Puce Mary’s vantage point in “Courses” is a summit of the Swiss Alps, where she glares down at the listeners as they ride the rails. An alphorn player duets ceremonially with Puce Mary, whose voice, affected with chorus, sounds as though it is submerged underwater, or interrupted by vortices and swarms of bees. Her voice is processed to the point of wordlessness: the lyrics become arbitrary; the listener absorbs the boiling inflections. Schools of high-ghoul sounds and static follow the tide, shifting in the mix from background drift to head of the class. The movement of the vortices, swarms, and schools seems to depend on the in-the-red pulse of a kettledrum, the zen eye of the storm. Thanks to its stubbornness, the pulse grounds the intensity, harnessing our heart rate that wishes to accelerate and to move with the tone-bending tide.
I admit the last paragraph is slipshod, and yet I can’t help but see all the above (all at once) while listening to “Courses:” mountains, alphorns, absorption, whirlwinds, schools of fish, swarms of bees, timpani, tides, storms, rails, and accelerating heart rates.
• Puce Mary: http://pucemary.blogspot.com
• Posh Isolation: http://poshisolation.net
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