【搬运译】Pitchfork评caroline乐队2022年专辑 caroline

搬运自：网易云音乐专栏【Music Online Zine Courier】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）

翻译：豆目豆科

Five years in the making, the UK band’s debut accomplishes something nearly impossible for a largely instrumental post-rock album: to project urgency and timelessness simultaneously.

这支英国乐队的首张专辑历时五年打造，完成了对于一张主要由器乐演奏构成的后摇专辑来说几乎不可能完成的任务：投射出紧迫感的同时后劲十足。

An earnest belief in a better tomorrow didn’t seem quite as radical when caroline formed in 2017. Like a lot of people that year, guitarist and vocalist Casper Hughes was inspired by a nascent counterinsurgence of activism by people who’d previously participated in politics from the sidelines. As several band members canvassed for Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom’s general election, Hughes channeled his cautious optimism for a more equitable future into the lyrics to “Good Morning (Red).”

2017年caroline刚成立时，他们对美好未来的诚挚信念似乎并不那么激进。同那一年的很多人一样，吉他手兼主唱Casper Hughes受到了一场新兴的激进主义反革命运动的启发，原先在政治活动中常常袖手旁观的年轻一代活跃了起来。几个乐队成员在英国大选中为Jeremy Corbyn拉票，与此同时，Hughes抱以对一个更公平未来的美好设想，将他心中的谨慎乐观投射进“Good morning (red)”的歌词中。

Five years later, it’s the second song on caroline’s self-titled debut and, as with much recent pop culture, runs the risk of being tied to its era, either too specific or too naive to resonate in a time of increasingly immediate terror. While the lyrics of “Good Morning (Red)” haven’t changed, Hughes’ performance has adjusted to a new context. When he shouts, “Can I be happy in this world? We’ll have to change it, it doesn’t suit us,” it’s more desperate, a demand rather than a question. Words are sparse on caroline, but that indomitable, communal spirit courses throughout, accomplishing something nearly impossible for a largely instrumental post-rock album: to project urgency and timelessness simultaneously.

五年后，它作为乐队同名处女作中的第二首歌问世，和最近的许多流行趋势一样，这首歌原本极有可能因它所处的时代而被束缚，要么太过写实，要么太过天真，难能在这个恐怖主义日益盛行的时代引起共鸣。虽然“Good morning (red)”的歌词并未改变，但Hughes的演绎已经适应了新的大环境。当他呐喊道：“Can I be happy in this world? We’ll have to change it, it doesn’t suit us”，这更像是一种逼上绝境之后的反击，一种诉求而非浅浅的询问。“caroline”话不多，但那种不屈不挠的团结精神贯穿始终，完成了对于一张主要由器乐演奏构成的后摇专辑来说几乎不可能完成的任务：投射出紧迫感的同时后劲十足。

If caroline’s hopeful tenor puts them at odds with the political climate, it’s done just as much to set them apart from their presumptive peers. Released by Rough Trade and sharing a producer with black midi, caroline’s 2020 debut single “Dark Blue” established a loose affiliation with the UK’s burgeoning post-punk scene while actively contradicting its stylistic tropes. Contrary to the anxious, monological Fall fanfic that collages absurdities and abstractions until they register as “commentary on modern existence” or whatever, “Dark Blue” provoked vast, elemental emotions without being overt about which ones, a towering cumulus that hovers for nearly seven minutes and never breaks.

如果说caroline充满希望的主旋律让他们与政治气候格格不入，那么这也同样让他们与那些自以为是的同行们区别开来。caroline 20年的首支单曲“Dark Blue”由Rough Trade发行，更任用了black midi的制作人，虽与英国新兴的后朋场景建立了松散的联系，但依旧积极地与场景中的主流风格套路相抵触。与焦虑而单一的The Fall乐迷小品背道而驰，“Dark Blue”激起了更为巨大、却最为原初的情感，并没有大肆宣扬点明是哪些情感，它汇聚起一个高耸的积云，在高空盘旋了近7分钟，从未消散。

In the two years since, about half of caroline has been released in some form. Similar to Black Country, New Road’s For the first time, it’s as much a compilation as a debut, an imposed deadline for a band accustomed to constant tinkering. The sequencing is vaguely chronological, with the first half reflecting a more accessible, “triumphant emo” version of caroline. “Dark Blue” and “Good Morning (Red)” have been in development since the group’s origins as a duo in 2017: guitars still play legible chords and tangled arpeggios, countable rhythms are dictated by a standard drum set, and languid vocal melodies sound composed rather than improvised. Taken together, “Dark Blue” and “Good Morning (Red)” are like an album within an album, so complementary and complete that they threaten to overshadow everything that follows. The former’s simmering tension gives way to a bleary vulnerability, a hangover slowly transforming to a flicker of hope for the day ahead. One repeats a mantra of “I want it all,” the other aches for serenity. If caroline had tried to sustain this emotional pitch for the entire album, it might have come off as manipulative, too self-consciously cinematic.

在此后的两年里，《caroline》中近一半的曲目都以某种形式发行。同Black Country, New Road的《For the first time》类似，它既是乐队的首演，也是一个汇编，对一个习惯于不断修补的乐队来说，这次发行无疑是一个强加的ddl。歌曲依稀是按时间顺序排列的，前半部分描绘了一个更易理解的、“积极向上”版本的caroline。“Dark Blue”和“Good morning (red)”自17年该团体还是个双人组合至今一直在发展：吉他仍旧演奏着清晰的和弦和纠缠混乱的琶音，节奏在标准鼓组的支配下按部就班地行进，而慵懒的人声旋律极富创作痕迹，显然并非即兴而为。“Dark Blue”和“Good morning (red)”合在一起，就像嵌在一张专辑中的另一张专辑，如此互补而完整，以至于它们的光芒甚至可能会使之后的一切黯然失色。前者酝酿出的紧张氛围让位于一种朦胧的脆弱，宿醉慢慢变为对未来新一天的一丝祈盼。一人重复着“I want it all”的咒语，另一人则求宁静而不得。如果caroline试图在整张专辑中维持这种情绪，可能给人以刻意、过于做作之感。

But caroline take a molecular-gastronomy approach to both sweeping post-rock and weeping Midwest emo, toying with structure, arrangement, and texture. As it progresses, caroline becomes a daring document of its creators’ process, maintaining just enough convention to draw attention to the way their atypical presentation defies it. Looser compositions like “Engine (eavesdropping)” are the result of endless studio hours obsessing over the imperfections captured within improvisation, contact mics, and room sound. caroline would rather let a track collapse before they resort to a stock post-rock crescendo. Having only recently solidified their eight-person lineup, they’re still exploring the correlation between their strengths and interests. Of the four interlude-length tracks, the most compelling is “desperately,” a solo showcase for cellist and vocalist Jasper Llewellyn, whose earthy and operatic quaver evokes a virtuoso moonlighting as a shepherd; it’s an instrument all the more devastating for its scarcity throughout caroline. Meanwhile, the longest interlude, “Zilch,” is two minutes of what sounds like someone trying to cut rusted guitar strings with a dull knife. The choice to include something so willfully challenging feels more like a philosophical point than a purely musical one.

而之后caroline采用一种“分子烹饪”的法子横扫后摇和Midwest Emo，玩弄结构、排篇布局和纹理于股掌之间。随着音乐的发展，《caroline》将成为其创作者生涯中的大胆一笔，保持足够常规的同时，又引起人们对其非主流表现方式的注意。像“Engine (eavesdropping)”这样宽松、惬意的作品是耗费无数时间待在录音室后的成果，他们执着于在即兴创作、接触麦克风时或房间里的杂音中挑刺。近期确定了他们的八人阵容后，他们仍在探索他们的优势和创作意图之间的关联。在四首间奏曲中，最引人注目的是“desperately”，这是大提琴手兼主唱Jasper Llewellyn的独奏，他朴实的歌剧式颤音令人脑中浮现出一个野生牧羊人演奏家的形象；这种形式的器乐演绎在整张《caroline》中的稀缺性使得它的出现愈加有力。同时，最长的插曲“zilch”，两分钟，听起来像是有人在用一把钝刀刮擦生锈的吉他弦。选择包括上述在内的极具风险、挑战性的东西，感觉更像是一个哲学观点，而不仅限于单纯的音乐领域。

My best guess is that it’s intended to demystify the album itself, or at least to honor the ugly mistakes and tedious workshopping that accompany the creation of even the most miraculous pieces of recorded music. “zilch” segues into a nine-minute finale called “Natural Death,” which recalls the most mesmerizingly static compositions of the Microphones (who selected the group as an opener for their UK shows in late 2021). caroline have clearly absorbed lessons from Phil Elverum’s studio explorations: They share a belief in expressing the awesome power and fallibility of nature through analog decay, repetition, and minimalist drone played at concussive volumes. Small gestures matter in music this exploratory and sometimes there’s only so much you can capture within the music itself. Even caroline’s studio version of “Skydiving onto the library roof” might not be the definitive one: In the “Pool #2” rendition, the entire thing moves not on the two-note motif that runs throughout its entirety, but a small nod by Hughes that indicates when it repeats; the rest of the band responds as if in a private language. In this small, unspoken moment, caroline’s ideals as a “collective” extend beyond simply having a lot of band members. Theirs is a higher-minded definition of the term, a group whose fidelity to their own logic and laws approaches the utopian.

我能想到最好的这样做的理由：它的目的是缓解专辑本身的神秘感，或者至少是为了纪念那些“丑陋”的错误和乏味的研讨，这些小瑕疵常随着即使是最完美的录音室作品的创作过程之中。“zilch”结束，转入一个9分钟的尾曲“Natural Death”，它会让人想起the Microphone乐队最令人着迷的静态作品（他们在2021年底的英国演出中曾选择该乐队曲子作为开场曲）。caroline显然从Phil Elverum的工作室探索中汲取经验：通过模拟衰减、重复和以震荡低音呈现出的极简主义嗡鸣来表达自然的可怕力量和世事易变。在这种探索性的音乐中，摆正姿态尤为重要，有时你只能在音乐本身中捕捉到这么微小的东西。即使是caroline最终拿出的“Skydiving onto the library roof”录音室版本也可能不是最终版本。在“Pool #2”的现场演绎中，整首曲子并非在贯穿全曲的两个音上辗转，而是Hughes的一次示意，告知乐队他人它何时重复；而乐队其他成员的回应就像一种小团体暗号一样难以捉摸。在这个小小的、不言而喻的时刻，caroline作为一个“集体”的理想超越了简单地作为一个拥有许多成员的乐队。他们的理想是对这个词的更高维定义，一个对自己的逻辑和法则之忠诚近乎乌托邦的团体。