Magazine Posts
Table of Contents
Post title...
Post title...
Post title...
Posted
|
Views: 770
Who It Is: Jordaan Mason – The Decline of Stupid Fucking Western Civilization; Self-Released (2015)
Review:
Jordaan Mason copes with anything life throws at them with a sense of non-descriptive irony and a bit of pragmatism. And it’s more than expected. The Toronto troubadour reached the depths of music forums and pompous Neutral Milk Hotel comparisons with the excellence behind Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head. Mason’s odd lyrical content – a close derivative of the “Communist Daughter”/”Tambourine-N-Thyme” hybrid – deals with everything and nothing at all: sexual frustration, bad relationships, mental illness, divorces, staying, swimming pools, animals, drugs, and unrequited love are among Mason’s favorite subjects. But whether we can make sense out of the word salad that bridges between Divorce Lawyers and The Decline of Stupid Fucking Western Civilization, one thing is absolute: Jordaan Mason is an incredibly talented songwriter who cleverly utilizes the simplicity of a cheap microphone to create a poignant, desperate atmosphere clouded by immortalized fear and a haunting vocal delivery.
Jordaan Mason copes with anything life throws at them with a sense of non-descriptive irony and a bit of pragmatism. And it’s more than expected. The Toronto troubadour reached the depths of music forums and pompous Neutral Milk Hotel comparisons with the excellence behind Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head. Mason’s odd lyrical content – a close derivative of the “Communist Daughter”/”Tambourine-N-Thyme” hybrid – deals with everything and nothing at all: sexual frustration, bad relationships, mental illness, divorces, staying, swimming pools, animals, drugs, and unrequited love are among Mason’s favorite subjects. But whether we can make sense out of the word salad that bridges between Divorce Lawyers and The Decline of Stupid Fucking Western Civilization, one thing is absolute: Jordaan Mason is an incredibly talented songwriter who cleverly utilizes the simplicity of a cheap microphone to create a poignant, desperate atmosphere clouded by immortalized fear and a haunting vocal delivery.
Add some text, Yo! Click this text box to change the text, style, color and fonts.
What It Sounds Like: Neutral Milk Hotel, Andrew Jackson Jihad, These Trails, Sun Kil Moon, Red House Painters, Valium Aggelein
And it should be noted that this record’s purpose, if any, is pretty similar to whatever Divorce Lawyers manifested; Mason likes to test your patience; the opener, optically named after the title of the record, boasts 12 minutes of isolated vocals before drums set in halfway through the song. There’s little to understand here other than Mason setting the same tone of self-analytical despair present in Divorce Lawyers, but to an end that extends to raw review of one’s sexuality; Mason rarely speaks explicitly about sex, but their lyrics are filled with metaphorical representations of sexual organs and, occasionally, desires.
The amount of crudity and build-ups are enough to make it seem over-the-top within the context of mental illness. Mason doesn’t want to have every song escalate into cacophony before anything starts to makes sense. Mason needs to find a comfort zone before spouting whatever reaction to melancholia is running through their head. With this in mind, tracks such as“Euology” and “Liturgy Part II” become even more honest; Mason sees their depression and gender identity in a poignantly unique way and, after comprehending the kind of places Mason has been dragged to, it becomes a little easier to get past the metaphors and into what Mason is trying to convey: the woes and everyday struggles of a young, confused, gay Canadian 20-something coping with a plethora of issues and trying to make ends meet by selling their music on the internet.
And that’s the loveliest element of The Decline of Stupid Fucking Western Civilization. It has the ability to consolidate a generation of emotionally alienated young people who identify with the abrasive mood of this record. Whether they are past the coming of age threshold or not doesn’t really matter. Songs like “Pharmacy” make it essential for anyone who has been through the emotional hassle of SSRI’s and Benzodiazepines to communicate with on a very concrete level. Mason strives on the pleasure of continuous instrumentation albeit being as honest as possible. The record offers an everlasting level of physical and psychological strangulation that just adds to its ingenuity. It’s the feeling you get from being uncomfortably inebriated on a hot day. You want to get out, but if you can’t, might as well do something about it.