aethermead

A portmanteau of Nethermead in Prospect Park and the Aether, to which Barnes connects with when meditating, Aethermead finds Barnes exploring spiralling grief. Having moved to Vermont with his fiancé of 8 years, Barnes’ relationship ran its course which found him relocating to Brooklyn. Sonically, you can hear the busy textures of Brooklyn all over the record, the screeching electric guitar on “Take The Form” sounds like scratching subway trains off the tracks, the jangle and clang on “Wanting on Air” is teeming with the hustle and bustle of instrumentational embellishments.

Music aside, the heart of the album, is breaking, its proprietor, slowly slipping into madness. While to begin with, Barnes seems to be enjoying the sexual liberation of the breakup. He purrs provocatively on “My Zhe Zhe” as his vocals glissandos over guitar strings. On the punk rock of “When”, he succumbs to the allure of hook up culture, before realising it doesn’t leave him fulfilled.

As the record gets to its second half, the wounds get more raw in order to heal. This is sonically captured in a series of songs that become more and more deranged. On “Having A Moment” a series of garbled run on sentences are backed by despondent drum beats and listless guitar licks. It conjures an image of Barnes despondently staring into the distance on a rocking chair. “From the Font of You” opens with sultry guitar strings, setting the scene of a dimly lit hotel bar, before the camera zooms in on Barnes, drinking alone with his inner monologue, a dissonant diatribe.

These songs are sonically challenging, but effectively capture the depression and state of pain these songs were written from. I can picture 52 year old barns, shirt untucked, hair unkempt, pottering about a studio, his mind racing with ideas as I listen to this run of songs. It’s a compelling and refreshing view of an artist in grief, rather than playing the victim or expressing his anger, Barnes is letting us into his grief spiral.
He does gather his composure as the album culminates. On penultimate track “Now We Cringe at the Thought” he is out the other end, the mania falls away and he can see the big picture. “We talked about marriage and maybe having a kid, We talked about ways to grow closer, we never really did, Now we cringe at the thought”. By the closer, “Dismissal Mosaics” Barnes is ready to move on “Surely you knew me well enough to know that I'd want to be a star in New York not a hick in Vermont, As you build your new nest I'll remember us at our best, To hell with the rest.“

What this album lacks in melodic appeal, an aspect of his music for which he has achieved many plaudits previously, he makes up for with intention. Barnes’ characterisation of a man on the brink opens a portal to his emotions and that makes this album a compelling, if uncomfortable, listen.