Beauty is ubiquitous. It is everywhere.
The impermanence of a staggering sunset.
The authenticity of artistic release and expression.
The mastery of the soul by musicians and visionaries.
The indescribability of intricate cathedrals, words that fall onto being like poetry, a meaningful moment that shapes a life, a sea of stars above a rolling ocean, or a quiet voice of wisdom.
Although those moments can seem inexhaustible and limitless, they are all equally rare in the totality of experience and each is quite understandable as to why we carry them for a lifetime.
Nestled in those moments and swayed by memory—we are forever changed.
Dawn Arrives
Twenty-six years ago this week, a meeting of musicians released an album on par with the indescribable, rarity and beauty listed above. “Released” may be the correct term, as it arrived in our world like an emerging dawn. Discovering the CD was like finding treasure with gentle gravity that still reaches the deepest recesses of my heart.
Mer de Noms (Sea of Names) is the first release from A Perfect Circle. Some describe A Perfect Circle as a supergroup. Listen, and you’ll understand why. Listen deeper, and you’ll understand why it is much more—a guide by artists who have wandered into the very soul of music and experience, then ventured back to report the descent and ascent.
Composed by Maynard James Keenan of Tool, former Nine Inch Nails guitar tech Billy Howerdel, Queens of the Stone Age six-stringer Troy Van Leeuwen, former Pixies bassist Paz Lenchantin and drummer Josh Freese.
I struggle to describe their creation as an album, as music, or even a project or production—as each word falls short.
It is soul and spirit.
Real warmth and afterglow.
Elegance.
Movement. Echo within stone and symphony.
Motion and rapture. Beyond language.
Evocative. Rapids meeting coursing stream.
As real as It gets
It is profoundly human, fractal and unwoven, and jinxed with gravity and gratitude.
It is healing waters in a sea of its own where hearts and souls define its shoals and shores.
Mer de Noms immerses a listener in an arcane immaculate that is almost impossible to articulate.
Staggering masterpieces like “The Hollow”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Brena” and “Magdalena” are among the most ethereal, each lifting sonic tension, elegance, and resolution almost hidden in their melodies and harmonies. Their words (somewhere between poetry and experience) take you by the hand and into melody and metaphor. It is as if you are wading through currents and still waters simultaneously that this sea provides.
The strings and instrumentation of tracks such as “3 Libras” and “Orestes” calm like sublime serenades that steal one’s breath as the goosebumps rise. As the swelling waves of layered sound drag one’s soul to the edges of an expanding sky, they are cradled and lowered back down to rest on their laurels without limitation.
Beauty doesn’t even begin to describe these masterpieces. They are somewhere between some unknown ballroom dance of swaying muses and a trail of candlelight leading someone back to a home that one felt is “out there” somewhere. While lost in the sound, one discovers it and suddenly is sheltered there.
Flight and dive. Breath still…but stolen like some forgotten rollercoaster of antiquity.
Rest assured. By the time their final tones and cadences vanish, the experience does not. Each is a conscious remnant of the warmth well worth the reach.
Crashing waves and words
In its wake, music videos would be crafted that are art-directed within an inch of their lives.
“3 Libras” feels hauntingly magical with rich symbolism like a mythology we have yet to discover its language that patiently waits for us to arrive and begin to understand. I still have yet to see something so breathtaking in depth and imagery. My heart still hums its melody to this day.
Directed by Se7en’s David Fincher, the video for “Judith” is as raw, gritty, and piercing as the sentiments expressed by Keenan to understand the tragedy which ignited the song’s origin. Lenchantin, strong and talented, appears in breathtaking fashion. She dominates the bass guitar and backing vocals. Both a crashing archangel and soaring siren—indivisible. A graceful blackbird.
Kindled echoes.
Eternally pouring souls.
Melodies illuminating.
Luminous inspiration.
Naturally gifted.
Sonic artistry magnified.
Do you see? All attempts to describe her contributions feel like a puzzle waiting to be solved, but hidden in plain sight.
A Perfect Circle would tour the world, add new members (such as The Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha, NIN’s Danny Lohner and others), release new albums (such as Thirteenth Step, Emotive, and the uniquely titled, while musically gorgeous, Eat the Elephant).
However, the sea of names still stirs and tides still wash ashore.
An audience of one
Discovering an album (or any art) that speaks to you personally at unspoken depths is a rare thing. A special thing. Almost as if you’ve discovered an angel defined by chord, scale and arpeggio. This is an experience often lost to time, as perusing albums has changed from visiting the great Minneapolis record store Electric Fetus to trolling streaming services.
I can’t count the times this album has kept me company during walks along the ocean coast, on flights overseas and has set the atmosphere for evenings peacefully spent writing.
However, these written words are not to be considered promotion, rather a sharing with readers of a band and album with which many are still unfamiliar (as well as the beauty of a moment in the crashing and calming sea of names). Although amazingly produced, it is not perfect (pun intended). And that’s the point.
With beautiful tension, contradiction is what it means to be human. This exists in each breath behind word behind voice behind expression, wrapped in tone.
It is both comfort and contradiction, like a seraph embracing a sinner, art that is both home-fire and horizon, a long inhale and peaceful exhale.
For me, when there is the desire for music that is so magnetic, stylish, sophisticated, and complex without being complicated, it will always come back to Mer de Noms—and likely always will.
Robert Horton is an educator, author, orator and linguist. He is a member of Rainy River First Nations.
