Review: Seth Cluett - Forms Of Forgetting

Seth Cluett - Forms Of ForgettingWould Forms Of Forgetting sound the same if I could, at any time, vividly recall its opening moments? Perhaps the act of forgetting is not an inadequacy of cognition, but a perceptual device; a subconscious mixing desk across time rather than audio space, nudging out those elements whose familiarity can afford them to depart my consciousness. As I write, I am 19:42 into this piece and I feel airborne. I am not beholden to the past for a point of reference – I feel as though Cluett uses the act of forgetting to situate the present in its own independent bubble. I sit amidst a momentary congealment of frequencies that hover and tilt toward and away, meeting eachother for the first time as if merely passing by, oblivious to mutual agenda.

At points, it feels like a precarious sculpture that shouldn’t be standing – a tonal yoga that puts temporary pressure upon a particular clump of frequency, before rolling the centre of gravity, ever so gently, to the other side of the space. Meanwhile, the past snakes out into a mist behind me. Where was I heading to end up here? Previous reference points cyclically deteriorate and regenerate upon the perimeter of recent memory, as an arrangement of low/mid frequency feedback pillows begin to levitate and move toward the ceiling, winched up until they hang like the hum of a computer server room, safe and stable for how they linger. Time moves slowly. But then again, the moment I forget the piece’s original point of origin, duration becomes a mutative becoming rather than a block that is built upon. Allegedly I’ve been listening for 42:08 by this point, but what does this actually signify if I can’t tell you what 00:00 sounded like?