Recording: M. Lamar

Artist: M. Lamar

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Ratio, March 26, 2016.

M. Lamar - unknown

With continuously-rolling piano chords and operatic vocals, M. Lamar's music is quite singular — but it can also be heard as being part of a community of outsiders cutting across the limits of space and time, race and gender. So there are fragments here of African-American spirituals and slave songs, and of Baby Dee and Jandek and Diamanda Galás — of mournful cries of people united only in that they ain't got no home in this world anymore. Given all the resonances in this music, it's no surprise that M. Lamar's website contains a section titled "Critical Theory" — but it never feels like it's merely an exercise in recombining the right tropes. Rather, it's a voice in the darkness, trying to sing its way out of doom, out of sorrow, out of the grave.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!