This winter, I stood on a lookout point at Zion National Park during the government shutdown. There were maybe 100 people in total in the park. It’s an eerie feeling to be relatively alone right in front of the massive, prehistoric red stone towers. The small information sign in front of me displayed the names of the towers in front of me: The Altar of Sacrifice, Angels Landing, The Three Patriarchs, and The East and West Temples.
It’s easy to downplay the strength of the soil when our technology seems so powerful. No matter how advanced we get, people will die of frostbite; mountains will toss seasoned alpinists aside; runners will fail in the face of great distances of the desert. I don’t think it’s entirely necessary to say that it’s both terrifying and beautiful what this rock can do; long after we’re gone, Earth will be here, hurtling through the endless expanse of space. The buildings will break down in seconds when compared to the rocks that take millions of years to barely erode.
Besides his merger of bluegrass and black metal, one of the things that separate Panopticon, also know as A. Lunn, from his contemporaries is a feeling of deep respect for nature. His latest release The Crescendo of Dusk is an homage to the northern lights, of “which very few things in the world are more beautiful and awe-inspiring than,” he writes on his Bandcamp page. In the same way that the power and magnificence of the earth instill us with fear and admiration, so does the splintering noise of The Crescendo of Dusk.
On the final night of my Zion trip, my group and I pulled over in the middle of the park and gazed up at the night sky. Beyond the beauty was the terrifying reality of the potentially relentless uncaringness harbored by nature. The feeling has been lingering with me ever since. I can only imagine what the northern lights meant to Lunn.
Stream The Crescendo of Dusk below:
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