Aural Aggravation

Upset The Rhythm – 7th July 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Personal confession: I’ve had a tough few months. No, I don’t really want to talk about it, but the name of Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent’s musical vehicle is one which resonates – because the fact is, it’s easy to lose sight of yourself, especially when under stress, especially when under pressure, especially when dealing with difficult circumstances.

Yes: me lost me, albeit briefly, meaning the moniker s relatable. But you have to get lost to get found, and without fail, at least in my experience, music has a remarkable capacity to have a positive effect on one’s mental state.

If old favourites may offer solace, discovering new music can often prove cleansing, as you approach it fresh and without association, and because you’re engaging and exploring instead of retriggering recollections as with music that’s familiar (I find listening to music I know well is only half-listening while my fills the gaps, and I suppose that’s part of the appeal: it’s easier and less demanding when you know every word and exactly what’s coming next, than grappling with something, and familiarity is comforting. But the challenge of the new seems to run through different neural pathways, and in paying attention to something, your focus turns to that something instead of idly looping over those forefront throughs you’re seeking respite from.

I suppose it’s the same reason people enjoy and become rather obsessed with Role-Playing Games, or RPG: they offer an escapism that the passivity of TV or movies don’t. While I’m not a fan myself – having reluctantly dabbled with Dungeons and Dragons, I found it slow and contrived and it simply didn’t grip me – but I get it. I get it. What I get more is the tension which runs through this album, the fourth from Me Lost Me, which started out as a tentative solo project before subsequently expanding to a collective. What I get are the themes, as set out on the accompanying notes:

‘Hauntological in part, RPG is concerned with tales and with time – are we running out of it? Does insomnia cause a time loop? Do the pressures of masculinity prevent progress? Jayne Dent asks these questions and more on RPG, her homage to worldbuilding and the story as an artform, calling back to those oral traditions around a campfire, as well as modern day video games – bringing folk music into the present day as she does so.’

It certainly feels as if we’re running out of time, and an exponentially-accelerating pace. We’re recording the hottest global temperatures on record and are looking like going the way of the dinosaurs not long after the whole of Lincolnshire – our largest county for domestic agriculture, which sits several feet below sea level – is reclaimed by the waves, turning Boston and its stump into the Atlantis of the 21st Century, yet our government is more preoccupied with ‘stopping the boats’ and painting over murals that might look a bit ‘too welcoming’ to asylum-seeking children than stopping oil and fracking. Once again, as I type, I’m hot and flustered and short on breath. In this context, ‘Heat’, released a few weeks ago, hits the mark. We’re on a collision course with the end of days. RPG explores – in its own way – this end of days anxiety.

‘What things have you seen in real life and thought that’s not real, that’s like a video game?’ Those are the words of the sample which open the album, on the hypnotic collage that is ‘Real World’. It got me thinking: what have I seen? Truth is, simply turning on the news seems unreal these days: every day there’s something that makes you think ‘you couldn’t make this shit up.’

‘Festive Day’ exploits traditional folk instrumentation with spartan strings, plucked and scraped, and drones, and there’s an ‘old’ vibe to it, particularly with Dent’s lilting vocals, which occasionally soar magnificently as she sings of sand and sea. ‘Mirie it is While Summer I Last’ is pure folk, an acapella round of traditional-sounding folk that would be perfectly as home on a Steeleye Span album, and instrumentation on ‘The God of Stuck Time’ is minimal – but there are warping electronics and contemporary issues strewn through the lyrics, not least of all in the refrain of. ‘Checking in again / Checking Out’. It speaks of the world we live in.

Where RPG succeeds is in that is doesn’t moor itself to any one form or period: ancient an modern, sparse folk and fractured electronica alternate and sometimes collide: ‘The Oldest Trees Hold the Earth’ is magnificent in its simplicity, its earthiness, and Jayne’s voice is magnificent. It evokes the spirituality of the centuries when alone or with minimal accompaniment, but when backed by electronica or more jazz-leaning backing, it also works, as an instrument and as a carrier for the words, which cover considerable ground, both ancient and modern.

RPG sounds pretty, but it’s serious and it’s quite dark in places – but it also traces the contours of landscapes past and present with a lightness of touch that’s uplifting. With so much texture, detail, and atmosphere, this is an album that’s subtly moving, and there isn’t a moment that’s predictable here as it veers between folk, electronica, ambient, and abstract noise. Lose yourself in it.

AA