Friday, April 3, 2020 — 5
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
MUSIC REVIEW
Just a few hours before the release of his
highly anticipated album Cezinas, Nicolas
Jaar took to his blog to provide listeners with
some background info. He wrote:
“The music comes from a desire to feel
everything -- a few years ago, I stopped
drinking
alcohol,
smoking,
consuming
caffeine, eating animals, etc., and, for a period
of time, I also quarantined myself alone
somewhere on the other side of the world to
be able to work on music for months on end.
I didn’t want to keep feeding the system. Its
[the system’s] hunger, its past. I didn’t want
to work from ambition. Where I would work
to impress first, and love second. I wanted
presence first. Love first. I thought that if I
had this privilege and this luck, to be able to
talk to people through sound, then I better
work on myself & get rid of negative shards
within me. I didn’t want to unwittingly throw
[the shards] back into the world. Of course,
this didn’t happen...the shards kept piling up
and I had to accept the fact that the darkness
that I was trying to get away from would
always rear its head...Hopefully Cenizas
only shows darkness so as to show a path
out of it. I want this music to heal and help
in thinking through difficult questions about
one’s self, and one’s relationship to the state
of things. We are living in a time of complete
transformation, a metamorphosis— and the
transformations are happening within as
well. There is potential for great healing and
great destruction.
...
With love, Nico.”
Well, now certainly does seem like the
perfect time for him to release this album,
doesn’t it? In short, for Jaar (and hopefully for
his listeners), Cezinas is a way of processing
the darkness and realizing there is always a
way through, no matter how dark it seems.
The music, however opaque or murky, is a
way of understanding why we have darkness
and how it can transform us.
It’s clear Cezinas is unlike anything Jaar
has ever released. It’s unlike this year’s
danceable but ominous 2017-2019, it’s unlike
2018’s 2012-2017, it’s unlike 2016’s political,
vocal-focused Sirens, it’s unlike any of the
multitudinous EPs and it’s certainly unlike
his psychedelic, guitar-driven side project
Darkside, yet somehow, it’s distinctly Jaar.
Jaar is in total control on Cezinas, just like
he is on his other projects. It’s undeniable.
As always, he precisely executes his vision
exactly as he envisions it, never compromising
for the sake of accessibility. Like he said in his
blog post, the album is dark, but it’s only dark
as a means to show that the light is always
present, regardless of how far off it seems.
Opening track “Vanish” sets the tone of
Cezinas (Spanish for “ashes”) in concrete. It
begins with a droning, haunting instrumental
that sounds like the sonic representation of
darkness, but it eventually gives way to an
airy, desperate chorus of Jaar’s voice that
pleads, “Say you’re coming back / Say you’re
coming back / Say you’re coming back / Say
you’re coming back / Say you’re coming back.”
It ends just as the final repetition rings out
and then transitions to “Menysid,” an almost
industrial instrumental filled with stinging
whirrs and buzzes while a barely-there
synth line trudges along in the background,
like an ever-present, dim light. Title track
“Cenizas” continues to build on the droning
atmosphere, but Jaar establishes a sense of
fear by questioning the fate of humanity as
the world shrinks and crumbles, singing,
“In the ashes / We are going to assemble /
Knowing nothing / Is better.”
The fear and uncertainty continues to
manifest and eventually culminates with
“Mud,” Cezinas’s crushing centerpiece. The
darkness has reached its high point, made
clear as Jaar repeatedly warns that “There’s
something in the mud.” Once the vocals
totally fade, the track becomes brighter and
more vibrant, as if to say whatever it is in the
mud is completely obscured, but still there
regardless. All that needs to be done is to get
it out.
As Cezinas goes on, it slowly begins to fill
with light, though the darkness still prevails.
“Sunder” and “Hello, Chain” are the one-two
punch that was needed to drive the album
closer to its conclusion. “Sunder” features a
hypnotizing repetition of ascending keys as
Jaar begins to figure that his path through
the darkness depends on no one other than
himself. The same can be said of “Hello,
Chain,” with its heavenly layered chants,
patiently oscillating synthesizer and lyrics
that suggest the only way to the light is
patience.
The final three tracks are like the final
push out of the darkness. On “Garden,”
the light, though still far away, makes its
presence abundantly clear. “Xerox” is the
last violent drag out of the darkness toward
the gateway to the light, and “Faith Made
of Silk” is the act of moving through the
gateway and leaving the darkness behind.
“Faith Made of Silk” comes as a sudden burst
at the end of the album. It’s not a celebratory
song, though. Instead, it’s a cautionary one.
Jaar’s lyrics make it obvious that the act of
leaving the darkness is not about making sure
that it never returns. He sings, “Look around
not ahead / (You have nowhere to look) / A
peak is just the way towards / A descent,”
reminding listeners not to fall prey to any
darkness that may lurk ahead because after
every peak of light lies a descent filled with
uncertainty. That is to say, it’s useless to
look ahead. It’s more beneficial to recognize
everything they’ve overcome and remember
the people and events that eventually got
them to the light, just in case they find
themselves or anyone else trapped in the
darkness somewhere down the road.
Though not as danceable or accessible as
Jaar’s previous releases, Cezinas is without
a doubt his most powerful. Jaar manages
to make darkness palpable in every song,
yet somehow he is skilled enough to make
sure the light is always present, no matter
how obscured it may be. The album itself is
a representation of the transformation we
undergo as we deal with darkness in our lives.
Each individual song is either a representation
of the healing or the destruction that occurs
during a hellish journey to the light. It goes
without saying, Cezinas is the perfect album
for the world today as humanity navigates
through the seemingly ever-present darkness
toward the light, wherever it may be.
Nicolas Jaar recorded ‘Cezinas’ for times just like this
JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer
FILM NOTEBOOK
A24 films streaming on Amazon Prime: A breakdown
DAILY FILM WRITERS
The Michigan Daily Arts Section
In the absence of new theatrical releases,
a few of us on the film beat decided to
break down our favorite A24 films that are
streaming on Prime Video.
*
“Venus, planet of love /
Was destroyed by global
warming / Did its people
want too much too? /
Did its people want too
much?” go the lyrics of
Mitski’s “Nobody.” Love
may not be the reason
for
our
environmental
issues on Earth, but in
Paul Schrader’s (“Dog Eat
Dog”) “First Reformed,”
love is a kind of answer to
them. Not romantic, or
even platonic love, but a
spiritual kind. And the
truth is, “First Reformed”
is a love story. The love a
particularly fraught priest of First Reformed
Church (Ethan Hawke, “Juliet, Naked”) has
for his drink, for a young environmentalist
couple who seeks his help, for the finite
bounty of the Earth. But that love comes
at a harrowing cost, and “First Reformed”
gracefully dives into all the vile, violent
darkness it promises.
— Anish Tamhaney, Daily Film Editor
“High Life” sneaks up on you. It opens
with Robert Pattinson (“The Lighthouse”)
and a baby, living together in a tiny
spacecraft. The baby is absolutely adorable,
and things would be perfect if not for the
endless, black silence pressing in against
the ship’s walls, which director Claire
Denis (“Let The Sunshine
In”) takes great care to
accentuate, and the look of
devastation in Pattinson’s
eyes. As the minutes tick
by, one learns how these
characters ended up light-
years away from Earth,
all alone. It’s psychotic,
horrific and deeply, gut-
wrenchingly
human.
Taking
one-third
of
a
movie to develop a sense
of tranquility only to rip it
away completely is the kind
of audacious filmmaking
that only comes from A24.
— Andrew Warrick, Daily
Arts Writer
My resolution for 2020 was to not have
a crush on unattainable people — and
then “Little Women” had the audacity to
come out at the end of December. It was a
perfect storm of the Tik Tok For You page
algorithm and my weakness for celebrities.
I was hooked on Timothee Chalamet. And,
as I made my way through his repertoire, I
discovered the gem that is “Hot Summer
Nights.” At peak brooding nerd status,
Chalamet embodies the best kind of
protagonist — his confidence grows as he
finds something he’s good at and he flirts his
way through the summer. Saturated within
an inch of its life, “Hot Summer Nights” is a
film that made me nostalgic for the summer
days filled with carnivals and a booming
weed business that I never had.
— Emma Chang, Daily Arts Writer
“The Killing of a Sacred Deer” is a
wonderfully, unsettlingly bizarre time.
Helmed by the absurdist indie director
Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”) and
starring Colin Farrell (“In Bruges”), it
presents a deeply strange psychological
thriller about a cardiologist and the
peculiar relationship he has with the son
of a patient that died on his operating table.
Like Yorgos’s 2015 dystopian black comedy
“The Lobster” (which is on Netflix and
would make for a wickedly-weird Colin
Farrell double feature), all the characters in
the world of “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”
speak with a deadpan, utilitarian directness
that should be antithetical to the profession
of the actor. It’s quite an acquired taste, but
once you learn to listen the film is unlike
many other thrillers. It’s got uncanny
creepiness
in
spades
and
plays
with
uncomfortable themes of power, culpability,
and justice, leaving one wondering what the
hell they just watched.
— Jacob Lusk, Daily Arts Writer
A24
It’s psychotic,
horrific and deeply,
gut-wrenchingly
human