by David Wilikofsky
To say 2020 has been a year of solitude would be an understatement. In January I completed a cross country move to be closer to family that had been in the works for over a year. News of COVID-19’s spread hummed in the background throughout this process; my partner’s family lives in Taiwan, and his mother would would call daily telling us to prepare for its arrival in America by buying groceries and toilet paper. As someone who grew up watching people panic buy for natural disasters that never came, I didn’t really think this would amount to much. But as the disease began to spread on the West coast of the US, I found myself cancelling work travel plans and going home to visit my family the first week of March in the event that the disease landed here. My office shut down the following week, and total quarantine inside my apartment began soon after that. Other than my partner, I haven’t seen any friends or family in person since.
Being quarantined has been a new experience for me. I’m an introvert, but I’ve never had this little human contact for such a prolonged period. It’s a new norm that many of us are adjusting to, and a condition that is explored through the releases on new label Takuroku. Run by the team at London venue Cafe OTO, the label is focused on releases created by artists in quarantine. The result is timely music that explores many different facets of the reality we’re currently living.
Ecka Mordecai is an experimental musician currently living in London, and Critique + Prosper is her debut album. Mordecai is clearly a cello virtuoso, extracting a rich spectrum of sounds from the instrument. Traditional techniques like pizzicato and spiccato abound, but also less conventional ones; for instance, on “Hot Tarmax” the instrument is contorted to sound almost exactly like creaking floorboards (and as a former violinist I’m not entirely sure what she did to get those sounds). Although she is mostly working with a cello and her voice, Mordecai is able to create a huge variety of sonic textures.
I don’t know Mordecai’s living situation, but the compositions on the album translate the feeling of quarantine isolation into music. Aside from her cello and voice, silence is the omnipresent element in these compositions. Mordecai isn’t afraid to fragment melodies and linger on silent moments. The whole album feels as if it were recorded in a large studio apartment, echoing through the emptiness. Her wordless vocals accompany some tracks, the sound of a lone voice serenading itself. Occasionally the sounds of the outside world intrude (“Did Begun”) but more often than not the album is the sounds Mordecai can create on her own. But rather than feeling bleak, Mordecai’s music highlights the peculiar beauty one can find in this isolation. It’s life affirming music.
At the other end of the spectrum, Ashley Paul creates a joyous racket on Window Flower. Whereas Mordecai’s take is sparse and austere, Paul’s music reflects a very different quarantine reality, one of being trapped with family. Paul enlists her family (both partner Ben and daughter Cora) to create what feels like an intimate look into their lives. “Tomorrow Again Today” begins the album, a pastoral wakeup anthem filled with rich woodwind tones and tinny drums. The early going is high energy, at times verging on technicolor synth laden pop and at others more avant-garde composition. The squeaks and squawks of woodwinds play off the joyous screams of Cora, lurking in the background of multiple tracks (“Tom Who”, “Nia Nah”). But as the album proceeds, exhaustion begins to creep into the music. “Paper Mache” is a minor key dirge that feels melancholy and quietly beautiful at the same time, while “Another Circle” constantly sounds on the verge of collapse . The album ends abruptly with “Finished”, wherein Cora announces the end with the phrase “Finished. Tada!”. It’s an album that builds a full picture of their world with all its ups and downs.
Cafe Oto is an experimental music institution, and they continue to do excellent work by putting this music into the world. I listened to a few other releases from the label for this piece, and all of them resonated in one way or another. It’s heartening to know that people are taking our present condition, processing it and creating great art out of it, but we should also be mindful of what comes next. Music venues across the world are suffering right now, and without assistance many will shutter. Purchasing Takuroku releases supports both Cafe Oto and the artists (proceeds are split 50 / 50). When the music is this good, checking out these and other releases from the label seems like a no brainer.