Plankton: Hospice by The Antlers
A great album can happen for many reasons. Radiohead produced the remarkable Kid A from the shuddering bowels of self-resentment. Bon Iver reveled in the winter pangs of a relationship broken down and left behind. Paul Simon found inspiration in Africa, twisting and contorting the sounds of the continent into Graceland.
Clearly it’s no coincidence that most albums worth waxing lyrical over have such unusual backdrops, whether deep-seated pain, joy, or simply an entirely new context. But there’s a specific breed of albums that are the product of incomprehensible grief; think the Eels‘ Electro-Shock Blues, or Songs in A&E by Spiritualized. These records have a certain quality to them - they are beautiful and spectacular because they are about devastating pain and torment.
Whilst some such albums are borne directly out of these experiences, other artists go searching for their grief deep in history. Neutral Milk Hotel’s masterpiece In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, a disturbing concept record about Anne Frank, is the obvious example.
Here’s a new one to add to the list: Hospice by The Antlers. It’s not entirely a Mangumesque time-traveling concept album, nor the by-product of recent grief, but instead appears to be a fascinating synthesis of the two. It’s a record that harnesses the harrowing, beautiful truth familiar from Electro-Shock Blues and the stunning spectral obsessions of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. Unsurprisingly, then, it’s bloody fantastic.
On February 11th 1963, aged just 30, Sylvia Plath died of suspected suicide. It is said that she placed her head in the oven with the gas turned on.
Listen to the album on Spotify / Buy on Amazon.com
MP3: ‘Kettering’ - The Antlers
MP3: ‘Bear’ - The Antlers
MP3: ‘Two’ - The Antlers
There’s a bear inside your stomach.
The cub’s been kicking you for weeks.
And if this isn’t all a dream.
Well then we’ll cut him from beneath.
Well we’re not scared of making caves.
Or finding food for him to eat.
We’re terrified of one another.
And terrified of what that means.
Plankton x
