So, I was listening to the newly-released album by an ambient favorite of mine, Loscil. It’s called “Endless Falls,” and it’s one of those ambient albums that should be listened to loudly, to get lost in all the little intricacies of Scott Morgan’s organitronic melodies. The album, as a whole, is really good. Morgan takes some ambience from the real world and morphs it into his own world of rainy-day meditation. As the album was coming to a close, the last track took me by surprise. I was deeply absorbed in the album’s atmosphere when a voice started speaking to me on top of the song. I hadn’t heard this kind of monologue in many (if any) songs of the contemporary ambient genre, so naturally, I had to listen to what the voice was saying. I tried looking up the lyrics to this monologue, but they were nowhere to be found. It ended up being a really interesting - albeit confusing - monologue that addressed the creation process involved in ambient music, and some of the internal struggles that surface. From what I can gather, the person is talking about a fictitious album that he has yet to create, called Grief Point. Some concepts surrounding modes of listening, imagery, and production are abstractly addressed. Since I couldn’t find the script anywhere online, I decided to try and transcribe it the best I could. Some words are missing and I’m sure some are incorrect, but this was what I got from it. Enjoy “The Making of Grief Point” by Loscil:
“Six weeks into the making of Grief Point. First off is May Day, the song in honor of May 1st and the workers. Can you still be against a strike that only strikes for more pay? By ‘you,’ in this instance, I mean ‘me.’ There is a certain kind of person to whom things come with great facility. They say this is the noise that gets made as my life is lived. So be it. But don’t feel the need to record it. For a second I thought this meant that they weren’t interested in history, but that’s wrong. Wrong, wrong. A bad reading of the situation. The right reading is that I just don’t understand it. At all. Grief Point and May Day, by extension, suffers from the same old shit: a potential ignorance of ambience, REAL ambience, and that can you really construct every last bit of it and just let the listener feel its effects. And is this the right treatment? Always the same question. In this case, I would maybe say yes. Just because it forces form onto the thing. Thing is a bunch of words to melodies and the words sung in a handful of ways. Between J and D of course, the same old war rages; one into a tight and perfect digital palace, but super true to the genre. The other wanting to throw in actual sounds; mix it up, humanize. It’s cool how, for my part, the slight of hand, the trick at making something confounding and great and potentially drawn-up from air… all of this is no longer of any interest. In fact, even seeing things in this light depresses me. And so I often come home at night depressed by what we have done, what we are doing. It’s good, it means I’ve changed. I have lost interest in music. It is horrible. I should only make things I understand. I should only make things I know how to construct, however imperfect. It’s not even like dictating to someone. It’s less than that. May Day itself is pretty cool, I have to admit. It condemns the world at such an easy pace. I intend to tell …. is like happy shooting rockets and discussing the description of anything to be sure. I think the world does not like me grim. It likes me melancholic, but not miserable. English on the Mediterranean, which is, oddly enough, some of the worst people there is. At some point, when it is made, I will explain this record word-for-word; swear to God. … I know if that is good or bad, I’ll know what is good and what is bad. The answer to the making of Grief Point is picnic baskets filled with blood. Too rich, nothing at stake. If Blake had to write lyrics for his songs, they would be cumbersome, pale blocks like his riffs, but pale. So instead, he went out and found a wailer, too stupid to commit to a single thing. I assume not lighting up at the sight of your mother is a sign of madness in an infant. Pattena, no name for a baby… you were first born before they threw you from the bridge. Agna wrestles his dogs to the floor. Such a beautiful scene for some. … don’t perform them. The message from the critical reception of Dreams was quite clear: We will not be listening to you any further. Of course, intention is created; cosmonaut in a breadline, etc. I watched a pig devour the classics just to get to you. The barge endlessly circling, your mind finds out. It is done.”
