absent origin

Mira Calix's first full-length since the 2000s is a dense, imposing collage which recontextualizes several scores the artist composed in various locations throughout the world over the course of a decade. Calix extensively researched the history of collage art, naming Hannah Wilke, Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst, and Henri Matisse among the many artists who influenced the creation of the album. The cover artwork mirrors the record's compositional process, playfully cutting and pasting images of Calix along with images of globes and maps, sheet music, travel photography, and musical gear, equally presenting her as an artist and a spectator. The recording is a vivid travelogue, splicing choirs, raps, operatic arias, and spoken passages into fractured audio sculptures that incorporate manipulated found sounds as well as acoustic instruments and abstract dance rhythms. Opener "a mark of resistance" emerges from erratic thumps, finger snaps, and kisses, gradually establishing a rhythm with layered protest chants and forceful kick drums. On "nkosezane - for my daddy," Calix incorporates the heartfelt, optimistic vocals of an African children's choir, loosely attached to tumbling acoustic drums and deep electronic bass. The glitchy, mind-boggling "fundamental things" features intensely chopped-up drumming, beeping car horns, assurances, and some elegant violin at the end. Calix draws from U.K. hip-hop on "fractions fractured factions," twisting rapped verses around wonky basslines and skittering beats, and "i'm in love with the end" pastes ecstatic sighs on top of a dislocated grime rhythm. Negativland-esque processed voices question reality over the tense yet graceful strings of "an infinite thrum (archipelago)." Like nearly all of Calix's music, absent origin is complex and challenging, but it reflects an unmistakably unique perspective on the world. ~ Paul Simpson