Before Music

Lonnie Holley works with found materials to rebuild the broken and reconsider the discarded before breaking down and rebuilding what he finds there. His process of artistic destruction and rebirth initially recalls that of the Tibetan sand mandala rituals, though Holley insists that he's working with dust rather than sand: "It’s taking from this earth the dust of all the dead. All the wars and all that humans had to deal with has become the dust. The earth is the grave, it’s the biggest graveyard that has ever been." Musical dust rather than physical dust, Just Before Music evokes the old and forgotten sounds of label Dust-to-Digital's output, while at the same time appears odd and spontaneous, Holley's concerns contemporary (our irresponsible embrace of the notion of technological progress- leaving the physical and mental relics of lives, deaths, and tragedies behind in our wake). Undoubtedly strange, yet remedial, and disarming in its absolute sincerity.

B

try / buy