Crouton
Continuing the label's tradition of beautifully packaged, limited edition releases, Endingsis the second text + music project from Crouton founder Jon Mueller. Anestablished and diverse drummer, playing with indie instrumentalistsPele, Collections of Colonies of Bees, and a myriad of improvensembles, Mueller's written works offer unique glimpses into thestrange reality of a clearly eccentric artist whose role is nevermerely complimentary. Endings combines eleven very shortstories (in a boxed, spineless book) with a 30-min. CD-R of readingmusic, and several black-and-white illustrations by Kaveh Soofi, theBay Area graphic artist who designed the cover for Pele's last album.Mueller's stories are by far the most exciting piece of the puzzle. Theauthor uses the concept of "endings" to create postcard lengthvignettes launching the reader into a darkly absurd and chaotic worldwhere narrative seems to strive immediately toward a propheticconclusion. The extreme shortness of the texts provides that nocharacter or scenario is developed outside of a series of scrupulous,often ridiculous details serving only the anticipation of some unifyingfinale. Mueller always delivers the goods, in the sense that he hurlseach clipped plotline into an unmistakable, impassable "end;" howeverhis endings are never the epiphanies his stories require. Instead theyoffer only the further mystification of an already lost cast ofcharacters, managing to transform a clever variety of hum-drum pursuitsand circumstances into windows to another hellish dimension. A man,inexplicably followed while on the way to the grocery store, eventuallyconfronts his enraged pursuer, severs his own finger, and proceeds toreverse the chase, threatening the other man with the bloody appendage.Another character puts on a play for his dinner guests starring apicture of his dead son, whom he directs: "Sing, boy! Sing!" A businessexecutive returns from an emergency call to find his interruptedinterviewee sipping from the potential employer's coffee cup, his eyesrising in blank defiance. Most impressive is Mueller's ability tostreamline each story with a detail-driven first-person narrative thatassumes normalcy and connectedness, only to completely break down bythe end. More than simple plot twists, the author's endings might becalled 'anti-epiphanies' in the way they are positioned, through astriking economy of language, to effectively dismantle the story'sprior logic. Mueller's musical accompaniment is unlike anything I'veheard from him yet and clearly serves the box's theme. A fadedsymphonic loop plays over and over to simulate a continuous,regenerating "ending," essentially a false ending that, in its 19-sec.length, reminds me of the obscured, darkened tones of a Badalamentiscore played out like one of William Basinski's Disintegration Loops,only without disintegrating. The atmosphere is soothing for a smallsecond, but ultimately turns to a sinister, anxious tension, both aptand almost nauseating when coupled with Mueller's words. Soofi'sillustrations are less fitting, but interesting nonetheless. From thelook of it they are digital images arranged comic-strip-style butwithout any explicit narrative. The images are almost all stylized,grey toned portraits, progressively clouded, shadowed, fragmented,cropped, and later barraged by clusters of nail-covered blocks. I cansee comparisons to Francis Bacon's portraiture, with the sectionedmurkiness and sketchy inaccuracies reminding me of animations by SouthAfrican artist William Kentridge, though Soofi's work has an unsettlinggeometric base that feels very unique. Endings is well worth itto anyone keen on interesting packaging and multimedia formats; I amstill involved in picking apart and connecting the contents of thisbeautiful release, no end in sight.
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