IAN KETEKU / LESSONS FROM PLANET EARTH : RE-EVOLUTION (2011)
REVIEW # 1 / SEPT . 7 . 2011 / LESSONS FROM PLANET EARTH : RE-EVOLUTION by IAN KETEKU
IAN KETEKU’S LESSONS FROM PLANET EARTH (RE-EVOLUTION) . NOCTURNE RECORDS . 2011
POSTSCRIPT TO EARTH : A RE-EVOLUTION
We are at the center of our personal universe. For the artist, this centre is often a cluttered room of abstraction and reflection, a closet with one window in which we hang our soul and gaze outward with art’s telescopic power. IAN KETEKU’s “LESSONS FROM PLANET EARTH RE-EVOLUTION” is one man’s cosmic gaze both outward and in, a mapping of poetic constellations depicting truths by which we may calendar our lives. The album is a prophetic space probe, a satellite pieced together by some of Ottawa’s most talented earthlings. Brandon Wint’s soothing footnotes litter the offering as a conceptual through line, a framing of the rapture in context and tone. The astronomer behind the star map is the mighty Josh Furey, a multi talented music producer whose album “Archaeology”, impacted upon Keteku’s surface, defining and shaping the formations to come. Other notable stars on the album include The Ottawa Choir Boys, Chelsea Lyne-Heins, Musk Ox and Usmane Ali, each their own life source. Launched from the mind of Keteku himself, the album is designed to reach you and shine bright in the alien blackness of your life…the alien blackness of our times.
The album opens with the anchoring track, MY NAME IS IAN, the first of 14 transmissions. Upon a layer of spacey in-finiteness are the bits and bytes of the artist’s introspection, a digital marsh from which the life of the album emerges with the whispers of frogs,cogs and cybernetic crickets. Exploring the deep contradictions buried in one’s namesake, the poem unfolds in a back and fourth between the accreditation’s of others and Ian’s own subjective take on his name. His not so obvious condemnation of self becomes a celebration as the artist enlightens us to the fact that names and identities are vessels filled with information; time capsules floating in space. To begin an album with a critical unfolding of the self may be the truest beginning for any artistic endeavor, a suitable foundation for our voyage into the depths of a beautiful wormhole.
Tackling the indiscretions of a race breaking bad, tracks 2 to 14 plunge us into the caverns of Khan; a series of dark inquisitions into the neglected yet obvious horrors of us.
TEMPLE tackles the migraine of our present condition, one that has resulted in a foreclosure of the biological temples behind our eyes and the sacred temples that house our faiths.
LEFT HAND is a pondering and condemnation on difference, the glorification of indifference and the nature of otherness. The track becomes a history lesson for the persecuted and abject, symbolized by all that is left. From the burning of witches to the murder of left handed children and left wing governments, Keteku deconstructs the demonization of others through language and it’s playful yet deadly semantics.
KAY, an adoring yet sarcastic depiction of a well-traveled Russian is easily one of the cleverest and hard hitting reveals on the album. Her daddy would be proud.
Beating onward with DEAR JUSTICE, Keteku provides his alien listeners a letter to an idea hiding from courtrooms and common sense. Scoring the poem are the sounds of birds in a dense jungle, a wild where justice’s practical nature comes naturally.
From this jungle sprouts FLOWER a celebration of womanhood while at the same time a condemnation of man’s need to build greenhouses around these sacred things. What starts with a page from Shakespeare, continues with Keteku’s take on gender subjugation by societies many thorns. The poem shifts in tone as we are left with the optimistic horns of Mike Essoudry’s Mash Potato Mashers, a centipede of funk.
The darkest of the transmissions, NIGHTMARES, is the drafting of fear’s blueprint and Keteku’s personal vendetta with all things self defeating and self destructive. All this before landing us in the lap of Laptop Love.
Schooling us in the true power of personification, Mr. Keteku unveils an entertaining yet deeply sharp critique of our relationship to technology. A synthetic plea to Ms. Vista. The poem is an operator’s apology and a nostalgic romp through cyberspace. Keteku subversively outlines for the listener our contemporary dilemma, one in which flesh spends more time with hardware than flesh. Is it a stretch to think one day we may actually have to account for our upgrades? I dare you to ask your GameBoy if he’s lonely?
Without gifting away too much of the album’s goodness, It’s impossible to overlook my personal favorites.
With the beat of an African drum and the diagetic percussion of a tribal event gone bad, BLACK MERMAID PART 1 ushers us into Keteku’s highly imaginative attack on colonial discourse. The brilliance of the piece positions the colonizer as alien, neon skin marauders consuming the African continent in a fashion reminiscent of a Speilbergian storyboard. The genius of the poem is it’s power to push aside former representations of the colonized and colonizer, an exhausted binary offered up in mainstream culture. Countless depictions show white middle class American’s either under threat or in a position to westernize and enlighten those little green bastards in the ways of the world. Keteku offers us a new mythology, one more in the spirit of District 9 than E.T.
Pretend your an alien race hitting the on button…Having listened to transmissions 1 to 13 you now wonder what the human race could possibly choose as its last will and testament…This is what you hear…
Keteku’s final transmission is the album’s cry and seal, a beginning as much as it is a conclusion.
In the most honest and honorable fashion, Keteku leaves for his listeners the ultimate reality check, a bare boned account of a voiceless world. We realize that his voice and the many voices that have accompanied him through tracks 1- 14 act as a combined heading, a testament and warning for others out there in blackness. The power of the album’s message stems from a cultural reality, one that shed’s light on the apathy of our times and the empowerment of our times. Social media is mobilizing the voiceless in an unprecedented manner. From the Arab Spring to the occupy movement voices are being heard loudly in the name of change. Keteku is the first to admit it…he is one voice for the voiceless…
And in the words of Brandon Wint…
Let’s hope that in some distant time and some distant future, RE-EVOLUTION has the power to be a “necessary reminder of beauty, humanity, peace, love, justice, strength, resistance and struggle.”
I believe it is…
END OF TRANSMISSION
Craig Allen Conoley is the co-founder of Ottawa’s Voice Box and the owner and head of productions @ PARTUS FILMS (http://ottawasvoicebox.tumblr.com/) (http://partusfilms.com/)
