Looking back, somehow, it feels forever ago when I first came into contact with Part the Second. However, it was only about fourteen years ago. That still feels like a very long time, though, to me. Anyway, as I gather my thoughts and laser in on that time, it’s shrouded in nostalgia and wonder. At the moment, I was mostly all about metal and classical music and barely anything else (if at all) in between. My main vehicle of discovering new music was exhaustively browsing Metal Archives by genre tags alphabetically. Too much free time will have you doing some wild shit.
One day I figure I should sort in a way that shows me bands with the most genre tags. Surely the more tags, the more diverse the music, and the higher the quality, no? Flawless logic. But, I mean, look, it only has to work once in situations like this, right? And it did! Big time, even. That’s when I first saw the band name – maudlin of the Well. Little did I know right then that this band would become an absolute obsession which would extend to unbelievable lengths.
Looking through their catalogue, I was checking track lists for their records and I just got hung over the one for Part the Second. I was sold on the idea that this album has to be a masterpiece or utterly pretentious trash and nothing in between. Gearing up to find it somewhere so I can listen to it, I had a gut feeling that it has to be good. As the slowly blooming orchestral flourish which is the intro to “Excerpt from 6,000,000,000,000 Miles Before the First, or, the Revisitation of the Blue Ghost” (to which I will refer to only via the first two words in the title moving on) unfolded before me – I was in awe. I didn’t notice that the song is eleven minutes long. At the time such track lengths were still a tad unusual to me, and something rather exceptional.
At this point I was firmly glued to the listening experience. As time passed, with each revisitation I still feel an infinitesimal fragment of that wonder from the first encounter. It’s something I rarely experience with any record. It may have made that much of an impression on me. I’ve never heard anything even remotely near this level of experimentation up to that point. It also passed the vibe check big time. I found the emotional substrate of the record to be equally relatable as it is weird. That part at least still holds up to this day.
I still think that Part the Second is one of the greatest albums ever made. I will attribute some of that praise to its architecture, composition, and production, as well as overarching storytelling capabilities. Its intricacies are incredible at a musical level and I’m still uncovering them so many years later. However, most of that praise I attribute to how electrifying it can still be for my imagination. Every little piece, from the artwork and the song titles to large song chunks, is something to be cut into millions of pieces and interpreted in just as many ways, nevermind the places where all these can take you.
I never once called into question the album title. I just sort of took it for granted and never even asked myself what’s up with it. Until it hit me one day and I started to ponder it while listening to the album. I ended up imagining some kind of massive rift in space, where I, the titular character of the album’s story, riding waves of cosmic light, was splitting the very notion of the second, as a sort of metaphysical counterpart of Moses parting the Red Sea, but with the fabric of time instead, on a mind boggling scale. As if the possibility of dividing the matter of time would somehow reveal some profound, indomitable, and supreme truth about existence.
Similarly, I pictured “Excerpt from” as a far-away tale of a mere moment, from a universe long gone, still shimmering with some kind of sidereal charm evoking a sense of longing for a place I’ve never been to. It would all conjure ineffable images and scenes, unfolding on a galactic level, bound to the eye of my mind via this immutable sonic thread. In that same breath, I can say something of the sort about every other song on the record. It’s an incredible journey.
I do not have the means (in any and all senses) to expand as I’d like about this record, nor any other Toby Driver record, although I can confidently say that, even if you might argue that this isn’t one of the greatest records ever and whatever exaggerated praise I may throw in its way is unwarranted, it’s worth listening to at least once and surrendering to the outstanding worldbuilding in it. This is maybe less an album, as we know albums, and more of an anthology of stories which have been plucked from extradimensional trips and adapted to our comprehension.
Alright, I think you get it, and if you don’t, that’s also fine. Just hit play and go down the endless river of stars into the wild and deep unknown. I just restarted the record for another spin, so I’m going with it. See you on the other side.
