understand that by the time I talk about a release it has probably been discussed and surely better reviewed by some other, more competent people. So, I give you my reason. I don't intend to write about any release that I don't consider worthy enough to be on my end-of-the-year list. So, my reviews show up here as the spark of inspiration to one of my horrific texts is ignited by an album that marveled me some weeks, months ago or even by a freshly discovered work – which will probably be the case for my next review, but don't trust my promises.
Also, EARMILK's unofficial policy, which I totally support, is that of only writing about things we like. That what's not worthy to my meaningless randomly built taste, let it die alone in a corner, right? Which leads me to this week's case, the new work of an artist that has already gracefully presented us with a brilliant album this year, reviewed by me here – ain't that just dandy?
Therefore, Heaven is Black Swan's latest entry in this year's catalogue of great albums. Released on his own label, Swan Plague, on May 28 (it only took me a month, look at that!) this is, much like the his debut, In 8 Movements, an eight-part work intended to be listened thoroughly in one sitting.
As with his last album – and as with most albums I review, I don't know why I even do this – this is a very difficult work to describe in words. But this one is particularly harder.
And it's not even for the same reasons that it's hard. I'll stay away from the term "difficult" though. That's a term people use to describe albums that they're into only because somebody said to them that they should. Not that there isn't albums that require effort to be fully appreciated – that's a totally different thing, don't mix up your drinks here. Most great albums are like that and this is surely one of them, I just hate the term "difficult", it has lost its purpose amidst pseudo-intellectual-hipster-bullshit.
Anyway, it's not because it's harsh. (That was The Quiet Divide, and Black Swan is surely proving to be an artist that doesn't repeat himself.) Nor because it's of any other single-adjectively describable reason. The reason is much deeper, and it is a culmination of something that, to me, was architected from In 8 Movements up to now, throughout four such magnum records that this may very well be the most incredible sequence of albums ever released.
With Heaven, it now feels as if, right from the beginning, Black Swan's music was gradually losing its touch with humanity's falsified view of reality, of life and the Universe, in order to, as a conscious indescribably pitiful part of the latter, fuse itself with It. Therefore being a part of It. Therefore being It. A musical tetralogy of humanity's idiocy beautiful despair; that of the consciousness of nothingness. A cinematic sequence of sound-provoked images resulting in a film never made before, but that all of the greatest auteurs wished to direct. Heaven is an epilogue to the death of God; now there's no connections, nothing to grip in a vain attempt of keep yourself falsely secured – but actually much closer to madness than sanity. This is what heaven is. Nothing; endless void, infinite space.
When once samples of classical music, among other stuff, fused themselves to different languages of drone, creating stages of gorgeous-violent dialogue between the emptiness and its antithesis,Heaven is clean, smooth, dark, pure, as a rectangular piece of an unknown black metal; as if it was sliced from the Universe background itself.
Changes in pace are minimal, and discreet. The music doesn't flows, it floats.
And that's pure bliss. Why? You find out why!
This is my shortest review yet, but that's because after In 8 Movements, The Quiet Divide, Aeternaand now Heaven, there's nothing to be said. So I've already tambled for far too long. Listening to those four albums in sequence might turn out to be one of the most satisfying experiences of your life, as it was with mine; as meaningless as this cursed-through-meaning life may be.
It's all chemistry, anyway.
P.S. Don't forget to follow the artist's recommendation: "The sound contained on this album is intended for headphone use and without equalization. Uninterrupted listening at highest (but tolerable) volume is kindly advised."
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