There can be vocal parts without vocals, as when an instrument fills in where words were intended to appear, or when words seem to have been transformed, technologically, into something other than words, something with the shape of words, as if heard through a thick wall — something with the shape of words, even the impact of words, yet without the meaning implicit in specific words. The dark, serrated, chord-like structures that occasionally make themselves heard amid the mid-tempo aurora that otherwise is the 2006 track “Emperor Moth” by Heathered Pearls bears the impression of words thus transformed, and for that reason the full piece bears this vague, passing resemblance to a song, a song struggling to be heard, a struggle belied by the music’s seeming placidity.
Track originally posted, this week, for free download at soundcloud.com/heathered-pearls. Heathered Pearls is the Polish-born, Brooklyn-based Jakub Alexander, more from whom at ghostly.com and twitter.com/heatheredpearls.