2009 - USA
Slowcore, Indie Rock, Post-Rock
There are some of those albums we only listen to once. Because of how unique the experience was, because it was frightening, tiring, gruelling. There are many reasons why we don’t go back to some albums we listened to. And this is the kind of experience I’m talking about for Hospice. At the exact moment when I write those lines, I’m apprehensive about pushing the “Play” button again. Hospice tells the story of a nurse madly falling in love with one of his patient in the terminal phase of a bone cancer. This is the metaphor of a real story that happened to Peter Silberman, frontman and singer of The Antlers. In the past, Silberman was confronted to a self-destructive relantionship and today he still bears the traumatic scars of this experience. Hospice is a novel where each word is a shard of glass, it’s a partition where each note sounds like a rusty knife. A sick but sublime world inside of which I’ll try to guide you.
“Play”
Those colours… the opening prologue doesn’t need words. It’s the beginning of a mute novel , sonorous textures writhe and a great sadness overflows already. One element contorts while the other soothes, on one side our body, on the other our heart. Something is about to happen to us. The setting is installed, Kettering, a hospital in New York. There won’t be any rough cuts between the tracks of Hospice, everything comes one after another, there won’t be a single break. And finally, for the very first time, we hear it, Peter Silberman’s voice. Does something more beautiful than this exists ? Hushed, hurt, distant, a never-ending rhythm forms the pattern of his singing. The sound of Kettering’s first part is calling for another one, something violent. Silence needs to be filled. The future of the two beings is doomed, nothing has started that it’s already the end of them. Kettering suddenly screams, silence is filled, words fall silent, here are the strings of a saturated guitar. Programmed self-destruction.
Remember that this hospital is a metaphor. This story can be the story of everyone listening to this album. But Sylvia is already here to take the lead at the will of the distorsions ending Kettering. Turbulent beings of blood, slowly breaking off. The nurse is convinced that he can save her. She screams her anger at his face, attacking his bones with acerbic sentences, criticizing his high-pitched voice, his ugly face. But they love each other. But they love each other ? “Let me do my job” whispers the nurse in the ear of his patient who can’t wait to insult him before offering him her brightest smile, apologizing. Sylvia. They atrophy. No break. Both of them know they need help. But they isolate inside a poisoned bubble, sending away every one who tries to enter. “She’s screaming, expiring, and I’m her only witness / I’m freezing, infected and rigid in that room inside her / No one’s gonna come as long as I lay still in bed beside her.” Cancer already spreads.
Sylvia’s bones invade those of the nurse.
But this cancer has an origin. Sylvia’s father was a sexual aggressor and he destroyed his daughter during her childhood. One never destroys others before having been destroyed. Then comes the anomaly, Bear. It’s the first track going out of the metaphorical hospital to linger on the real life of both protagonists. Sylvia gets pregnant of a being that will never be. The couple doesn’t want to give life while they’re killing each other. And then it’s her voice, Sylvia’s voice, sung by Sharon van Etten. “Couldn’t you have kept this all from happening ?” Those lyrics seem to resonate inside the depths of the nurse’s nightmare. They sing together in a joined lament, burying each other alive. With Two, a hand finally achieves to break the poisoned bubble surrounding the couple and forces the nurse to accept the truth, Sylvia is going to die and nobody can save her. The nurse brings confort to Sylvia and continues to suffer, accompanying her til her final departure.
And here she dies, between the white walls of the hospital. Sylvia goes away. This metaphorical death tells us Sylvia packs her bags and leaves the toxic home. She’s not coming back. With a hideous and life-saving angry scream, the nurse takes place in the hospital bed : bone cancer. A hurricane never disappears without leaving traces. The nurse starts taking a step back on Shiva. It seems we start breathing again… The nurse looks at Sylvia’s empty bed, big, horrible and shapeless, just like her monstrosity born out of her father’s monstrosity. It’s infectious, Nothing is lost, nothins is created, everything is transformed. On Wake, a polysemic title hinting at an awakening as well as a funeral march, Hospice looks at the nurse’s empty world. Dying. But still standing, at least a little bit. The nurse liberates his thoughts, opens the door of his inner world and someone comes in. It’s a friend.
It’s one of those hands rejected numerous times, presenting itself one more time. A little bit of life comes in. “It was easier to lock the door and kill the phones / Than to show my skin / Because the hardest thing is never to repent for someone / It’s letting people in.” The held out hand becomes an orchestra, the orchestra becomes a way out. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that.” Those words are on repeat, it’s a mantra,
it’s a truth. The fourth wall falls down. Coming out alive
of his death experience, Peter Silberman brings us
inside his reality to sing relentlessly:
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that”
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that”
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that”
Epilogue.
Bear resonates once again. This melody, the same melody. Obscure nightmare, omnipresent ghost of flesh and bones. Sylvia resonates once again. But despite everything, Peter Silberman is still here today. And so are we.
“Play”
Those colours… the opening prologue doesn’t need words. It’s the beginning of a mute novel , sonorous textures writhe and a great sadness overflows already. One element contorts while the other soothes, on one side our body, on the other our heart. Something is about to happen to us. The setting is installed, Kettering, a hospital in New York. There won’t be any rough cuts between the tracks of Hospice, everything comes one after another, there won’t be a single break. And finally, for the very first time, we hear it, Peter Silberman’s voice. Does something more beautiful than this exists ? Hushed, hurt, distant, a never-ending rhythm forms the pattern of his singing. The sound of Kettering’s first part is calling for another one, something violent. Silence needs to be filled. The future of the two beings is doomed, nothing has started that it’s already the end of them. Kettering suddenly screams, silence is filled, words fall silent, here are the strings of a saturated guitar. Programmed self-destruction.
Remember that this hospital is a metaphor. This story can be the story of everyone listening to this album. But Sylvia is already here to take the lead at the will of the distorsions ending Kettering. Turbulent beings of blood, slowly breaking off. The nurse is convinced that he can save her. She screams her anger at his face, attacking his bones with acerbic sentences, criticizing his high-pitched voice, his ugly face. But they love each other. But they love each other ? “Let me do my job” whispers the nurse in the ear of his patient who can’t wait to insult him before offering him her brightest smile, apologizing. Sylvia. They atrophy. No break. Both of them know they need help. But they isolate inside a poisoned bubble, sending away every one who tries to enter. “She’s screaming, expiring, and I’m her only witness / I’m freezing, infected and rigid in that room inside her / No one’s gonna come as long as I lay still in bed beside her.” Cancer already spreads.
Sylvia’s bones invade those of the nurse.
But this cancer has an origin. Sylvia’s father was a sexual aggressor and he destroyed his daughter during her childhood. One never destroys others before having been destroyed. Then comes the anomaly, Bear. It’s the first track going out of the metaphorical hospital to linger on the real life of both protagonists. Sylvia gets pregnant of a being that will never be. The couple doesn’t want to give life while they’re killing each other. And then it’s her voice, Sylvia’s voice, sung by Sharon van Etten. “Couldn’t you have kept this all from happening ?” Those lyrics seem to resonate inside the depths of the nurse’s nightmare. They sing together in a joined lament, burying each other alive. With Two, a hand finally achieves to break the poisoned bubble surrounding the couple and forces the nurse to accept the truth, Sylvia is going to die and nobody can save her. The nurse brings confort to Sylvia and continues to suffer, accompanying her til her final departure.
And here she dies, between the white walls of the hospital. Sylvia goes away. This metaphorical death tells us Sylvia packs her bags and leaves the toxic home. She’s not coming back. With a hideous and life-saving angry scream, the nurse takes place in the hospital bed : bone cancer. A hurricane never disappears without leaving traces. The nurse starts taking a step back on Shiva. It seems we start breathing again… The nurse looks at Sylvia’s empty bed, big, horrible and shapeless, just like her monstrosity born out of her father’s monstrosity. It’s infectious, Nothing is lost, nothins is created, everything is transformed. On Wake, a polysemic title hinting at an awakening as well as a funeral march, Hospice looks at the nurse’s empty world. Dying. But still standing, at least a little bit. The nurse liberates his thoughts, opens the door of his inner world and someone comes in. It’s a friend.
It’s one of those hands rejected numerous times, presenting itself one more time. A little bit of life comes in. “It was easier to lock the door and kill the phones / Than to show my skin / Because the hardest thing is never to repent for someone / It’s letting people in.” The held out hand becomes an orchestra, the orchestra becomes a way out. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that.” Those words are on repeat, it’s a mantra,
it’s a truth. The fourth wall falls down. Coming out alive
of his death experience, Peter Silberman brings us
inside his reality to sing relentlessly:
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that”
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that”
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you deserve that”
Epilogue.
Bear resonates once again. This melody, the same melody. Obscure nightmare, omnipresent ghost of flesh and bones. Sylvia resonates once again. But despite everything, Peter Silberman is still here today. And so are we.