搬運自：網(wǎng)易云音樂專欄【Music Online Zine Courier】（在原文基礎(chǔ)上添加了英語原文與排版調(diào)整）

翻譯：Beans_Beans

Black midi?introduce us to “John L” with looping, staggering chaos. The melody is somewhere between a bar from?King Crimson’s?Larks’ Tongues in Aspic?title suite skipping on a turntable and the moment when a train starts screeching to a rhythm. Since their 2019 debut?Schlagenheim, the London collective have added saxophone and violin to the mix, and the result feels even less identifiable than before. And when vocalist Geordie Greep starts muttering about accordion-backed renditions of “Sonny Boy” or crews of anteaters feasting on human flesh, he certainly doesn’t sound like a rock frontman.

black midi以反復無常、驚怖的混亂向我們介紹“John L”。這首歌的旋律介于King Crimson的詩作《Larks’ Tongues》中的一個詩節(jié)、唱針在唱機轉(zhuǎn)盤上反復橫跳、火車行駛時發(fā)出的有節(jié)奏地刺耳尖嘯之間。自2019年的首張專輯《Schlagenheim》以來，這個倫敦樂隊又為他們的音樂新添了薩克斯管和小提琴兩個元素，最終的效果是比以往更加隱晦。當歌手Geordie Greep開始抱怨演奏手風琴的Sonny Boy或一群吃人的“食蟻獸”（邪教、政客）時，他聽起來顯然已經(jīng)不僅僅是一個搖滾樂隊的主唱了。

And yet, the triumph of “John L” is notthat these well-trained musicians continue to confound expectations: It’s thatthey have become so adept at their brand of dissonant, skronking, avant-progthat it actually sounds sort of anthemic. Along with the absurdist musicvideo—like Jodorowsky’s Cats, or a Teletubby’s acid flashback—the song itselffeels like a zoomed-out optical illusion, making you question what you’rewitnessing at every turn: Does the tempo start speeding up halfway through oris that just the intensity of their performance? How many times did I thinksomeone was opening a creaking door behind me when I listened on headphones?Occasionally, the band stops dead in their tracks, building tension with eerie,nagging silence. And when they return, they loom larger, just as fascinated aswe are by where they’ll go next.

然而，“John L”的勝利并不在于這些訓練有素的音樂家們滿足了人們的期望。而是他們已經(jīng)能熟練的運用自己的那些不協(xié)和、引人厭惡、前衛(wèi)的音樂風格，以至于它實際聽來有像頌歌一般的效果。伴隨著荒誕主義的MV——像Jodorowsky的《貓》，亦或天線寶寶的迷幻閃回——歌曲本身像是一個放大般的光學錯覺，讓你每每開始質(zhì)疑你正在目睹的事物。節(jié)奏是否在中途開始加快，還是這只是他們表演的強度發(fā)生變化？當我戴著耳機聽的時候，又有多少次我感覺有人在我身后鬼鬼祟祟地擺弄一扇吱吱作響的門？偶爾，樂隊會在原地踱步，用陰森、呢喃的沉默制造緊張的氛圍。當他們重新歸來時，他們背后的暗影愈加龐大，愈加吸引我們好奇他們接下來又會引領(lǐng)我們?nèi)サ侥睦铩?/p>