"I wish I was special" by Guests
Social isolation is inevitable when you can’t express yourself. When you can’t find the right words. Or worse, when you can find the right words but can’t say them. The language rings out in your skull but sentences get stuck in the esophagus, tongue heavy as stone. You stumble through dialogue, talking in circles, unable to articulate what seems so straightforward in your subconscious but impossibly complex when the time comes to speak aloud. Your internal terminology makes sense to you, but others only hear idiosyncratic speech patterns that signal you as other. And when you try to follow the unspoken conversational rules, wait your turn to speak, use the right socially-approved phrases, avoid coming across as too pretentious or trying too hard or too blunt or too emotional, the in-group can tell that normalcy doesn’t come naturally to you. They can see your verbal processing center overthinking every piece of linguistic data, consciously mining information as you struggle to stay afloat in the small talk. Even when you think you’re playing the game correctly, there’s no way to win–no matter what you say, it is doomed to be lost in translation.
This visceral feeling of perpetual dialectic breakdown is explored on the new experimental record "I wish I was special" by Guests. By layering cut-up samples, delicate electronica, and repetitive lyrics, Guests constructs disjointed semantics that echo with aching familiarity. Many tracks are built around found sounds like interview segments and corporate instructional videos, manipulated with a focus on the flaws–every stutter, every awkward pause, grammatical errors, all emphasized through carefully orchestrated sound collage. In contrast, other tracks like “Arrangements, As In Making Them” feature improvised spoken word lyrics: “Uh, well, um, I wanted to say / something about gardens, sourness, ugly sentences…” Purely instrumental songs, indicated by (parentheticals) still play with ideas around communication, revealing messages without the use of words at all.
Despite its meaningful subject matter about the challenges of authentic and embodied communication, "I wish I was special" is fully realized and beautifully composed, while retaining its DIY charm. By using the words of others, by experimenting with improvisation, and by delicately arranging their own thoughts into poetry, Guests gives voice to those who are still searching for the right words.
- Kalen
