Wish for a World Without Hurt

Album Review

This collaboration between Mark Beazley and J.S. Adams has all the hallmarks of something special. Using September 11 and its aftermath as a meditation, it reflects the various aspects of sorrow, loss, grief, and even transcendence, with great intimacy, single-pointed focus, and grace. Beazley's Rothko has long been associated with all that is "beautiful" in post-punk indie rock, working out various experiments from instrumental recordings with multiple basses to DJs, and vocal tracks full of sprawling textures and ambitious dynamics. Adams is a sound sculptor; his creations use everything from dissonance to ambient sounds to offer towering, constantly unfolding terrains of sonic inquiry. Together, the pair seem at first to stumble over one another, but this is actually on purpose. What they do is discover one another in the process of creation. There are three composed works between the pair, three more by Beazley, and one by Adams with violinist Frances Morgan. The trio play everything here, wafting in and out of dovetailed ambiences and spare, yet elegant texturals, to offer a dreamy, alluring work that reflects beauty in the most unlikely places, form the interplay between harsh noise that is covered over in depth-charged treatments rounding off its edges, to luscious bass and guitar interplay, to forlorn and wistful violin forays into the heart of the aether. Wish for a World Without Hurt, is strange, sad, beautiful, and compelling.