I remembered liking Cerulean, Baths first release, when it
came out back in the day. In fact, it was one of the first electronic albums
that I really got into. Minimalist, danceable, and with more glitches then the
PS3 version of Skyrim its no wonder I liked it and still listen to it now. Obsidian
is those things as well, but in a very different way. If I were writing a
review of Cerulean right now there are two words that might not appear at all
in that post, or at the very least I wouldn’t use them until the last
paragraph. But it’s not, and in Obsidian’s review I am going to use those two
words in the first paragraph. Those words are Will Wiesenfeld, the name of the
guy behind Baths. There is no getting around it, Wiesenfeld’s latest outing is
a personal affair, and while the chasm between his releases is wide, it’s a gap
worth jumping with gusto Evel Knievel style.
Despite being comprised of love songs and barely having any
words, Baths previous music managed to be incredibly varied in tone. Aminals
was cute, Maximalist was optimistic, You’re My Excuse to Travel was sad, and
the music underneath was consistently good. And the glitch! Oh the glitch.
Glitch was a sign that everything was working just fine. On Obsidian glitch is
bad; not that Wiesenfeld forgot how to produce well, but rather he uses glitch
as a device to create tension in the songs as opposed to using it as the whole
song. Most of the tracks, even those with really cut up drum beats, have at
least some non-cut up instrument behind them, whether it be a lone piano or
violins and other string instruments. Its different for certain, but the
listener gets the sense that Wiesenfeld has really matured in terms of his
production skills...
...and in content as well. Obsidian is dark; duh, that just
makes good sense. It’s like they are still love songs, just written by a man
whose idea of love has drastically changed. Or possibly Wiesenfeld felt this
way all along and only now feels confident enough with his music to write songs
openly about it. Whichever the case is, the record comes off as very personal
and very dark. Even songs that probably aren’t directly about Wiesenfeld come
across as personal sounding, something about their presentation makes them take
the form of confessions. The last song doesn’t even have words but still
manages to feel like it is trying to say something and we the listeners are
left to pick up the pieces. Making an album like that is gutsy, to borrow a
line from Maximalist, “it takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate
your essence.” Wiesenfeld does it very well, and when you are a producer like
he is, good production will always trump lyrics in terms of importance. That is
not to say that the lyrics are bad. Far from it, I just mean that if you are not
looking to be bummed out by the music you are listening to Obsidian is still
worth a listen.
Oh and the singing! The singing is worth mentioning.
Cerulean almost felt sacrilegious in the way that Wiesenfeld put his voice on
the record. There was just something a
little bit weird about someone who is clearly billing themselves as a producer
to be singing on their records without featuring a single other artist. Just
imagine if Burial tried that, you can’t because you don’t know what Burial
sounds like. Wiesenfeld’s voice is weird, not the type of thing that you could
hear and immediately think was good, but like I already said it works. The
vocals on Obsidian feel very natural, and I give credit to anyone who can make
the transition from guy who doesn’t sing to guy who does. Obsidian is a good album. It might be unbearably sad, but there is a
touch of hope on it and a few danceable numbers. What more can you really ask
for?
