Propergol - East, Borne on the Naked Backs of Murdered Men
Chapter Five of Objective-Subjective's sonic recreation of Alan Moore's The Watchmen belongs to Propergol. Titled "East, Borne on the Naked Backs of Murdered Men," this twenty minute slice of sonic cinematics opens with street noises and the distant laughter of children playing. Naturally, things get a bit darker within minutes as a woman's voice breaks through the twisting ambience to ask: "What are you doing?"
Whirled through a time-lapse summary of the early evening on a city street corner, the mood and the light becomes darker as the day vanishes and the nocturnal creatures begin to emerge from their crevasses. The mood is definitely Rorschach's -- "mon visage" -- bleak impression of the gritty present, a city held captive by its own fear and doubt.
About ten minutes in, the mood darkens again as the police arrive -- "we've got this building surrounded!" -- and the soundtrack becames darker and denser as ominous rumblings and the seismic shift of heavy weights begin to punctuate the scattered street noise. "East, Borne on the Naked Backs of Murdered Men" becomes claustrophobic as tensions -- both of the police and the trapped criminals -- mount, the ever-tightening circumstances become more and more oppressive. Well, except for the piano interlude near the fourteen minute mark, but that's only to mark the ultimate realization made by both sides that they cannot walk away from this conflict. As police dispatchers frantically try to cordon off the afflicted city block, the battle is joined and the music becomes a sizzling, snarling conflagration of shouted voices and power electronics.
The "Watchmen" series is scheduled for twelve chapters with twelve artists each having twenty minutes to recreate their chapter of Moore's The Watchmen. Each mini-CD is limited and, if Propergol's contribution is any standard by which to measure the others, is worth your time, especially if you are familiar with the graphic novel. I'm hooked.
Propergol
Objective-Subjective [2004]
music
The alphabetical list below provides navigation into the review archive. To view a comprehensive list of all reviews available in the repository, click on the infinity symbol (∞) in the last box of the series.
Regarding materials for review, I can be reached at:
music@markteppo.com
Links
Review Archive
| A | B | C | D |
| E | F | G | H |
| I | J | K | L |
| M | N | O | P |
| Q | R | S | T |
| U | V | W | X |
| Y | Z | # | ∞ |