Jason Lescalleet - 'The Pilgrim' (Glistening Examples)

'Sometimes you drive, sometimes you're a passenger.' This is one of the most intense and personal works of avant-garde art that I've ever experienced, and it's actually so extreme in the nature of being personal that I find it very difficult to listen to.  I probably played this once when I got it, and once again today. It's not something I'd just throw on when guests are over, or even very often to listen to myself, such is the effect it has on me, one of feeling inappropriately voyeuristic and of course, sad. That said, I would never part with it; it's a beautiful object that encapsulates everything that humanity is capable of achieving through art –– a total expression that is personal, raw, and relatable (if difficult). This record is a tribute by Jason Lescalleet to his father, who passed away in 2005. The first side contains a piece performed live at a festival a few years earlier, inspired not just by the father himself but by how the elder Lescalleet related to Jason's music, understanding it through his own memories of a car ride with his father, Jason's grandfather. The record begins with Jason's spoken introduction, reading out a letter from his father, and then the piece begins, a rumble that attempts to imagine the soundworld of what his father experienced while young. The liner notes explain that he already knew his father was likely to die with two years of creating this piece, and thus this composition ('His Petition') took on immense significance. It's a beautiful blur of sound, with the guttural momentum of a car engine felt but not heard, and the slow sputtering finish taking on a powerful effect given the motif of death that hangs over this record so much. As someone who sometimes struggles to connect with the emotional resonance of abstraction (despite, obviously being invested into the field for years) this really hits me, not just because of the externally-supplied context, but because this is specifically about how to relate one's own work to a loved one, and how your relationship can grow through your art. It's the second side of this picture disc that is the really difficult material, made up of recordings of Lescalleet's father as he was literally dying, deathbed conversations processed and presented as an actual recording of the end. I have to admit that when listening to this, my mind races to go elsewhere, almost as if this material is too personal, not meant for my ears. It's a struggle to focus on the sounds and the language, and my lack of concentration feels disrespectful to the man and the material. So it's odd to write such praise about an artwork that I actually have trouble experiencing, but in some ways, maybe that's the mark of something truly boundary breaking? Words fail me here, as there's not really any way to do this justice for what it means to Lescalleet and its unique status as a form of expression. I would suggest any reader to seek it out, with the caveat that this is not an uplifting experience, or maybe it actually is, but through the presentation of loss as a shared experience, which is best described as inspirational, not uplifting. But not everything should be uplifting, anyway.