【搬运】【译】叉婊Pitchfork评 Mitski 2018年专辑《Be the Cowboy》

搬运自：微信公众号【评论搬一堆】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整） 

翻译：Simon Joanne

审译：Lynn Liu

排版：Ryan-Chopin

Before picking up a guitar for 2014’s Bury Me at Makeout Creek, Mitski Miyawaki’s instrument of choice was the piano. She played it on the two records she created as a studio composition major in college, where she was backed by a gigantic student orchestra. Once again behind the keys, her fifth album, Be the Cowboy, displays Mitski’s knowledge of song structure and her ability to bend any idea to her will. These 14 complex compositions warp the pop textbook into something more knotty and internal, creating a unique zone where the 27-year-old thrives: She’s never sounded so large, even in the record’s quietest moments.

在2014年的《Bury Me at Makeout Creek（把我埋在Makeout Creek）》中，Mitski Miyawaki弹起了吉他，而在此之前，她常用的乐器是钢琴。曾在在大学期间主修过录音室作曲专业的她，在两张原创唱片中弹奏过钢琴，而在这两张专辑中，她都有一支庞大的管弦乐团作为支撑。再一次，在这些音符的背后，《Be the Cowboy（成为牛仔）》这张专辑展现了Mitski对于歌曲结构的掌握与将想法付诸实践的能力。这14首复杂的歌曲完全完全打破了流行歌曲教科书中的传统结构，让它变得更加难以理清、难以读懂，就此创造出这位27岁歌手在其中茁壮成长的一片独特天地：哪怕是在专辑中最安静的时刻，Mitski的声音依旧宏大无比。

In this way, Be the Cowboy radiates assurance. Whereas 2016’s Puberty 2 was drenched in distortion, here, Mitski and her longtime producer Patrick Hyland avoid the sound almost entirely. When the fuzzy drone does appear, it is purposeful, like on opener “Geyser,” where it interrupts a haze of organ and strings to announce a violent eruption of desire. Without the guitar and her typically doubled vocals, she allows herself to crack; for the first time, she seems fully content with the vulnerability.

就这样，这张专辑散发着自信。Mitski在2016年的专辑几乎整个浸润在了扭曲之中，但是在这张《Be the Cowboy》中Mitski和她长期合作的制作人Patrick Hyland则完全避开了这种倾向。当然，无序杂音的出现也是有目的的，就像在开场曲“Geyser”里面的嗡嗡声在管风琴演奏的朦胧感中突现并打破和谐，这则宣代表了强烈欲望的爆发。没有了吉他和她经典的叠加人声，她终于能够让自己去打破；她似乎第一次完全对自己的脆弱感到满足。

Mitski is a peerless excavator of her own anxieties, infatuations, and ugliness and she examines them all through the lens of fame. She appears on the record’s cover wearing a white floral swim cap and heavy lipstick, a pair of tweezers honing in on a stray eyelash, symbolizing both a desire for control and the acknowledgment that such concerns can ultimately be futile. At the end of the video for the disco-pop banger “Nobody,” the camera pans back to reveal her to be another performer under the studio lights. She’s candid about how making music can be as depleting as it is fulfilling. “I gave too much of my heart tonight/Can you come to where I’m staying and/Make some extra love/That I can save till to tomorrow’s show,” she pleads on the jagged “Remember My Name.”

在挖掘自己的焦虑、迷恋和丑陋上，Mitski做的异常到位，她用名气这只镜头来审视这一切。在专辑封面上，Mitski戴着布满白色花纹的泳帽，睫毛上停着一支被他人手拿住的镊子，这个画面象征着对控制权的渴望和对努力最终可能付之东流的担忧。在专辑中迪斯科乐队流行曲“Nobody”的音乐录像带的最后，镜头向后移动，展现出Mitski其实也只是在搭建的摄影棚下的另一个表演者。她很坦诚地表示：创作音乐既能带来满足也会消耗身心。“I gave too much of my heart tonight/Can you come to where I’m staying and/Make some extra love/That I can save till to tomorrow’s show（我今晚付出了太多真心，你能来我住处吗？再给我些额外的温暖，好让我留到明天）”她在“Remember My Name”中恳求道。

And with fame comes a fantastic loneliness. Be the Cowboy delves into that harrowing moment in the vanity mirror when you realize what others see does not match your reflection. How can they think you are so big when you are actually so small? The solitude inside “Nobody” feels so comically inescapable that it is almost worth celebrating; she rolls the word around in her mouth, relishing the universe of possibilities within its emptiness. On the jangly and vaguely country “Lonesome Love,” Mitski slyly delivers the record’s heaviest hitting line: “Cause nobody butters me up like you, and/Nobody fucks me like me.” Even if Mitski channels an exaggerated aspect of herself or performing a character—in interviews she has described a woman whose icy exterior hides the vast cosmos of her internal passions—she commits herself to capture the truth of each role.

名声大了孤独自然就会随之而来。《Be The Cowboy》所探索的，正是你坐在梳妆镜前看着自己的倒影，想起他人看到的你并不像你看到的一样时产生的痛苦。当你实际上很渺小的时候，别人又怎么能觉得你很大呢？“Nobody”这首歌中的孤独感让人无法逃避，荒唐到让人想要因此庆祝，她满嘴重复着这个词，品味着无数可能性与空洞组成的世界。在这首铿锵而朦胧的乡村曲风歌曲“Lonesome Love”中，Mitski悄悄地藏下了整张专辑中最沉重的歌词：“Cause nobody butters me up like you, and/Nobody fucks me like me（因为没有人能像你那样拍我马屁，也没有人比我更能满足我自己）”。即使Mitski是在通过一种夸张的方式来表现自己或者是在扮演某一角色——在一次采访中她描述了一个外表冷漠而内心宇宙始终充满热情的女人——她向自己承诺要抓住每一个角色的真相。

But these complexities only emphasize the point Mitski returns to on each of her records: love is manifold. Romance is all consuming and breathtaking; intimacy can be a cycle of toxic stillness. Be the Cowboy is a definitive statement on the myth of perfection. She can stretch to the heavens and sink into the ground. She can be everything at once, again and again. “I thought I’d traveled a long way/But I had circled the same old sin,” she gravely bellows on “A Horse Named Cold Air.” To the two elderly subjects of the devastating closer “Two Slow Dancers,” all those complexities can be relieved beneath the glow of a disco ball. In the album’s last breaths, the spotlight slowly fades from Mitski. She might be exhausted, but she is insatiable.

但是这些复杂性全都只是在强调Mitski在每一张专辑中都会回到的点上：爱是分很多种的。浪漫既耗人心力又让人沉醉其中；亲密关系也能演化成一种停滞不前的恶性循环。《Be The Cowboy》是对完美这一传说的最终声明。她可以升入天空再坠入地中。她可以在一瞬间变成任何事物，循环往复。“I thought I’d traveled a long way/But I had circled the same old sin（我以为自己已经走过了很长一段旅途，谁知道我只是在重复我原旧的罪过）”她在“A Horse Named Cold Air”中大声叫道。在那首令人震惊的收尾曲“Two Slow Dancers”中，两个年长的主角所有的复杂都能在迪斯科球的灯光下得到缓解。在专辑中最后一次喘息中，Mitski身上被打上的光渐渐熄掉。她也许已经筋疲力尽，也可能尚不满足。