Klara Lewis – Too

klaraSketches. Incomplete ideas of pictures yet to be formed. Idle lines on paper connected in moments of inspiration, never fully developed. Most of us are just sketches. Fragmented, splintered, incomplete representations of human beings, but yet we constantly hide this fact. We hide ourselves behind images that best represent our thoughts and shapes, and we only speak about things when they’re good or when we want people to see them. Under that false reality, which is the majority of social reality today, most of us are incomplete, lacking the will to take ourselves to something distinct. We’re content to package our sketches as works of art, but they’re not. They’re unfinished collections of lines that only appear human because they chaotically seem that way. That’s where a poet can come in, if they’re a good poet, or a singer, or a musician, or an artist. If there’s one thing art of any form still has going for it, it’s connection to something internal, provided the artist is genuine, and, further, can connect with the viewer not by confronting them, but by sharing what they are. That’s how I feel when I looked at the cover of this. And the music…ahh Klara Lewis, you are a true master.

 

 

I often find modern art and music so pretentious. It constantly attempts to confront, that’s all it does anymore, but we don’t need that. We don’t need piss in jars, elephant dung on canvases, cows dismembered and then displayed in glass cubes (seriously), we don’t want to spend the time trying to understand what the artist is saying, it should be a connection, not a confrontation. Yeah, I get the meaning of those, I’ve read about it, but I shouldn’t have to read about anything when I look. Why don’t artists get this anymore? It’s because so-called post-modernism can only be considered a movement if you believe in absolute selfishness. Self-centered confrontation over viewer-connected function, that’s what it is. So rare is it anymore to come across the opposite. Swedish-born Klara Lewis gets it, she understands the purpose of art, and it shows entirely in her music. Apologies to her it took me so long to do this one, but I’ve been seriously listening to it for months, hoping that somewhere in my head I could find the words to explain it so she’d feel even a snippet was worthy for her resume. Honestly I don’t think I’m there yet but I couldn’t wait any longer.

 

Too is an involved experienced, something a single listen does not completely reveal, though once is certainly enough to grasp her abilities. I went into this without taking the time to really delve into what she thinks herself, because I wanted to take it as-is through my own mind. Would I stay separate, or would I find something else? The title itself suggests the human struggle of acceptance in the presence of our constant separation, and looking at the track titles, one gets the sense of a relationship as an expression of this. Lewis creates spaces in her work, one could say, little, defined worlds, but I found more connection in this one than her last acclaimed release, Ett, which utilized electronics to create new sounds from the organic in similar ways. Here, Lewis seems to be inviting the listener into a world that represents a form of musical, psychological realism, presenting the pieces of a fragmented relationship linked only through title and sound. This brings us back to the cover art, which Lewis did herself, that fragmented, unfinished person made of white lines in pure darkness. Perhaps I’ve thought too much on this, I’ve been known for that. But like you just don’t get me man… It’s clear to any experienced aesthete that Lewis has created a work of art in Too, and unlike other music of this type, things of the dark ambient, post-industrial, all of that stuff, there’s a story, a complete, organic connection between tracks you rarely see. It places the listener into a position they define themselves through the world created by Klara Lewis. Imagine a a wet canvas with clear imagery that the listener manipulates to create their own interpretation; something under constant flux and change. This allows one to express this fragmented self we all possess, that reality within us that only we know purely. That kind of connection is a rarity in music, these days. Take note, listen, think, and watch what she continues to do.

 

Klara Lewis Official Facebook

Written by Stanley Stepanic

Klara Lewis: Too
Editions Mego
5 / 5