CAROLYN FOK

The Listener

Titanium (2001)

review by Bill Binkelman

There are some works that are so bold, so original, and so ambitious, that reviewing them seems trite and superficial. Carolyn Fok's The Listener is one such work. First of all, this is no mere CD. It's a true mixed-media work, encompassing two-CDs that are packaged in a paper-bound book. The book also contains artwork in a variety of mediums (pencils, watercolors, ink, computer, et al.) as well as poetry and lyrics (all of which are by the artist). Instrumentation (played by Fok) includes synths, keyboards, voice, guitar, Gamelan chime, drum programming, and more. The music itself is a mixture of experimental, avant garde, ambient, EM, synth-rock, and even some more conventional melodic elements thrown in here and there. There are thirty tracks in all, spaced across the two discs, and the track titles tend to be esoteric (much like Tim Story, who, coincidentally, is a guest artist on one song): "Let Me Hear Them," "Springs of Attachment," "The Big Search," "Matrix 51," " Miles of Nightingales," and "Resting in a Bed of Truth" to name just a few.

I need to stress that my normal method of reviewing music simply doesn't work with an album like The Listener. I couldn't describe this music accurately unless I wanted to write several thousand words at a minimum. Some of the songs border on mild cacophony and controlled chaos - offering somewhat disjointed electro-acoustic refrains and arrhythmic pulses of percussion. Yet other pieces are elegantly beautiful and have a high degree of melodic accessibility. Still others tracks offer up a Wendy Carlos-like combination of electronic keyboards in a neo-classical style, yet are off-kilter by virtue of some dissonance and a total lack of conventional structure. If there is a continuity throughout the album, it is that the music frequently evokes feelings of pain, isolation, despair, frustration, and other darker emotions. There is little here that "feels" optimistic, although some of the passages are beautiful and gentle (however, minor key tonalities so thoroughly dominate even these moments that they are suffused with a delicate sadness).

What makes the album's overwhelming diversity of music work so well, though, is that somehow Fok has a unique sense of when the envelope has been pushed far enough to display audaciousness and realizes it's time to veer over to calmer waters, musically speaking. In the midst of synthesizer wailings or strange textural rumblings, she adds lush strings or a gentle piano refrain, almost as if she were a consummate chef and she was intent on balancing the pungent fire of habanero peppers with something more soothing yet equally flavorful, such as cilantro. Make no mistake, though, much of The Listener contains music with an edge or on the edge. It's all about tension - emotional, musical, and intellectual. This is not safe music - and it's only ambient music in the very loosest definition. Pulsing, pounding drum programming and loud bursts of sampled instruments can not be ignored and even if played solely in the background, I can't imagine what this would do to the sonic environment. Sleep-inducing this isn't!

There are so many memorable moments throughout this CD that recounting just some of them could be a review in itself: the gentle delicate bell-like opening to "The Singing Bottle" which segues into highly dramatic synth strings, the forlorn piano intro of "Meaning In Love" which morphs into a percolating series of electronic beats and ambient-glitch effects, bearing some resemblance to the work of Rik MacLean, a.k.a. Mara's Torment, the syncopated scratches and mysterious minor key synth washes at the start of the title cut. There is a wonderful "mini-suite" of three songs in a row on the second disc that features some of Fok's best electronic keyboard work - from the strangely European feel of "Day On Train," to the solemn Tim Story-like minimalist piano of "As Calendars Roam," to the high-energy Synergy-like (i.e. Larry Fast) "The Travellers."

I had to live with this amazing recording for many months before I could even think about writing a review (something that I feel badly about for the artist's sake). But The Listener is not an easy CD to digest - it's complex, challenging and one could say "it takes no prisoners," even when a given song or passage is more typically "beautiful." However, the album is also immensely rewarding and contains music that is so far ahead of almost everything else out there that the rewards of investing the time required to absorb it are both many and rich. And that doesn't take into account the multiplicative effect of Fok's poetry and art, which serve as companions to the music, of course.

If you're the kind of person who doesn't need easy answers or billboards pointing you towards what to feel or think and you enjoy music that bravely ventures into (primarily) electronic soundworlds that seem both alien yet eerily emotionally familiar, and if you're not frightened by occasional moments of dissonance, bursts of arrhythmic beats, and a more or less unstructured (from a conventional standpoint) compositional technique, The Listener is something you need to hear. Comparisons are pointless, but if I had to draw any, I'd say that three artists came to mind as I listened to the CD. Those three were Larry Gaab (for an equally unique approach to composition), Robert Scott Thompson (and his equally brave recording, Acousma) and (incredulously enough) Siouxsie and the Banshees (!). Fans of the latter artist will (I hope) recognize the similarities when they occur. For the most part, though, Carolyn Fok is one of the most original recording artists working in any genre today, a conclusion which is inescapable to anyone who is smart enough to spend time with this amazing recording.