ESSAY // syko friend “angel’s ride” liners
“all too fogged out in the predawn but you swear you keep hearing these tunes bleeding in from the distance...”
Happy Solstice!!
This week, a cozy December check-in via this quick little writeup on Syko Friend’s great Angel’s Ride album from 2017. Sophie aka Syko Friend asked me to contribute some words to the release when it was coming out, and though I was and am honored to have gotten the nod, it was also a prose move I don’t think I’d ever attempted up to that point, at least when it came to any recordings that weren’t my own. Still, since the texts to which I’ve always gravitated have been known to default to long descriptions of abstract states and endlessly piled-up clauses’ worth of oblique art/music accounting, I kind of get why I was an OK fit for the ask, and why I really liked doing it, and why I’m still deeply down with this genre of writing.
I think the exercise works on a couple of levels that feel germane. First of all--and this part is supremely obvious--it’s challenging and fun to think about using words to evoke a state outside of language. To write this way about specific music (without just describing the music, which does very little/nothing) is to attempt to replicate that music’s specific effects: its textures and temporal substance, its capacities for surprise or bewilderment, its moments of resolution or clarity or straight-up sensory pleasure. But the trickier part, which is directly related to this initial challenge (and probably equally obvious), is the fact that, of course, you can’t replicate those effects in writing, not really. You can suggest things, convey some basic shapes, kind of prime a listener to pay attention to this or that detail, but this idea of a whole-cloth recreation is doomed to failure even as it guides the entire effort. And that’s the kind of paradoxical rope-a-dope that gets me reeeal psyched.
Which is all to say: anyone looking for more texts like this from me, hit me up!! I would love to continue trying this impossible thing. My journey of self-defeat is only beginning.
Meanwhile, listen to Angel’s Ride below and scope the writeup, which is considerably shorter than this elaborate intro spiel. Also check out Syko Friend’s intervening releases, Fontanelle (2020) and The Code (2022). I love Sophie’s music, and it’s very cold where I am, and these tunes are a balm.
Thank you goodbye!!
Sophie Weil has been making music as Syko Friend since 2011, traversing the sundry zones of some nebulous present-day underground, hauling amps and pedals, writing songs, recording tapes--carrying on the work of musical creation that threads back through generations of hazily-remembered basement gigs and dreamy nighttime guitar tunes, plaintive vocals ripping over blurry reverb-soaked instrumentals, purifying release welling up in the walls of feedback. Sounds undergirded here and there by metal or grunge or western riffs, but slowed, layered, a couple pings of echo and the space for it all to linger and you’re brought somewhere decidedly outside of any present-day timeframe or specific genre reference point, somewhere closer to lost; turned around, dark out, all too fogged out in the predawn but you swear you keep hearing these tunes bleeding in from the distance... Angel’s Ride keeps the vibe going: splices of pure tone wash give way to unpolished, deceptively simple descending licks, harshening sections and breakthroughs to sweet, openchord melodies. It all ends in a few seconds of free, open-feeling loop zone, hazy even as the moment ends, and somewhere in the mix a pedal clicks off.12
.-'''-. ___ _ _______
/ _ \.' | | |\ ____ \
(`' )/`--'| .' | || | \ |
(_ o _). .' '_ | || |____/ /
(_,_). '. ' ( \.-.|| _ _ '.
.---. \ :' (`. _` /|| ( ' ) \
\ `-' || (_ (_) _)| (_{;}_) |
\ / \ / . \ /| (_,_) /
`-...-' ``-'`-'' /_______.'
.-'''-. _______ .-------.
/ _ \ / __ \ | _ _ \
(`' )/`--' | ,_/ \__) | ( ' ) |
(_ o _). ,-./ ) |(_ o _) /
(_,_). '. \ '_ '`) | (_,_).' __
.---. \ : > (_) ) __ | |\ \ | |
\ `-' |( . .-'_/ )| | \ `' /
\ / `-'`-' / | | \ /
`-...-' `._____.' ''-' `'-'
.-./`) _______ .-''-.
\ .-.')\ ____ \ .'_ _ \
/ `-' \| | \ | / ( ` ) '
`-'`"`| |____/ / . (_ o _) |
.---. | _ _ '. | (_,_)___|
| | | ( ' ) \' \ .---.
| | | (_{;}_) | \ `-' /
| | | (_,_) / \ /
'---' /_______.' `'-..-' OK, so I do have to admit that, contrary to the philosophy laid out my opening note, this text does contain a fair amount of actual description of Sophie’s music. But it’s description that’s willfully enigmatic and withholding and jargon-laden, which is—let’s just say for the sake of argument—better??
Also, do I love that I used the word “zone” twice in this? Am I necessarily thrilled to have used it even once, plus “vibe”? Can writing of this necessarily loosey-goosey type theoretically benefit from a strong edit? None, I repeat none of this, is my problem.