【搬运】【译】叉婊Pitchfork评black midi 2021年单曲“John L”

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：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以反复无常、惊怖的混乱向我们介绍“John L”。这首歌的旋律介于King Crimson的诗作《Larks’ Tongues》中的一个诗节、唱针在唱机转盘上反复横跳、火车行驶时发出的有节奏地刺耳尖啸之间。自2019年的首张专辑《Schlagenheim》以来，这个伦敦乐队又为他们的音乐新添了萨克斯管和小提琴两个元素，最终的效果是比以往更加隐晦。当歌手Geordie Greep开始抱怨演奏手风琴的Sonny Boy或一群吃人的“食蚁兽”（邪教、政客）时，他听起来显然已经不仅仅是一个摇滚乐队的主唱了。

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”的胜利并不在于这些训练有素的音乐家们满足了人们的期望。而是他们已经能熟练的运用自己的那些不协和、引人厌恶、前卫的音乐风格，以至于它实际听来有像颂歌一般的效果。伴随着荒诞主义的MV——像Jodorowsky的《猫》，亦或天线宝宝的迷幻闪回——歌曲本身像是一个放大般的光学错觉，让你每每开始质疑你正在目睹的事物。节奏是否在中途开始加快，还是这只是他们表演的强度发生变化？当我戴着耳机听的时候，又有多少次我感觉有人在我身后鬼鬼祟祟地摆弄一扇吱吱作响的门？偶尔，乐队会在原地踱步，用阴森、呢喃的沉默制造紧张的氛围。当他们重新归来时，他们背后的暗影愈加庞大，愈加吸引我们好奇他们接下来又会引领我们去到哪里。