The intense and oppressive sludge factor of Sumac mixed with the critical and similarly intense poetry of Moor Mother makes for an unexpected but incredibly fitting collaboration.
Their joint album, “The Film,” is misleadingly named for something created with so much care, including empathy for those in the world who are oppressed and suffering.
The album opens with “Scene 1,” which has a chant including the words “All they do is kill, they don’t want us to breathe” and a gloomy electric guitar. Moor Mother then says, “I want my breath back” before going on a powerful and poetic vocal performance.
She shows her disillusionment with the American government by calling it “A democracy of monsters” before talking about the double standards for Black people versus white people with the line “They told you to turn down that music or they’ll shoot you, they told you not to walk, not to run” before mockingly saying in reference to stereotypes of Black people, “We’re so obedient.”
Moor Mother then asks the audience if imperialist countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom love us. She then says, “Did they love you when / You were getting terrorized / And lynched? / Did they love you when they / Took centuries to apologize for enslavement?”
After a five-minute intro that has the common thread of a pulsating bassline like a slowly beating heart, Moor Mother’s vocals on “Scene 2: The Run” have the reoccurring leitmotif of “I was running” or “I took off running.” The way she distorts and emphasizes her voice makes every repetition more and more chilling. The instrumentation sounds like an even more intense version of sludge metal band Chat Pile or perhaps experimental rock band Swans during their no-wave “Filth.”
Sumac’s vocalist then takes the microphone with a growling guttural vocal quality that makes it difficult to discern the lyrics. The instrumentation and vocals both get progressively more intense before the sonic barrage ends and only the pulse of the bass is left. It’s really cool to have so much going on within this song’s 12-and-a-half-minute runtime.
“Scene 3” is a song with great replay value. With a foreboding descending guitar and bass line that sounds like punk band The Dead Kennedys’ “Holiday In Cambodia” if it was slowed down, this song feels like it was scored for the apocalypse.
The second half of “Scene 3” gets intense lyrically. “Obituaries and death don’t need no writer” stood out for its reflection on dying and perhaps how deaths could speak for themselves, especially if they were hate-related. “They drop an atomic bomb on our memories” harkens back to World War II, when America dropped nuclear weaponry on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The lyrics allude to the humanitarian crisis that came out of it with all the civilian deaths.
“Scene 4” has a singer’s vocals in the background as Moor Mother recites her poetry. “Nobody told me” is repeated by both voices. “Nobody told me how love was supposed to be” can remind people of how our ancestors haven’t prepared us properly for the future and how to make a more equitable society.
A loud pulsing bass and improvised-sounding guitar with a drum solo fill the next song, “Camera.” Moor Mother’s repeated lyric “Get away” is unnerving in how ambiguous it is. What is she telling to get away? In a deep pitch-shifted voice, Moor Mother says, “They bomb, they genocide, they don’t want us to survive” before demanding to the audience “don’t look away,” presumably from the atrocities being committed against other human beings.
The 16-minute behemoth “Scene 5: Breathing Fire” has the most interesting instrumentation on the entire album with how it plays with melody. The phrase “We had meaning” is so solemn when you think about all the history erased by colonization.
Creativity knows no bounds. It’s incredibly easy to be amazed by the sheer power and prowess of Moor Mother’s work if you’ve been following her. Her analysis of the world could be alarming to some. She reveals racial and intersectional disparities and shows the sheer inhumanity some people have for others. All this while emphasizing injustices that have yet to be corrected in society. However, her work could also be comforting to some too. We realize through “The Film” that we’re not alone in this malaise and that work could be done if we collaborate.
On the topic of collaboration, without Sumac’s sludge metal, there wouldn’t be nearly as many interesting textures that fit the mood of Moor Mother’s poetry. They were an excellent choice for the production and backing track of “The Film” and are also certainly worth looking into.
“The Film” could genuinely have a visual component to it if an experimental director and/or producer is willing to take the lead on such a project. Make it happen; this album deserves it.
Rating: 5/5