''Serpent Music'' is the second studio album by American
experimental musician and record producer
Yves Tumor
Sean Bowie, best known by the recording alias Yves Tumor, is an American musician and producer of experimental music, born in Miami, Florida and currently based in Turin, Italy.
To date, they have released four studio albums: ''When Man Fails Y ...
. It was released on September 23, 2016 on
PAN record label.
Background and style
''Serpent Music'' was recorded over a three-year period in
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
,
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
and
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
. The record was originally titled as ''God Fearing''; Tumor was inspired by personal relationships and spiritual themes,
as well as
Motown and
soul music
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became ...
that Tumor's father used to play during their youth.
Tumor refrained from the record on
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...
, anticipating its spread. After
PAN founder Bill Kouligas praised the unfinished record, Tumor finished ''Serpent Music'' for its PAN release.
Described as an
impressionistic
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...
collage,
the album incorporates organic instruments,
samples and
field recordings
Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It also applies to sound recordings like electromagnetic fields or vibrat ...
.
In addition to soul, the record features influences from
ambient,
club
Club may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Club'' (magazine)
* Club, a '' Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character
* Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards
* Club music
* "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea''
Brands and enterprises ...
,
pop,
psychedelia
Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic ...
and
noise music.
Eden Tizard of
The Quietus
''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics.
Content
''The Quietu ...
regarded "
juxtaposition
Juxtaposition is an act or instance of placing two elements close together or side by side. This is often done in order to compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences, etc.
Speech
Juxtaposition in literary terms is the showin ...
" as a defining characteristic of ''Serpent Music'', noting that "it merges ideas which would logically seem incompatible - grating noise one minute, blissed-out digital soul the next."
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...
's Andy Beta compared the sonic traits of the record to those of
James Ferraro
James Ferraro (born November 6, 1986) is an American experimental musician, producer, composer and contemporary artist. He has been credited as a pioneer of the 21st century genres hypnagogic pop and vaporwave, with his work exploring themes relat ...
and
Dean Blunt
Roy Nnawuchi, better known by his pseudonym Dean Blunt, is a British singer-songwriter, musician and contemporary artist. He is best known for his current solo work as well as his previous work as part of avant-garde duo Hype Williams (along wi ...
, noting that "Tumor favors mysterious
loops, soul music as rendered by the recently concussed and noise-as-loofah."
The press release reported that the album was "initially composed as a soul record."
On the soul description, Tumor has stated: "I never thought of it as soul music, but that’s just what I was doing."
Critical reception
At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, ''Serpent Music'' received an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
score of 77, based on 6 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Pitchfork critic Andy Beta wrote: "While it doesn’t always work, it’s Yves Tumor’s use of field recordings that gives ''Serpent Music'' an ambulatory quality." Beta further explained: "At times, such a sense of wandering makes the tracks feel unresolved or interrupted, but at other times it gives the sensation of being lost in a strange urban landscape, alternating between endless gray blocks and brief glints of beauty."
Angus Finlayson of
Resident Advisor described the record as Tumor's "most naked and tender music, made with lush guitars, frazzled drum loops and his own heavenly falsetto," while stating that "at first it seems harmless; only later do you realise what you've gotten into."
Tiny Mix Tapes
''Tiny Mix Tapes'' (also ''TMT'' or ''tinymixtapes'') is an online music and film webzine that focuses primarily on new music and related news. In addition to its reviews, it is noted for its subversive, political, and sometimes surreal news, ...
's Rafael Lubner called the record "a study in disruption, in aggregated polarities" and remarked that "''Serpent Music''s pieces are never reducible to the singular
onic form either formally or emotionally."
Reviewing for The Quietus, Eden Tizard wrote: "Toying with emotional themes of isolationism, loss and spirituality as opposed to fixed religious views, the album manages to somehow balance direct emotion with the indefinable and opaque."
The record was featured as number 13 on
Noisey magazine's list of "The 33 Best Albums of 2016." On the album, ''Noisey'' critic Michelle Lhooq stated: "Like the artist himself, ''Serpent'' Music is a slithering, complex work that unfurls over repeated encounters—but the effect is infinitely moving, like painting a dreamy landscape with hot streaks of raw emotion."
Track listing
All tracks are written by Yves Tumor.
# "Devout" — 1:21
# "The Feeling When You Walk Away" — 3:00
# "Dajjal" — 2:57
# "Role in Creation" — 2:11
# "Serpent I" — 2:51
# "Serpent II" — 3:12
# "Broke In"
(feat. Oxhy) — 4:30
# "Seed" — 7:18
# "Spirit in Prison" — 4:06
# "Cherish" — 2:53
# "Face of a Demon" — 1:38
# "Perdition" — 8:03
Personnel
Album personnel as adapted from liner notes.
* Yves Tumor — performer
*
Ville Haimala —
mixing
* Rashad Becker —
mastering
* Daniel Sannwald — photography
* Bliss Serenity Resting — design
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
2016 albums
Yves Tumor albums
Noise music albums by American artists
PAN (record label) albums
Sound collage albums