【译】Pitchfork评 Puce Mary - 《The Drought》
“一堆破碎的景象—奋力锤炼着地面的太阳，不能再提供任何阴凉的已经死去的树，已无力鸣叫的蟋蟀，干燥得不能再干的石头…..我会在无边的沙风中展示我的恐惧”（A heap of broken images, where the sun beats/And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief/And the dry stone no sound of water.... I will show you fear in a handful of dust.），这些在100年前就由TS Eliot在<The Waste Land> 中写下的干渴的句子简直可以拿来当作Puce Mary这张《The Drought》的题辞。首先，从专辑名称来看，这张专辑关注的是一种原始生存条件的缺失：一种恶劣的，令人战栗的自然灾害---干旱。虽根基于工业噪音和强电，但是这张专辑回避了这些流派的刻板印象---大男子主义和对强大力量的盲目崇拜。取而代之的是，它展现了力量的缺失，工业的失败。Puce Mary (又名Frederikke Hoffmeier)的这张专辑讲述了在世界末日到来之前的背景之下在隐秘的网络世界的孤立和疏远的身体接触（也就是隔离）之间徘徊的生活。
“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats/And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief/And the dry stone no sound of water.... I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” These parched words, written almost 100 years ago by TS Eliot, inThe Waste Land, could easily double as an epigraph forPuce Mary’sThe Drought. Starting with the title, the record concerns itself with aprimordial lack: a rotting, shuddering collapse both personal and global.Though rooted in industrial music and power electronics,The Droughtsidesteps those genres’ stereotypical displays of machismo and fetishistic celebrations of strength. Instead it evokes an absence of power, the failure of industry. Puce Mary (aka Frederikke Hoffmeier) soundtracks a life spent vacantly shuttling between insidious digital isolation and alienated bodily contact, set against the background of a looming apocalypse.
聆听《The Drought》的体验就像看电影一般。对于看过《女巫》和《皮囊之下》这种新播出的艺术性恐怖电影的人，会感觉这张专辑的音色是比较熟悉的。轰隆隆的弦乐如雷一样在灰暗的天空中响彻天际，与此同时咚咚的鼓声、咆哮的电声也纷纷响起。但是这张专辑并没有采用电影中一贯的三部曲的形式，Hoffmeier之前的作品《Persona》和《The Spiral》的标题都及其生动，但是《The Drought》不一样，它没有直接说明专辑的主题，而是在刚开始就给人一种稳定的预感----这张专辑会像“伯格曼环化反应”一样着了魔似的绕圈子，如果说《The Spiral》讲述的是一种下降，《The Drought》画出的轨迹则是则是圆，它勾勒出的画面是在一片苍凉的风景之上四面八方拍摄的慢镜头。
The Droughtis extremely cinematic. Many of the timbres will be familiar to fans of recent high brow horror excursions likeThe WitchandUnder the Skin. Pealing strings stretch across grey skies while thudding toms,roaring static, and claustrophobic low end seep into the mix. But there is no easily digestible three-act arc to be found here. Hoffmeier's previous titles,PersonaandThe Spiral, are revealing.The Droughtmoves with a steady foreboding worthy of Bergman, obsessively tracing the same terrain over and over again. IfThe Spiralsuggested a descent,The Droughttraces a circle. The film it conjures is a slow-motion 360-degree pan across an ashen landscape.
从头听来，前两首歌使用的乐器是略为单调的，直到第三首歌这张专辑才总算变得生动起来，“To Possess Is to Be in Control”中，她低声吟诵着一篇关于欲望的论文，而她这样凝练的声音也正是这首歌的支点，她以萦绕的鼓点和持续的口哨声（也许是猫叫声？）相应和而收尾，随后她喃喃道："向你敞开我的身体，把我的一切交给你，这让我感到恶心。如果我能像我占有自己的身体一样占有你的话……"（It makes me sick to open my body to you,to give you all I have. If I could possess you, like I possess my own body….”）。她说的最后一句话--"占有就是控制"（To Possess Is to Be in Control ）--得到的回答却是像刀刃一样锋利的咯噔咯噔的声音。Hoffmeier似乎急切地想把这首歌撕裂，她痛苦的扭动和低吼着，但又同时保持着冷静。
Opening with a pair of desolate instrumentals, the album really comes alive on the third track. “To Possess Is to Be in Control” pivots on Hoffmeier’s laconic voice intoning a droning micro treatise on desire. It winds up with a vaporous cloud of haunting half melodies and floating whistles (catcalls?), and then she dives right in: “It makes me sick to open my body to you, to give you all I have. If I could possess you,like I possess my own body….” Her last line—“To possess is to be in control”—is answered with staccato bursts of noise, sharp as a knife’s blade. Hoffmeier seems to be tearing her way out of the track, writhing and snarling while simultaneously keeping her cool.
这张专辑的主题在两首歌曲之后的专辑中心部分得到了延续。“Red Desert”同样呈现了在世界末日之前的疏远和恐惧。防空警报盘旋，Hoffmeier叹息道："我感觉好像是几十年过去了。我现在是个老女人，我已经没什么吸引力了。我被一种强压在你手下的感觉折磨着......我感到很绝望"（I find myself feeling like decades have passed. I’m an old woman now, and I have lost my attraction. I’m tortured by a feeling of drowning under you… and I feel desperate.）这些文字是如此的深远，如此富有文学性，但就在一分钟后，哀伤的管风琴在背景中悄悄的出现了，听起来和Eno的“The Big Ship.”很相像。在这样一张几乎完全没有传统音乐元素的专辑中，这种传统音乐的“闯入”却给《The Drought》注入了一剂亟需的圣药。
The theme picks up two songs later with the album’s centerpiece.“Red Desert” similarly presents alienation and dread in the midst of code-red atmospherics. Air-raid sirens hover while Hoffmeier sighs, “I find myself feeling like decades have passed. I’m an old woman now, and I have lost my attraction. I’m tortured by a feeling of drowning under you… and I feel desperate.” So far, so literal, but just after the one-minute mark, a mournful organ gently announces itself,sounding like a not-too-distant cousin toEno’s “The Big Ship.”In an album almost completely devoid of traditional musical gestures, this intrusion givesThe Droughta much-needed dose of the holy.
但是，在到达这样一个令人感动的高潮之后，Hoffmeier似乎根本不愿意再让这个高潮延续下去了。这太糟糕了，因为虽然在此之后没有人声的曲目一致令人印象深刻和有气势，但它们和《Red Desert》相比还是差了点。“Fragments of a Lily”的合成器就像一个患有食物中毒的唠叨者一样，外表喋喋不休，而身体里又剧烈搅动。"Coagulate"闪烁着黑色金属的冷光，而 "Slouching Uphill "则以一个逐渐升调的音符结束了这张专辑，在暴力的边缘徘徊。但是，将《The Drought》凝聚在一起的是人声，这些通过情绪碎片的拼贴而精心做出来的人声使这张专辑有一种动感和目的性。事实上，这张专辑在主题上是统一的，是她凭借自己的毅力而坚持做下去的，但它也像是一张每次听都能沉浸于其概念之中的概念专辑。在短短的几年里，Puce Mary已经成为噪音乐坛中最令人兴奋和最有前途的人物之一。《The Drought》的冰冷强度和死神之眼一般的吸引力迫使你以自己的方式接近它，但人们感觉到Hoffmeier才刚刚正式踏上制作噪音的道路。
But having arrived at such an affecting moment, Hoffmeierseems reluctant to let it breathe. It’s too bad, because while the non-vocal tracks are uniformly impressive and powerful, they lag slightly behind. “Fragments of a Lily” churns like a gabber track with food poisoning. “Coagulate” shimmers and radiates with the cold light of black metal, and “Slouching Uphill” closes the album on an escalated note, teetering on the brink of violence. But it’s the voice that bringsThe Droughttogether,giving the album a sense of movement and purpose beyond a set of well-executed mood pieces. As it is, the record is thematically unified and executed with a steady, unwavering hand, but it also feels like a concept album waiting to happen. Over only a few years, Puce Mary has emerged as one of the most exciting and promising voices in noise music.The Drought’s glacial intensity and dead-eyed focus force you to approach it on its own terms, but one senses that Hoffmeier is just getting started.
