Deradorian

Woorde deur Zachary Weg

Die verpletterende koronavirus en onrus wêreldwyd het die afgelope jaar opskrifte oorheers, maar Find the Sun deur 'n Los Angeles-gebaseerde musikant, Deradorian, was een van sy bestes, mees geestelik voedende albums. Na 'n paar luister, om liedjies soos ontspanne te hoor "Rooi Toe" en die transendente "Monnik se klere," mens betree wel 'n rustige toestand wat nodig is vir hierdie skerp tye. Soos die meditatiewe albums van vryjazz-pioniers Pharoah Sanders en Alice Coltrane wat dit beïnvloed het, die nuwe rekord deur die gebore Noord-Kalifornië, Die Armenië-gewortelde Angel Deradoorian is musiek-as-vrede, klink-soos-balsem. Die feit dat Find the Sun ook sluip en groef, herinner aan Sonic Youth se dwingende onheilspellende Bad Moon Rising (1985) en die verruklike speelse werk van gerespekteerde Duitse orkes, Kan, only makes the album richer and underscores Deradoorian's past as an indie rocker.

After a youth spent in the Sacramento suburb of Orangevale, where she learned how to play the piano and violin at age five, Deradoorian moved to Crown Heights when she was twenty, joining the delightfully unpredictable band, Dirty Projectors, just two months later. This was the late 2000s, a time when Brooklyn was almost a paradise of hallowed bands, when high school kids first started listening to the remarkable musicianship of Grizzly Bear and the thrilling genre fusion of TV On the Radio. It was also when Dirty Projectors released their exhilarating breakthrough album, Bitte Orca (2009) and when Deradoorian wowed audiences with her elastic voice and fiery bass playing.

Speaking by phone from her Los Angeles home about the era, Deradoorian says, "A lot of people ended up doing a lot of music at Zebulon, which was a really important venue for these bands to play at. Looking back, I started to see how much we were all folded into a local community that helped to push a lot of bands from that time to bigger venues, tour circuits, and music festivals. It was a very magical time because there were a lot of D.I.Y. venues. It was before a lot of these developers came in and destroyed local music spaces that made it cool, and then appropriated that kind of image of cool music and arts culture while pushing out the people who created that." Still, Deradoorian doesn't seem to hold any grudges and doesn't quite have nostalgia for that era because, soos sy sê in 'n warm Kalifornië gedreun, "Ek dink magie kan op baie maniere herskep word." ’n Verkenner in haar kern, Deradoorian het vreedsaam geskei van Dirty Projectors en verskillende vertonings van verwondering opgetower.

In 2015, die kunstenaar het haar uitbundige solodebuut L.P., Die Uitbreidende Blomplaneet. Een van die beste kuns-pop-plate van die afgelope tien jaar, ’n werk wat amper Pet Sounds-agtig is in sy vreeslose vindingrykheid, die album het nie net Deradoorian se vokale meesterskap ten toon gestel nie, maar ook haar vermoë om styf te maak, onmiddellike liedjies, ook. Na verskeie gasoptredes, insluitend een op die wiegelied-agtige nader, "1959" van Hamilton Leithauser af + Rostam se I Had a Dream That You Were Mine (2016), Deradoorian het haar silwerig losgelaat, innemende E.P., Ewige Herhaling in 2017 en, net die afgelope September, Vind die Son (2020).

Although somewhat more foreboding than The Expanding Flower Planet, this second L.P. does have tracks such as the searching "Corsican Shores" and the Bossa nova-tinkled "Devil's Market." While it also may sound more pained, with the singer's usually cosmic voice more earthbound, the album was written during a peaceful summer at the Rockaways and is mostly the result of her going on a ten-day Vipassana meditation retreat that proved foundational. "It taught me how the ways in which you create aren't always you doing something physically. It's not always you sitting and playing a guitar or a keyboard," she says of the experience. "There are many forms of how creation works and there is learning to trust yourself, your intuition and how you're going to work through that process. Ek dink dit is iets wat ek regtig geleer het deur baie stil te sit en te wees." Die kunstenaar wat voorheen wêreldtoer was, is nie toegelaat om net haar foon na te gaan nie, in werklikheid, of lees 'n boek en oefen verder as stap.

Sulke soberheid en alledaagse eenvoud het dalk die mees gedempte aanbod opgelewer waaraan Deradoorian nog haar naam gestel het, maar ook haar mees versekerde en, gevolglik, haar mees herkenbare en empatiese. "En niks is hier om te bly nie," sy sing op Find the Sun uitblinker, "Dit was ek" maar, veral, vir nou, Deradoorian sal deur die verganklikheid lei.