Let’s talk about Power Electronics. It’s a genre of music largely credited to the band “Whitehouse” (which is really more or less just one person, but for the record, I am a fan of those sorts of shenanigans). Whitehouse’s output basically consists of high pitched synth noises, very loud kick drum noises, and shouting. On their earlier albums, that shouting consisted of simple, repetitive phrases– the song “Erector” mostly is the words “Erector!” and “The Bishop!” shouted over and over. I often suspect they were made up on the spot, but I haven’t done a whole lot of reading about their process. By the end of the group’s life, however, the lyrics grew in density while keeping with the group’s running themes of power, sex, and a whole lot of nonsense about serial killers– which is, at this point, a subject matter that is both tiresome and fascinating. Power Electronics is a genre which deliberately sets itself out of the mainstream; it’s unpleasant by design. The album I still listen to that fits into this genre is Brighter Death Now’s “Innerwar”, an album that out-Whitehouses Whitehouse. Listen to this toe-tapper.
Good stuff, eh? I’ve written a little before about the attraction to extreme art and what it means, borrowing from Wes Craven’s idea that horror especially is a kind of boot camp for the psyche. It’s interesting to note, however, that most horror ends with a survivor. We gird our loins, fight the dream demon, and come out on the other side unafraid. There are exceptions, of course. Sometimes the monster wins.
If Death Metal and their ilk seek to be horror films, as I mentioned here, then Power Electronics seeks to be more than that; a kind of audio snuff film, where everything is bleak and the serial killer is real. Mostly, I think the genre fails; it’s a lot of dudes holding a flashlight under their faces and going “AAAAAGH” at the top of their lungs and invoking “shocking” things that most listeners will be aware of– I mean, I know, for example, that Dennis Nilsen existed. But when it works, there’s very little that can compare to it. It’s not fuckin’ brOOtal, it’s just brutal. And I kept thinking about it while reading Fernanda Melchor’s “Paradis”
I read “Hurricane Season” last year after seeing it mentioned by a friend; he had started it because of some of the buzz around Fernanda Melchor. He found it extremely difficult to finish. To paraphrase, he found it a form of torture porn where the victim was the reader. And I have to admit, that was an intriguing enough idea for me to pick it up. It is a kind of Rashomon-esque story about a murder, which takes place in a dirt poor village in Veracruz. It’s not a new story, what sets it apart is Melchor’s unrelenting bleakness. It follows a number of characters, all of whom are in some state of poverty and desperation, and none of them end in a better place than when they start. The monster wins.
“Paradis” has a smaller focus. We follow just two characters, Polo and Franco, who are a pair of alcoholics (and one is a porn addict as well) who end up committing a monumentally stupid, violent, and ultimately pointless crime, fueled by both greed and the most toxic masculinity possible. And like “Hurricane Season”, it’s unrelenting in it’s bleakness. Melchor said in an interview that she has zero empathy for the characters. In fact, the only comfort to be found in the entire work is that you are not expected to have any, either. It’s repetitive in the way its characters lives are; the crime almost seems to just provide a way for the story to end– it’s equally possible to imagine both of them stuck endlessly in the same pattern. The monster doesn’t so much win as it is always present, and manifests in a variety of ways.
It’s also beautifully written. Melchor’s prose (in translation) is so powerful you can feel the oppressive heat, hangovers, and hard labor that the book revolves around. It is some of the best writing I have read in the past few years. I can imagine Melchor creating a beautiful landscape with the same skill she creates an ugly one. She’s the kind of writer I want to read more of simply because she’s the one writing it. But the ugliness makes us ask : be it a power electronics song or a novel about two idiots committing an unspeakable crime, why drag ourselves through the mud?
“Hurricane Season” was turned into a movie. The director said “Hopefully it breaks the privilege of those who watch it”, which strikes me as a phrase that sounds good, but doesn’t have any real meaning. A movie, book, or song might get me to engage with something, but I’ll still be watching, listening or reading from my fairly comfortable existence (it’s worth noting, too, that one of the characters in Paradis is well to-do, unlike Hurricane Season where everyone is some degree of impoverished). Presumably most people are aware of horrible things in the world.
I think it’s fair to criticize Melchor’s works for being (to borrow an idea from Nicolás Ruiz Berruecos) a kind of view of hell from heaven. I think that’s why I likened it in my head to Power Electronics in the first place– a form of music that describes degradation and suffering made by people who can afford synthesizers, and listened to mostly by people with similar privileges. (There are likely exceptions, but I believe them to be few). But that’s a portion of the experience, not the entire one– at least when the work is strong.
Anyone can lazily piece together shocks. When someone spends time crafting something shocking, we can’t help but wonder why. Melchor’s works show an obvious care, and that’s why we have engaged with them. We wonder why someone would use their craft in such a manner, and that may be the entire point. I’m up for the next one.
Leave a Reply