Untitled Document
The Book of Exodus isn’t one of God’s
finer moments. From the moment he first appears to Moses in the form of a
burning bush, it’s obvious that Mr. I-Am-That-I-Am has a thing for
cheap theatrics. When his staff-into-serpent party trick falls flat, he
makes with the real razzle-dazzle. Rivers turn to blood. Frogs, lice, and
flies descend. Innocent farm animals keel over. Then come the boils, the
fiery hailstones, the locusts, and the darkness. Finally all the
Egyptians’ firstborn children die (along with their firstborn
livestock, which apparently come back to life briefly so that God can have
the satisfaction of killing them again). With his typical genocidal genius,
God launches this shock-and-awe attack solely against the Egyptians,
leaving his chosen people conspicuously unscathed.
Frankly, the whole story stinks of a setup. Granted,
the Pharaoh was a homicidal, slave-driving jerk who wouldn’t let the
poor Israelites do their thing in the desert, but why must God, who’s
supposed to be omnipotent and omniscient, wreak so much collateral damage?
Couldn’t he free the Jews by — oh, I dunno — simply
offing the Pharaoh or turning him into a pillar of salt? And why did he
harden the Pharaoh’s heart beforehand? Is it possible that he already
knew that the Pharaoh was going to cave before the last act of this grisly
puppet show? Well, duh. Look up “omniscient.” The only
explanation that makes any sense (and no, “He works in mysterious
ways” won’t fly anymore) is that God, much like his bro Mel
Gibson, gets off on gore.
Plague Songs, a new
compilation commissioned by the British arts council Artangel, consists of
10 original songs, one for each plague. Although it doesn’t solve any
of the aforementioned riddles, the CD does manage to turn its grandiose
conceit into a mildly amusing 40 minutes’ worth of entertainment.
There are definitely some duds, though, and the decision to arrange the
songs chronologically, however appealing from a high-concept perspective it
might have been, is a huge mistake from an aesthetic one. For starters, it
means that the disc begins not with a bang but a whimper.
“Blood,” by the justifiably obscure Klashnekoff, might be an
attempt to equate the first plague with contemporary urban violence, but
the London rapper’s aversion to consonants makes it impossible to
tell, and his lame beats make it impossible to care. Almost as wretched is
Imogen Heap’s sulky dance-pop disaster “Glittering
Clouds,” which is supposed to be about locusts but might just as
easily be about some minor rave mishap — a misplaced glowstick,
perhaps, or some tainted ecstasy.
Fortunately, not all of Plague
Songs is as relentlessly awful as its subject
matter. Scottish folk-popper King Creosote delivers “Relate the
Tale,” his poignant, if melodically challenged, interpretation of the
second plague from a frog’s viewpoint: “Although I prayed for
company a hundred thousand times, I did not expect my prayers to be
answered all on the same day.” Still more clever is Stephin
Merritt’s “The Meaning of Lice,” a gimlet-eyed disco
ditty with a burbling backbeat and the unforgettable couplet “Fleas,
fleas, STDs/All of Egypt on her knees.” Brian Eno and Robert Wyatt
turn in a rich and buzzy, disorientingly lovely synth hymn
(“Flies”), and British eccentric Scott Walker contributes a
genuinely frightening chamber-gospel cut (“Darkness”). The last
track, Rufus Wainwright’s “Katonah,” is predictably
beautiful, a sleepy art-school blues stippled with female harmonies and
piano frills that doesn’t have much to do with the final plague;
it’s actually about the singer’s dead cousin from Westchester.
But, given the vexatious source material and its inexplicable sadist of a
hero, maybe such liberties are all for the better. To borrow another line
from Merritt, “Religion ain’t philosophy.”
Contact René Spencer Saller at rssaller@core.com.
Contact René Spencer Saller at rssaller@core.com.
