Morning Walk's Lessons - The Art of History, Depth, & Story of Art

Next podcast up - Switched on Pop, hosted by Vox’s own Charlie Harding, notable music journalist whose music writing has been cited in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and plenty more. I'll kick it off by shamefully saying I initially judged the podcast by its cover, more specifically its title. My immediate reaction to the word "Pop" brought me to a concerning, claustrophobic corner of thoughts of analyzing Miley Cyrus lyrics, but my practically innate passion for music powered me through to enable a click, which led to an episode title reveal of Disclosure. Now there's a level of sophistication I can get down with. Click. Hooked.

I mention ‘practically innate’ because I’ve been under the spell of music since the Days of the Womb. My two older brothers, 7 and 10 years senior, have had a decade of music under their belt to enlighten me with, even as I was just conceived. Meaning since Ante Nativitatis (newly self-coined, Latin for Before Birth), music was encoded and entwined into my embryonic DNA. Oldies and Classic Rock were the staple, but life changed, for the better, when Electronic entered my picture, more specifically – House music. The collage of rapid and intense beats per minute, the extracted samples lifted from all corners of the planet, synthesized sounds unable to be reproduced by nature, and the trance one can ethereally find themselves in is one of the best forms of therapy I have embraced as far back as I can remember.

The challenge with Electronic music in particular, as often perceived, is that it can be an aggregation of sounds that seemingly has no history, depth, and story to the song, album, and artist themselves. Without lyrics (the tangible and audible item that traditionally conveys a story harmoniously accompanied by a sound bed), we tend to think someone pressed keys, tapped buttons, and turned dials with no motive or agenda. Plenty will proudly debate that, as there are subtle nuances that influence the artist to resonate with those beats that we may have no privy to without explanation. For example, any inclusion of the electronically synthesized effect typically known as ‘Phaser’ automatically transports me to my safe and happy place, the beach, as it reminds me of the brushing of ocean water on the sand. Such ‘energy’ can be the inspiration for those intended ‘vibes’.

Charlie Harding offers artists a platform to be heard and to provide their story on Switched on Pop, and I became further enlightened to an artist who I already had plenty of respect for. Disclosure is an English Electronic duo of brothers, Howard and Guy Lawrence, who saw early success from their debut album, Settle (2013), which was nominated for Best Dance/Electronica Album at the 2014 Grammy Awards. The episode in focus hones-in on their newest album, Energy (2020), which is a collection of South American and African influences that tells a deep, yet holistic story about the maturation of the brothers from their early na?ve days of playing instruments in their sheltered English home in Reigate, of Surrey County, to encountering new cultures and experiences yet to have been discovered.

"It’s our most diverse album that we’ve made in terms of palate of sounds and the inspiration that we’re letting in. Before, we were strictly House Garage, a bit of small song writing and R&B in the next one, and now we’re exploring stuff that we’re listening to now as adults, exploring the world of music. Exploring the music of the places that we visited, been to, and made us go home and want to listen to more of that."

Similar to George Harrison’s influence of spiritual connection after his meeting with Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar in 1966, forever watermarked with the Indian sitar found on The Beatles' classics like Norwegian Wood and Tomorrow Never Knows, Howard and Guy imprint their interpretation of their travels into their next stage of life, Energy. We as the listener are guided through the process, instrument by instrument, and layer by layer, of how elements were chosen to produce what is now my current favorite song, eponymously titled Energy. Enter brilliant podcast sound production, where the elements being spoken of are actually played in real time as their own individual layer to bring to life the instruments and sounds mentioned. This component of the episode, and the podcast in its overall format, is what provides such depth behind instruments and their respective sounds, adding personification and story to a seemingly simple, yet dimension-heavy track.

On a larger scale, I had a takeaway moment of realizing that there are stories to every piece of art, and those physical manifestations of a story need thorough analysis to understand where the artist is coming from. It’s this context that transforms a canvas painting on a wall to a complex dimension of understanding the artist’s history, thought process, their influences and inspirations in that moment of time of piece creation, and ultimately the specific piece’s story that is being conveyed. The context of a Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème opera, Jackson Pollack’s Convergence, and J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor have unbelievable depth behind it, and when digested as one masterpiece, plenty gets lost in the shuffle. It’s the individual layers that tells the story, and I for one will for now on focus on individual elements as an attempt to begin learning their stories.

I encourage you to do the same. Listen to a song and actually focus on each and every instrument throughout the duration of the song, repeating with a separate focus on another instrument. Repeat for art, focusing on each shape, color, and region. Repeat for ballet, focusing on each person throughout the experience. Repeat for orchestra, focusing on each instrument for a period of time. Stories will unveil, masterpieces will form, and your appreciation will be significantly heightened.