Nostalgia for a Wound — Track Review by Finnian McKenna: God Is Memory
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. — Hebrews 4:12
God is a term that cannot be avoided. Whether I am atheist, devout or somewhere in the middle (or none of these things — just an open casket inclined towards the living and dead souls that wish to explore my insides) I will always be confronted with this word and what it means to me.
Having been exposed to the ideas and practices of religion from an early age, I’ve always found myself questioning this concept of God and wondering about the value of all the buildings designed for the use of religion in all its various forms. For years I disdained the whole thing, perhaps informed by my presence within a Christian setting with two atheistic or perhaps agnostic parents, who had lost faith and lived a more or less godless existence.
But despite my insistence that it was all nonsense, being in a candlelit church in times of sadness, loss and mourning was somehow always comforting.
God is a universal idea, and for that reason can be applied to any religious ideal. A deity, a spiritual force that guides the movement of souls and spirits through material and non-material settings and spaces.
In the case of God is Memory by Traitor, God is at the core of this allegorical story.
Memory is a recollection of experiences that when replayed are non-material, and in that sense, subject to fallible judgement. Or at least more so than the present event itself (which in itself is continuously moving into the past and therefore also a memory). A construction of ideas at once real for the individual in the moment are likely fabricated to fit into that person’s present narrative or capability of emotional regulation; often they end up with a kind of delusional thinking brought on by a repression or denial of the more likely situation at hand.
In Traitor’s first verse of God is Memory he explores the idea of repentance. The secrets, the damnation, of events, of times less favoured. A nostalgia of death, of illness, of sadness and of mourning.
To recollect, specifically through creative means is to explore, and exorcise. Like the opening track on Nostalgia for a Wound, ‘Eurydice’, Traitor is now at least esoterically dealing with an idea of his past, of his demons and yet beautifully avoids any specific detail of circumstance.
“Will I ever smile again…I’m on trial again…”
The former is a question because he knows through his pain there must be light on the other side of the darkness that, in the present, seems endless. Trial by memory. Trial by God. God is living and active through an immaterial understanding of time and space.
Through our recollections, our memories. We are judged not by our finite selves, but by what is and can only be an infinite benevolence that has the power to present to us as human beings a clear and precise ‘blade’ of emotive synchronicities, through the ‘division of soul and of spirit, bone and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart’.
We fear God not because of what it will do to us, but of what it shows us of ourselves, our own wrongdoings, defects and issues. We may be able to achieve a kind of freedom from this eternal judge in our psyche, but first we must come to terms with that which haunts us.
What I find so intrinsically powerful about this song is the title alone. It tells me everything I need to know. The words and sounds of the track further exemplify Traitors’ story.
It so beautifully articulates the depression of a man who can only exact what is demonic through his art. Which is why this work of art, this song and the following songs in the album are so tauntingly stunning.
Art is absurd. This Traitor admits himself in the recent documentary, also called God is Memory, which was directed and shot by Syd Farrington. Art is absurd, but it is so close to the truth of the human experience that, when it works, it hits home like a jackhammer on the bedrock of the sea, firing matter into the atmosphere, reacting and dispersing over time, its intensity of fervour, destruction, new creation and symphony rising and falling as the process repeats for eternity.
Despite its somewhat sombre lyrical content, God is Memory has a very restorative tone. After the opening track, Traitor seems to be finding his way through the forest. The beat and synth pads are more promising, the tone of his voice is suggestive of hope.
“I wanna live again, live again, live again, live agaaaaaaain, again”.
With this note, and the outro of reversing sounds and birds in the air, I can’t feel anything but faith thrown my way.
As the synths subside and we trail off with piano chords and the simple beat, Traitor’s voice slowly comes back in, this time soft, benign and nurtured. His words are of comfort and a true celebration of his artistic process, crying at the end because the pain is part of the process, and joy resides right there next to the pain. Traitor is finding himself in his art, which is why you can feel and hear everything.
Stream and purchase Nostalgia for a Wound here: https://hangthetraitor.bandcamp.com/album/nostalgia-for-a-wound
