AJ Cornell & Tim Darcy - Too Significant to Ignore (2016)

NNA is pleased to release a special collaboration between two of Montréal, Quebec’s finest. “Too Significant To Ignore” unites Andrea-Jane Cornell, a prolific improviser and former CKUT Radio music programming director, and Tim Darcy, best known as the guitarist/vocalist for Constellation Records’ four-piece post-punk band Ought. On this recording, the duo concoct a hazy bed of grey, melancholic psychedelia using synthesizers, field recordings, processed accordion, and manipulated objects to serve as a backdrop for Darcy’s contemplative existential spoken word.

Recalling the spirit of wordsmiths and sound-pioneers such as Steven Jesse Bernstein, Ruth White, Allen Ginsberg, and Pauline Oliveros, “Too Significant To Ignore” presents raw poetic meditations that intermingle with psychedelic electronic landscapes. AJ and Tim create a sound world where jarring and narrative vocals interact with sonorous, blue bass tones and forests of synth. Subtle melodies coexist alongside smoldering, buzzing drones, sublime electronics, and indiscernible field recordings, all smudged together to forge a slow-paced swirling mass. A beautifully peaceful sadness is revealed, creating a perfect atmosphere of cosmic dread and a cinematic sensitivity that compliments the unfolding observational dialogue.

Darcy’s vocal delivery comes across as part Ferlinghetti, part Henry Rollins, and part Bill Hicks. His drawled, surrealist lyrics reflect a weariness and an isolation from society. He touches on apathetic voyeurism, city life, regret, self-reflection, human disconnection via accelerated technology, and the bleakness of modern sterility. The delivery and the content of the lyrics impeccably conveys the drab routine and impersonality of day-to-day life, like the disoriented narration of an existential crisis. Using repetition as a weapon, Darcy drills phrases into the listener’s brain, helping the lyrics recede into the music to create an unlikely coherent unity between the meditative bliss and swells of electronic ambiance and dry vocalizations. “Too Significant To Ignore” is a unique and non-referential pairing of electronics and spoken word, yielding an invigorating listen that stands on its own amongst new underground music. AJ and Tim succeed in communicating the confusing psychedelia inherent in the mundanity of modern human existence.