We were enraptured by Home Power, the 2017 release by Distant Reader on Lily Tapes and Discs. On the album, Emmerich Anklam created something almost ecological, a patient ebb and flow punctuated by moments of violent intensity. It was an emotionally vast record, as we described in our review:
Home Power is a deep record, one that withstands, even requires, a lot of thought and rumination, but after repeated listens the key points of empathy and kindness begin to resonate deeply. It’s a reminder that we’re all able to help ourselves and each other, and that we will be better people for both
We were very excited, then, to hear Anklam is back with a new Distant Reader album. Titled, Sea Level, the record looks to take an already ambitious blueprint and expand upon it, exploring histories, geographies and ecologies in the hope of understanding the present and preparing for a (hopefully better) future.
“This is a California album,” explains Anklam, “[but] I wanted the songs to evoke this place in a disorienting way, so the typical musical signposts of California are either absent or shredded into some other matter.” With one exception, Anklam says these songs are “either fictional or wholly adrift from narrative,” a collection of “character studies, arguments, dubious prophecies, nightmares and daydreams” that attempt to explore California and the wider idea of The American West.
Opening track ‘Wish for Waiting’ is the perfect introduction, ten-plus minutes of atmospheric guitar and expressive vocals, growing as it advances into powerful, elemental post rock. This power is a characteristic of Sea Level, which represents a definite sonic expansion from the Distant Reader we heard on Home Power. Even relatively delicate songs, like the fraught ‘Marie’, bristle with tension, images of hopeful moments flickering over a forbidding present like a projected Super 8. “I’m still fascinated by fireflies,” Anklam sings, “they imitate a thing that’s barely alive. Birds and trees and the shouting of kids, try to take it all into myself.”
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‘Sea Level Doomsday Forecast’ is another example, an initial shimmering ambience heralding a galloping drum beat that’s suitably dramatic for the title. As it suggests, the song confronts a near future in which ice caps have melted away and flooded coastal areas around the world, a scenario not from some apocalyptic novel but from the predictive models of climate research organisations. “Move your house above the flood,” Anklam sings, “climb the ladder to your door / divine some future in the dry, where ash and rain don’t coat our floors.”
“To have the life of the face of a cliff,” begins ‘Strata Slow Dance’, a song that invokes a geological level of patience. In some ways it’s one of the most positive moments on the record, placing our current troubles, be they ecological, social or personal, in the context of billions of years of change, a reminder that things always find a way, even if it’s not clear from the present moment.
So let it turn like it wants to.
Silt out doubt
To lift tides, roots, moss, shade, fire, sun.
And not to shout, “Hurry! I have to run.”
‘Borax’ is the exception mentioned earlier, Sea Level‘s only autobiographical song, although again ideas of climate disaster are woven into the piece intrinsically. Opening with clanging percussion, it feels as big and formidable as the blazing hot landscape it describes. “One-hundred eleven,” it begins, with ominous brevity, “the devil is here.” It describes a scene that could be taken from some post-apocalyptic hellscape, but is in fact present day California (an area that has seen, a quick look into figures shows, over 8,500 wildfires covering almost 2 million acres in 2018 alone). Lines such as “I try not to go out after nine in the morning / birds drop out of the sky / I don’t want to be left behind,” bring the situation into clear relief and represent the harrowing conditions that are beginning to encroach on our everyday lives.
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As its title suggests, the final track ‘Wildfire Song’ is also concerned with the topic. What Anklam describes as a “secular prayer”, it begins with stark vocals that describe the escape from an approaching wildfire. Like all real prayers it is at once expectant and desperate, imbued with both hope and a knowledge of the sorrow at the centre of things.
Care a different way tomorrow
step back twice, reorganize,
help it grow,
and have it show us what we owe
And this is perhaps the ultimate message of Sea Level. There is no denying that we live in uncertain times, and that there is a very real potential for catastrophe in the coming years. So to be entirely hopeful and optimistic would be to lie to oneself, to ignore the evidence all around us. Distant Reader understands that to confront a problem as huge and potentially devastating as this requires communication that doesn’t shy away from the horror, doesn’t fail to grieve for what we have already lost, and for what we stand to lose in the near future.
Sea Level is out now and you can get it on a name-your-price basis from the Distant Reader Bandcamp page.