Blight

the take

This album is an indictment of humans’ corrosive relationship with nature and other living things. Listening to this album means you have to sit with the impending self-destruction of our species, and observe the quiet ways we take other living things down with us. There is endless science showing we can still save ourselves and the planet. Yet we slip toward our avoidable and permanent fate. The liminal, ambient songs signify humans’ eventual absence, and how the planet will sound and feel without us. It doesn’t make our inevitable extinction easier to stomach, but it’s nice to feel that quiet, to hear waves and wind. It’s nice to know the barbed fences that mangle deer will eventually rot away, so they can graze without threats beyond their evolutionary understanding. When the album finished, I looked out the window for a while and pet my dog. It was strange to feel so burdened and so relieved at the same time.