M C Maguire (b. 1953)
Dystophilia
Yummy World, for orchestra and electronics
Another Lucid Dream, for orchestra and electronics
MIDI orchestra
Recording details not provided
Neuma Records 190 [52]
Here’s another slice of whimsy from the ceaselessly innovative, increasingly influential Neuma label. MC (Mike) Maguire is a Toronto-based composer, studio whizz and (I have it on good authority) purveyor of fine bread. Over the years I’ve encountered the occasional insightful and literate music review on Amazon contributed by someone called Mike Maguire; given his musical preoccupations I very strongly suspect it’s the same person. In what seems to be a continuing theme amongst the reviews I have filed most recently, both substantial works on the present issue have been directly inspired by contemporary pop sources; Yummy World is a set of variations on the 2020 hit song Yummy by Maguire’s compatriot Justin Bieber, whilst the coupling, Another Lucid Dream is a kind of threnody built upon a hip-hop track, the 2018 hit Lucid Dreams by one Jarad Anthony Higgins, better known as Juice Wrld (sic) a Chicago born rapper who died the following year aged just 21. Whilst my catholic tastes incorporate a good deal of material one would certainly categorise as ‘rock and roll’, I have to admit that the work (if not the names) of both Justin Bieber and Juice Wrld has hitherto passed well beneath my radar, although as part of my prep for this review I have familiarised myself with each of Maguire’s sources.
It will be noticed that I have provided little information in the header regarding the performing forces involved in this disc. I contacted the Neuma boss Phillip Blackburn for a bit of clarification and I don’t think he will mind if I quote directly from the information he and Mike Maguire helpfully submitted. I am grateful to them both.
Firstly, Blackburn told me that:
“(Maguire) would love for his works to be performed by a human orchestra (and his scores are perfectly clear and doable) but until that day, he uses his skills in the studio to make a MIDI orchestra do the job (while not sounding too mechanical).”
Soon afterwards the composer himself provided a bit more detail:
“The ‘orchestra’ (full winds, brass, percussion, strings) in these two pieces use state of the art sample libraries in a multitrack (up to 300 track) digital work station. I’ve worked many years trying to recreate an orchestral ‘sound’ within the context of electro-acoustic music. There are very few actual samples in these pieces – all parts are written.
The orchestra is synced to the electronic part via clicktrack via conductor.”
I regret that this critic is somewhat technophobic but I’m sure many MWI readers will have at least some comprehension of the processes Maguire is describing.
So what of the music itself? The original Justin Bieber song Yummy (its colourful and rather likeable promo is accessible via YouTube for readers who may be interested) is based entirely upon a repeated progression of two descending chords. This sequence (or a version of it) is what hears at first, along with a processed vocal of the song’s one word title. What then transpires is a complex, dark, sinister deconstruction and rebuild. The blend of purely electronic sounds with the MIDI samples is seamless. Maguire seems to submit to a wide range of cultural stimuli in this vast, multi-layered collage – American musicals, advertisement jingles, Hollywood film scores, several different genres of popular music seem to crop up in fragmented form but pulsing underneath these paradoxically cluttered and glittering surfaces is a nightmarish disorientation which seems to go way beyond irony. Yummy World comprises seven sections which play without a break and are demarcated by brazen tempo changes. At each of these points, and regardless of whether the flow speeds up or slows down the listener’s sense of disconnection is exponentially deepened. The rapid procession of fresh aural information almost paralyses the listener – textures, motifs and beats tumble repeatedly over each other and at first inundate one’s ability to unravel the detail and disentangle the purpose of the piece. The reprise in the final bars of a whiff of Bieber’s original chorus comes as something of a relief. If words like disconnection and paralysis suggest some kind of awful experience, it’s certainly not that. Yummy World only settles with familiarity, but when it does it’s oddly counter-intuitive to discover new shapes, timbres and moods which seem to appear afresh. I find the piece to be frustratingly addictive – it’s sufficiently invigorating and novel to make one really want to ‘get’ it – but it’s absolutely not for the faint-hearted. It would certainly be fascinating to hear it performed at some point by an actual orchestra – I wonder if Gil Rose and his splendid Boston Modern Orchestra Project could perhaps be tempted.
As for the coupling, the video of Juice Wrld’s original Lucid Dream is clearly a popular watch on YouTube (it’s approaching one billion hits). It’s a melancholy number ostensibly about romantic disappointment and the lyric seemingly incorporates several uncanny premonitions of this artist’s sad and untimely demise. At first the pulse of the original is the most obvious guide for the listener striving to appreciate the weave of Maguire’s piece – but in his booklet note the composer refers to Purcell’s famous descending bass line from Dido’s lament (in Dido and Aeneas). At times there’s bit more space surrounding the events in Another Lucid Dream than there is in the comparatively frenetic Yummy World, but this can suddenly be undermined by aural non-sequiturs which seem to fit neither the logic nor the mood of the piece. A sequence from about 8:30 is especially disconcerting – a befuddling psychedelic harmonic ascent underpins the material Maguire has layered on top – it projects the shocking impact that the coda of the Beatles’ immortal Day in the Life must have had upon listeners experiencing it for the first time. One episode in the middle of Another Lucid Dream is especially calm, focused and seems to reach for beauty, but it’s somewhat short-lived. The ear at this point briefly registers a selection of colourful instrumental timbres seemingly drawn from non-western traditions. Just beyond the work’s halfway point the sounds converge into a convoluted mulch of texture, colour and contradiction. At its core is a sprawling yet alluring guitar solo. By now the original source seems to be a distant memory and at 18 minutes the piece seems to have almost worn itself out. The episode which follows is fragmentary and elusive, as textures thicken and present further challenge for the listener. The complex din which ensues is intermittently leavened by softer content, but I have to admit that I’d now reached the point of no return; the sheer mass of information in the piece proved utterly overwhelming to my ears (and brain). At 23 minutes Yummy World is digestible. At 27 minutes (and after three rather frustrating attempts on my part) the extra four minutes of Another Lucid Dream seem to take it beyond saturation point.
Accordingly I have found my first experience of MC Maguire’s music to be extremely bracing, but in his favour he’s making precisely the kind of tough, unorthodox, confrontational music that I’ve spent much of my life trying to get inside. Maguire’s aesthetic on the strength of these two examples seems to occupy an (imaginary) terrain where the legendary Scottish shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine cover some of Elliott Carter’s complex orchestral scores from the 1960s. In my imagination that actually doesn’t sound like too bad a place to hang out….
A note on the Neuma website states the following:” Maguire has been dubbed “the most irritating and spellbinding composer since Philip Glass” and “the most original Canadian composer since R. Murray Schafer.” I couldn’t possibly comment. Adventurous listeners are encouraged to find out for themselves.
Richard Hanlon
Availability: Neuma Records
