Alasdair Roberts’ songs are difficult to digest. Like a large pill you can’t quite swallow, that lodges toward the back of the throat, they are dense, layered, poetic ballads coupled with a forcefully picked acoustic guitar, abrasively fragile vocals and a thick Scottish accent. His new self-titled album is not the kind of thing you put on while washing dishes. But it’s the kind of album you go back to again and again, trying to parse the lyrics, trying to understand why these songs grate at the base of your spine. Roberts will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on him.
Roberts: Susan Philipsz is a contemporary Scottish artist, originally from Glasgow but now based in Berlin. She originally trained as a sculptor and, with a keen interest in what she refers to as “the sculptural properties of sound,” is currently doing interesting things with that medium in her work. Often the way that sound features in Philipsz’ work in the form of her own singing, revealing a concern with the emotive qualities of song and of the human voice itself. For instance, a typical work might feature Susan’s own disembodied voice singing a song, being played through speakers into a gallery space or some other public environment; a variation on this approach might find her singing two slightly different, overlapping versions of the same song in different parts of a space. Over the seven or so years since I first became aware of her work, I have observed it develop in complexity and sophistication, in various ways—conceptually, compositionally and in the scale of its execution—so it is no surprise that in 2010 Susan was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize.
Video after the jump.
