“The first thing you can do to start building empathy is through some sort of admiration.” claims Jonah Parzen-Johnson when asked about his experiences touring his self-titled project. The newest release for his experimental hybrid of saxophone and electronic music aches with the same longing for empathy and yearning passion.
“I Wrote a Story About You, Without You” opens with a lamenting saxophone solo and develops into more polyphonic chaos as the song progresses. There are no drums recorded in the track, but synths often flutter underneath with sanguine (in a medieval context) pulse, and create a feeling of inner hearing replicating the sensation your body goes through when falling in (or just as possibly out of) love. The synthesizers are the constantly unfurling textural roadmap for the saxophone to drive in often long stretches of unresolved tension. One note in particular is sustained for 40 seconds, and sounds impossible to make, but Parzen-Johnson is a master of circular breathing and can create otherwise inhuman exhales of breath. The song is at points somber; at other points it is triumphant, but throughout there is a constant undertone of relentless wanting to find a home space. Although the final note provides resolution there is a feeling that it was not without sacrifice.
The video is a hypnotic juxtaposition of Google Earth screen grabs, but the randomness of the images is contrasted with what seems to be two recurring characters. One is a watchful eye, that can be assumed to be the protagonist in the narrative, and the other is a woman always shown alone. She often has the Google Earth images burned into her shirt, and she can be assumed to be the lover being pursued. The shots are largely glances of the city, and two or more scenes constantly shape-shift into each other creating a sense of fluidity that diminishes the importance of any singular scene. For the person attached to the eyeball, the only thing with significance is finding the woman, and the search becomes more desperate as the story progresses. The video should be weighed as a whole, however. The final image is a striking conclusion: what seems to be a shot out of the back of a train as it progresses forward is actually a shot of a forward moving train being reversed (it’s a visual better understood in the video). The many recurring images of trains throughout suggest that the the eye fell in love with the woman in the few seconds shared in passing transit, and because of this suggest that the search was hopeless from the beginning. This makes final retreat even more heartbreaking.
“I Wrote a Story About You, Without You” is streaming below, and is from the album Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow out now on Primary Records.
