Wednesday, September 9, 2020

ADARKAH IANQU: THE ROTTEN TEETH NAILED TO OUR USELESS SKULLS

There are moments when circumstances leave one hopeless. To offset the pain, sad songs (sorrowful compositions of any sort) may come into play: handy, hair-of-the-dog remedies that fight fire with fire, in hopes of helping one cope.

Adarkah Ianqu compositions hold the required, melancholic power to administer this effect. For his latest, industrial venture, the rotten teeth nailed to our useless skulls, he shovels far deeper to disinter each appendage, making the album's concept so tight, so lean that the results link like dry bones, rattling inside the listener's senses track upon track. 

"Coca cola", the sojourn's soft, ascending prelude, relays a convenient means to numb any mortifying sting. Alas, per implication, the cheap antidote hurts more than the cure, and in this twist lies the album's ingenious, skeletal key. 

Case in point, the next segment queued: "twenty years research", where the chords capture hard days and their unappreciated ends. "Research" is an emblem, therefore, for all those stumbling souls who've faced the daily grind, only to wonder, why dear Lord, did I even try?

"Lube" is the evaporating lubricant that one applies to gain the reply. In it, Ianqu's sounds squeak like sharp, salt-less shoves, plastering a mocking topping across one's trampled trails. 

To widen the ensuing dread, Ianqu gives the listener an "arduous river", with sloshing slaps imbued with stormy frustration. Though this audio river reaches a viable conclusion, it extrapolates an ageless crest upon which one's shame must forever rest. But one soon learns that rest is but a ruse and shame, an infinite pit. 

For this tragic turn, Ianqu grants a grating yet ebbing trilogy: "loser at least", "loser at least (frozen)" and "loser at least (haus)": The initial chapter conveys one's fall; the second, the realization of one's rock-bottom relegation; and the third, a stage where naked desperation comprises one's home. 

Once this trilogy has spoken, Ianqu dispatches a feathery double feature; "fool pelican" and "sacred nightingales". The former symbolizes the tacky attire one wears in disgrace (a dunce hat or snide note stuck to one's back); but the latter offers at best false liberation: much more disheartening for the lie it invokes. (Keep in mind: No matter how high one flies, those damn flames still burn.) And to the artist's credit, the set's metallic accompaniment polishes each side of the double-edged sword, assuring that every speck of pride will be sliced away until once more, there's only linking bone. 

"The trumpet of tubingen" signals the pitying proclamation, blaring an epilogue through a broken, Viking's horn: an inverted victory gained through purposeless aim, filled with frigid marrow and dancing to chattering teeth. (No matter how fast one runs, last place awaits.)

This unavoidable defeat is Ianqu's ironic treat: a shrieking stigma for one's stripped-down state. For all its unpalatable tang, the rotten teeth nailed to our useless skulls is a technological triumph that one has no recourse but to embrace. 

Visit Ianqu's bare-bone necessities at

https://piarabatzis.bandcamp.com/album/the-rotten-teeth-nailed-to-our-useless-skulls?fbclid=IwAR3U6S4ScRtJjsS-FOIWP6ZEXUvFMb0DdBHss-yuRhl8ofD4YSLkfBKBPvg

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