Best of 2017 #38: Han-earl Park – “Sirene 1009” (Buster & Friends)

 

This album is brilliant. This album is insane.

That’s how I ended my write-up of Sirene 1009 from the trio of guitarist Han-earl Park, bassist Dominic Lash, drummer Mark Sanders and vocalist Caroline Pugh.  And since I feel no differently about this fascinating album, it seems appropriate that I begin that way when speaking of its inclusion in this Best of 2017.  Unbridled creativity is something majestic to aspire to.  An ineffable vision is an endeavor to pursue.  To bring those together and still give manifest shape to something completely different and new?  That’s nothing short of remarkable.

Nothing about this album sounds normal.  Sirene 1009 is a soundtrack for a seizure.  It’s spasmodic and flails about wildly.  The music is disconcerting.  But it enters fugue states of focused intensity that border on meditative, and it is the most powerful sensation to experience even the tiniest hint of serenity at the center of so much chaos.

Nothing about this album sounds normal, and I mean that in the way alien landscapes can appear strangely familiar in the most vivid cinematic imagery or how the best fiction novels can alter reality to where you peek out the window to confirm that things are really as you remember them to be.  That’s the effect of this album.

Music from Cork, Ireland.

Read more at Bird is the Worm.