An online culture zine called Phantom Swayjust discovered Mongolian folk rock and can’t stop raving about it (I found the article because 3 Quarks Daily picked up on it). What the superficial review fails to mention is the depth of this genre – like all genres – and restricts its attention to one band, The HU, while ignoring its breadth.
You’re probably wondering why I expected better, or that I’m being too harsh. Both would be right: I’m just peeved because I’ve been following Tuvan throat-singing for years and that it’s unfair that the one time a somewhat widely read publication picked up on it (3QD, not Phantom Sway), they chose to limit themselves to such a cursory review.
In fact, the most important thing Phantom Sway does, and does badly, is lumps all of throat-singing into one group called “Mongolian throat singing”. There are actually multiple types depending on the tones to be achieved as well as the regions in which they’re practised. And multiple proponents of multiple sub-genres as a result.
Throat-singing itself is a feature of multiple cultures, from Canada to Tibet to Japan. My favourite throat-singer, Albert Kuvezin, employs a form called kargyraa, a part of the Tuvan throat-singing of southern Siberia. The other forms of this classification are khoomei (recognised by UNESCO) and sygyt. They each have their own sub-styles as well, and many of them bear marked differences over just subtle variations.
Other forms of throat-singing from other regions include the khai of the Altai Republic and the now-extinct rekuhkara of Hokkaido.
The band that Phantom Sway picked, The HU a.k.a. Hunnu Rock, is a self-proclaimed proponent of what it calls ‘New Mongolian Rock’, seemingly shunning the throat-singing based classification.
If you’re into this type of music, you should check out Kuvezin’s discography, the punk-rock band Yat-Kha and the heavy-metal band Tengger Cavalry. My personal favourites are Hartyga – their album ‘Agitator’ exemplifies their brand of “psychedelic ethno-rock” –, the artisanal Huun Huur Tu, and a selection of less well-known singers/groups including Ay-Kherel.
There are two good options if you want to explore more of the zeitgeist of this musical genre: the music of Kongar Ool-Ondar and – even better – the Tuvan short-film Shu-De, produced by Michael Faulkner and released in 2013.
But whatever you do, please don’t start and stop with The HU. They’re new, mainstream, and it isn’t clear if they see themselves as exponents of throat-singing or instead – as some have pointed out – those of a particular politics.
Can’t believe I’m so late to the party. It seems that a year ago, Steven Erikson put the Kharkhanas Trilogy on hold, delaying the publication of the third book. The second book, Fall of Light, came out two years ago and was a difficult read in many ways. More than anything else, it contained way more plots than did the first book, Forge of Darkness, while simultaneously leaving the last book with lots left to explain.
It was like Erikson had lost his way. If he was feeling unsure of himself as a result, I’m glad he’s temporarily shelving the project. It’s not good for readers if books in a series are going to be released with many years in between each instalment but that’s already happened: Forge of Darkness was published in 2012 and Fall of Light, in 2016. Right now, it’s more important for fans like me that Erikson find his mojo and just complete the canon before he dies.
Erikson has also announced (in October 2017) that said mojo quest will take the form of writing the first book in the more-awaited Toblakai (a.k.a. Witness) Trilogy. This is good news because Malazan fans have been more eager to read about the exploits of Karsa Orlong than those of the Tiste races, at least in hindsight and with the hope that the Toblakai story isn’t as frowzy and joyless.
I personally find Karsa to be a dolt and not among my top 50 favourite characters from the series. However, I do find him entertaining and expect the Toblakai Trilogy to be even more so given that the premise is that Karsa is going to rouse the Toblakai in a war against civilisation. Very like the Jaghut story but with less sneering, more cockiness. Hopefully it will prove to be the cure Erikson needs.
Erikson also mentioned that he had been demotivated by the fact that Fall of Light‘s sales were lower than that of Forge of Darkness. Though he initially attributed this to readers waiting for Erikson to finish writing the series so they could read it one go, he found he couldn’t explain the success of Ian Esslemont’s Dancer’s Lament with the same logic: Lament is the first book in the unfinished Path of Ascendancy series. He concluded readers were simply being fatigued by reading Fall of Light. I wouldn’t blame them: it was even more difficult to read than the midsection of Deadhouse Gates.
I’m also starting to dislike his tendency to include overly garrulous characters whose loquaciousness the author seems to want to use to voice his every thought. After a point (which is quickly reached), it just feels like Erikson is bragging. The Malazan series had the intolerable gas-bags Kruppe and Iskaral Pust. Fall of Light was only made worse by Prazek and Dathenar and their completely unnecessary chapter-long soliloquies; at least Kruppe and Pust did things.
This is another thing I’m wary of in the Toblakai Trilogy, although I doubt my prayers will be answered, because you could see Erikson had fun with Karsa in the Malazan series. In fact, more broadly speaking, I’m wary of any new Erikson epic fantasy book because though I know the world and the stories are going to be fantastic, his writing is tiring and his storytelling is more flawed than it otherwise tends to be when he feels compelled to expose, or soliloquise, rather than narrate.
Actually, forget wary – I’ve almost given up on it. Shortly before the release of Forge of Darkness, Erikson had written for Tor that he’s going to keep the trilogy more traditional and make it less of a critique of the epic fantasy subgenre than he did with the Malazan series. Look what it turned out to be. And I only say I’ve almost given up because I hope Erikson attributes Fall of Light‘s tragedy to a different mistake, but then why should he? I found the fencing metaphor from his Tor piece to be instructive in this regard:
As a long-time fencer I occasionally fight a bout against a beginner. They are all enthusiasm, and often wield their foil like a whip, or a broadsword. Very hard to spar with. Enthusiasm without subtlety is often a painful encounter for yours truly, and I have constant ache in hands from fractured fingers and the like, all injured by a wailing foil or epee. A few of those injuries go back to my own beginning days, when I did plenty of my own flailing about. Believe it or not, that wild style can be effective against an old veteran like me. It’s hard to stay subtle with your weapon’s point when facing an armed Dervish seeking to chop down a tree. The Malazan series wailed and whirled on occasion. But those three million words are behind me now. And hopefully, when looking at my fans, they are more than willing to engage in a more subtle duel, a game of finer points. If not, well, I’m screwed.
On the other hand, I’ve really enjoyed Esslemont’s writing, which thankfully has only improved since Night of Knives. I hope Dancer’s Lament continues this trend. I purchased it this morning and hope I can complete it and the next book, as well as a reread of some of Esslemont’s other books, by the time Erikson’s The God is Not Willing is published.
I found this evocative image on Twitter today. It’s by a Russian artist named Yuri Shwedoff and the image is part of his ‘Space Series’, available to view and appreciate on Behance. I don’t know the provenance of the overlaid text though.
At a glance, it’s clear the image depicts a future where we’ve abandoned all space launches and have regressed to a more primitive form of life.
But then you realise the last NASA Space Shuttle launch was in July 2011. Perhaps some kind of Space Shuttle museum became abandoned as the world carried on? Doesn’t seem likely – the artist probably chose to depict the Space Shuttle because everyone recognises it.
Further, the rectangular beam-like structure below the Space Shuttle indicates the location is the Kennedy Space Centre Launch Complex 39A.
Another interesting feature is that the fuel tanks of earlier rockets had thinner walls than they do today, so the tank could be erected to an upright position only after being loaded with fuel and pressurised. So in this image, the Space Shuttle was ready for launch, and not just standing there waiting to be prepared for launch.
The crenellated mounds of earth and flora also suggest the 39A launchpad, with the rocket on it, has been abandoned for many centuries.
The weather is also curious because launchpads are usually located at sites above which there is often clear sky. But in this image, the sky is overcast. It could just be a rainy day – or it could be that the world has experienced some kind of catastrophe that has either precipitated weird weather patterns or, in the more dystopian view, clouded all of Earth á la a nuclear holocaust.
The greater catastrophe would also explain the primitive nature of technology in the image, in the form of a human riding horseback with what seems like arrows strapped to his back. The text, “It’s who we were…”, also suggests the same thing.
In all, the artist seems to say that in the early 21st century, something happened that caused us to abandon space launches, altered the world’s weather and, in time, left us technologically backward.
This is why I think the image is a bit confused. Gazing up at a Space Shuttle on the launchpad and saying “It’s who we were…” says nothing at all because, in a world with frequent spacefaring missions, something happened anyway. Our ambitions unto the final frontier didn’t change anything.
If anything, this accidental monument should’ve been for the now-hollow nuclear missile launch silo, or in fact a statue of a human itself.
Alternatively, I’d replace “It’s who we were…”, and its inherent sense of pride and longing, with a phrase that evokes shame and regret: “It’s who we will always be”.
(The original image by Shwedoff doesn’t have the text, so whoever put it on there has effectively defaced the image.)
On May 12, 2014, about half a week before the Lok Sabha election votes were to be counted, ahead of the result that would catapult the BJP to power with an overwhelming majority in the lower house of Parliament, H.R. Giger passed away. I didn’t hear about it until two days later, on May 14. I remember dropping whatever I was doing – which was quite a bit because Counting Day was almost upon us – rushing over to the Sunday Magazine desk and pitching an obituary for Giger to Baradwaj Rangan. I was commissioned 20 seconds later, and I was done two hours later.
As far as I was concerned, it was very, very bad news. With his death, Giger’s repertoire was finished, complete, finito; there wasn’t going to be any more new material. I could complete his obituary in such a short span of time not because I was familiar with his creative output – familiarity would imply I understood what was going on; I didn’t. If anything, I was just a kindred soul – with many fears and terrors, and little faith in solace or hope. It was a world, and worldview, that Giger the artist had helped validate.
Yesterday, I’d met a friend for coffee and – as our conversation about the future of science journalism meandered on – we happened to be talking about sci-fi Netflix, Alejandro Jodorowsky and, soon, Giger. I don’t remember how we got there except that one of us had mentioned Dune and the other had been very excited to meet a fellow Dune fan. We hugged. After exchanging a few notes about having had a childhood equal parts traumatised and enlivened by the Necronomicon, my friend mentioned that there was a documentary about Giger released sometime in 2014. I couldn’t believe I’d missed it.
So yesterday, I completed all the tasks on my to-do list, grabbed some early dinner, and shut myself off in my room. I’d decided that for old times’ sake I was going to gift myself some masochistic mindfuck: I was going to watch the documentary, called Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World.
[One hundred minutes later] I’m incredibly glad I did.
[Early next morning] No excuse is weak enough for me to revisit, rediscuss, reanalyse and reconsume the brilliance of Giger – as if being able to enjoy an old and favourite track for the first time. And Dark Star was a fecund, almost extortionate, excuse.
For example, fifteen minutes into it, a few lines – spoken by Hanz Kunz, a poster-maker, and Leslie Barany, Giger’s agent – confirmed what I’d suspected about him for long: despite the intricate methods and symmetries depicted in his images, Giger didn’t have an artistic process; he intuited his symbols and their placement on his canvas. Barany: “I thought he was channeling something and I don’t believe in those things.” Stanislov Grof, a psychiatrist: “Giger was the medium through which Another World was introducing itself to us.”
That intuition was akin to a mysterious agent speaking guy through him, call it your subconscious or your true self or whatever. Giger really tapped into that, terrified himself with it, remained terrified with it as he worked; as he says, “When I put it on canvas, I have some sense of command over it. It’s healing for me.” Carmen Maria Scheifele Giger, his wife, says, “Giger’s art has the same effect as nigredo, the blackness, an alchemical ritual that begins by looking at the dark night of the soul.”
Li Tobler, Giger’s first partner and who committed suicide in 1975, embodied the struggle that he had won as a little boy of six – the struggle to recognise and acknowledge what it is that we’re truly afraid of, the struggle to not self deny, the struggle to honestly explore reprehensions. She had had a Catholic and puritanical upbringing but her lover was an artist so gleeful when, on the sets of Alien, he explains to someone that though he had to change the opening of the xenomorph’s egg from a vaginal slit because the producers hoped to be able to air the film to Catholic audiences as well, he was pleased that he could give the opening four flaps to “doubly offend the church”. But when he says in Dark Star that his art could not do much to help her deal with her depression, it’s as if his art was all he had to give her. That is a silencing moment.
H.R. Giger speaks in a scene from ‘Dark Star’
In fact, Giger had a rare set of privileges: to have been able to explore the darkest recesses of the human condition, to have confronted those demons through his art, and to have ultimately reconciled with the shape of those horrors. His paintings and sculptures extend us – the viewers – that privilege. Sometimes that makes me wonder if there is something to be said for the creative process Giger uses, if that takes away some of the edge since Giger has visualised his demons from scratch. Is he as terrified as one of his fans when he beholds one of his finished products? Or, to Giger, is the process of creating his demons more therapeutic than is the moment of beholding his demons frightening?
Nonetheless, his privileges prevail. As I wrote in his obituary, Giger’s extensive journeys through the wombs of horror revealed that rotting corpses and camisado surprises are not the stuff of fear. We are. Our terrors are of our own making – fevers about the peri-normal, about what we’ll find when we open new doors, break taboos, burst into life from tabula rasa unto the innate. Kunz/Barany: “His art has this quality, an element of reality combined with his own fantasies, and what makes it stronger is the reality, not the fantasy.”
The metal in his paintings and sculptures twisted and bent in ways that no metalsmith would attempt to achieve. Semblances of humans, human forms, caught up in the workings of otherworldly engines, monochrome lips and spring-loaded breasts grafted around solenoids, crania tubula labia shot through with tentacular electric cables, Tesla coils and Jacob’s ladders of homuncular bullets. It was easy to get lost in this frightening order of symbols, for each one of us to behold this visage and to take away a seedling of serial nightmares. Giger’s visualisations were all together pareidolia as public good – where except faces you saw something you didn’t want to see, something you’ve known all your life but hidden away…
And in Dark Star, Giger himself looks terrified, as if he knows something is coming. There is a remarkable scene where his assistant says Giger’s house is big enough for the ageing artist to disappear into, to become one with the house itself, that he can’t be found unless he wants to be found. Right after that, the cinematographer goes looking for Giger in the house, slowly exploring passages, corridors, crawling with building apprehension through tubes crisscrossing the house in much the same way Giger contemplated perinatal misgivings.
It can be difficult to communicate the brand of horror that Giger stood for, a deep existential visceral soulful tension, an unassailable yet unspeakable awareness of a darkness, a knot of shame festering in our hearts and minds. But explore Giger’s house with the impending frightful sight of a terrified old man who’s seen the faces of hell and it will unseat you somehow. Whence that fear, that anxiety? What do we fill in the blanks of our reality with?
Featured image: H.R. Giger in a scene from Dark Star.
Metastable 