A command to feel
Music is a predator. It preys upon your emotional state, hoping to manipulate your thought process with all sorts of glorious chords and notes. Whether it be the unyielding aggression of a punk song, the sensual croon of an R&B star or the menacing hum of drone music, the point is always to take you somewhere. The best music often succeeds at this quietly, without your knowledge. It’s inhibiting to be listening to a track and think, “This is the part where they want me to feel sad,” so they try to sneak it in there. Sometimes though, good songs slap you in the face with it. Bands like Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky practically scream, “Feel happy now!” and so you do, with little thought or care for how you are being manipulated, you already want to feel how they want you to feel. Jessica Moss, with her slow somber strings, often teeters close to the edge of oblivion, but on Entanglement, it becomes clear that no matter how obvious her intent is, you’re bound to be wrapped up in it.
Structurally the album is rather odd. It’s a simple five-track record with one track taking up nearly half the runtime, and each subsequent track sharing the same title structure. As such, the heart of the album is delivered to the listener on the very first track, though that heart doesn’t reveal itself quite so readily. While much of the album will eventually turn into rushes of stringed instruments and the slow slide of a bow over the taut strings of a cello, the beginning of “Particles” is a strange electronic soundscape.
Long flowing synth notes build the spine of the track, making for a revelatory experience as tittering synthetic bleeps and bloops scurry along the front end of the track. About four minutes in, the intent of the track becomes clear, it wants you to feel the sun breaking through the clouds as you summit Everest. There’s an intense air of triumph and grandeur about this as it feels like a coronation ceremony borne out of the chaos of the track’s opening. More evolutions follow—slow notes of despair populate the middle section, your kingdom lies in ruin, and the end is a spiraling dirge of choral whines and howls, as if you were descending into a cursed forest, lost and alone.
Much of the rest of the album feels like a journey of reclamation; it never quite reaches the heights of “Particles” but the morning dew soaked “Fractals (Truth 1)” is a licking of wounds. A sense of loss lingers over the track, but certain notes indicate that the loss is not without hope. “Fractals (Truth 2)” continues similarly, but the center portion feels like an attempt to get back on one’s feet. It is not easy—the notes stutter and fade out at odd intervals, showing signs of slippage from former glories, but the courage is still there.
The final track “Fractals (Truth 4)” is an epic battle. Glory returns to our imagined hero, the voices of his people lifting him up against the tyrant. You can feel all of this; you are there as he fights his usurper atop the tallest turret and are awestruck along with the rest of the onlookers, as the tyrant tumbles from the tower. None of this is real, but Moss demanded you feel it, and so you do.
It is no small feat to be able to work emotions. Many posit that logic is the core of a human, that which separates a human from other beasts. But what is logic without a motive? So often we forget the value of the force of emotion that we readily feel, whether it be from something occurring in our real life, or something entirely imagined. Our ability to use these emotions to inform our understanding of the world is what truly sets us apart. People are so reluctant to feel anything, it can feel as though it were a distraction to have emotion so rudely interrupt our day to day lives. But then again, perhaps it is better to breathe it in and feel what the artist wants you to feel, or at least feel something.
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