57 minutes, 56 seconds

Autopsia
Mystery Science

One of the more mysterious bands to emerge from Europe, let alone the former Yugoslavia, Autopsia seems like more of an art project than a musical one. But the music is so incredible and so mesmerizing, you forget about everything else. "Everything else" being the willfully obtuse, frequently morose imagery and text that accompanies each CD release. "Above all, we are not concerned with music," they state on the inside cover of 1995's Humanity Is the Devil. "Our subject is death and the pity of death. The music is in the pity."

Against the backdrop of the horrible atrocities that took place in Yugoslavia in the '90s, this has a sort of elegiac resonance. It's not the defiant, mocking attitude toward the war and its instigators that, say, Laibach adopted. Rather, Autopsia took on the role of somber bystander, bearing witness to the genocide almost by being its accompanying orchestra.

And the music is incredibly, profoundly, hauntingly sad. It can sometimes strike a note of triumph, but never of triumphalism. Every neoclassical, post-industrial flourish is tinged with tragedy and sorrow. It's strangely beautiful, and oddly relaxing, despite the grim subtext.

And in the end, what makes it art--what makes it transcend the realm of commercially released music--is that strange, discomfiting beauty: the sense that there's a lot more than just music going on here.

Serious stuff for a Friday, I know. I guess Autopsia's the Debbie Downer of my CD collection. (Or is the entire collection one big downer?)

Also today:

57:54 Fatal Morgana, The Destructive Solution
57:54 Noise Unit, Drill
57:53 Digital Poodle, Soul Crush
57:52 Silk Saw, Dystopia
57:51 KIFOTH, Ebola
57:51 Regard Extrême, Résurgence
57:48 Suicide Commando, Axis of Evil
57:47 Romowe Rikoito, Austradeiwa
57:45 The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud, Amara Tanta Tyri
57:43 Dismantled, Dismantled
57:41 Tristesse de la Lune, A Heart Whose Love Is Innocent
57:40 Geneviève Pasquier, Soap Bubble Factory
57:39 Amduscia, From Abuse to Apostasy
57:38 Allied Vision, OS Bandwidth