Heaven metal

You should listen to Midwife

If you subscribed to my blog for neural computation content: I will sometimes post random more personal stuff, often music-related. Sorry if you don’t want that! But it’s my blog so I can do whatever I want 😇.

I found myself at a metal concert last week. I don’t like metal! But I went to see the opener Madeline Johnston, a guitarist and singer who goes by Midwife. I always feel clumsy trying to describe music with words¹, but it’s fun to try; I could wander forever in her guitar textures, which range from abrasive overdrive to delicate riffs, accompanied by ethereal vocal effects. Her music envelops you unexpectedly, like a warm hug from a stranger. Devastation and serenity coexist. I’ll defer to the musician: she calls her music heaven metal. I think it’s a perfect descriptor.

I’m impatient and impulsive, and my musical taste reflects this. I tend to prefer lots of movement, rhythmic structure, and interesting tonality. Midwife is none of this! But after listening to her for the first time a couple of months ago, I couldn’t get her slow-burn melodies out of my head. It’s hard to pin down exactly why I like her music so much, but it must have something to do with the tension of tender melodies set against noisy textures. You can find peace, even if things are hard. It’s a patient, deep introspection that is the opposite of almost everything I listen to these days.

Killdozer, from her newest album, has been looping in my head nonstop. Though the song seems angsty at first glance, it is, at its core, peaceful. The warm chords and soft guitar just feel like a hug! And the lyrics deliver a calm acceptance:

All my songs are love songs
All my songs are blue
All my songs are about death
I live my life without you

Midwife pushes the normal boundaries of my listening, and forces me to slow down, in the best way. Her music gives me a chance to breathe, and to sit with complex emotions. It’s what art is about, I suppose.

By the way, I did stay for the main act, Blood Incantation. It was actually a lot of fun, though I did get a pretty nasty shin bruise from a guy who decided to mosh very far from the mosh pit. Which I guess is kind of par for the course?

I’ve never been a fan of metal because I cannot stand the screaming, and the volume of guitar stuff usually overwhelms me. But setting these aside, I found the rhythm and tonality super interesting: shifting, odd time signatures, dissonances (hey that’s the name of the blog!), and unpredictable scales. This is all stuff that I am drawn to normally! I grew up on classical music, and got super into contemporary classical music at one point². There actually seem to be a lot of similarities to metal³. So maybe I’d be into metal if I could just get past… the way it sounds?

I can imagine this is how people who aren’t familiar with classical music feel: that it’s all just stuffy and boring. There’s certainly lots of classical music that is that, and I don’t blame anyone for thinking it, but there’s also plenty that isn’t. In the end, there are of course only two types of music: the good kind, and the other kind. Anyway, here’s some Blood Incantation (check out the transition at 3:00):

I love hearing crazy textures and rhythms live! I’m glad I got over myself and tried something new. Even if it meant getting kicked in the shin. And I hope everyone starts listening to Midwife.

1. Like dancing about architecture, though I’m sure I’d be even more clumsy at that.

2. Bonus lore: I started blogging in high school… about contemporary classical music 🙈

3. I’m actually curious about the overlap between metal and classical music, if anyone knows about this. For classic prog rock, one connection is Frank Zappa and Edgard Varèse. And the first time I heard this King Crimson song I thought it was Varèse:

Currently, I guess there’s people like Jonny Greenwood, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly.