Weigh the Word

Reviews of ‘Weigh the Word’ "The mesmerizing, overlapping chatter on Seth Cooke’s Weigh the Word comes from tape-recorded sermons. The Bristol-based sound artist fed the text of these sermons into a text-to-speech program and surrounded these bits of babble with sounds both disturbingly organic (bee-swarm hums) and sterile (air-craft hangar room tones). Some of the voices poke through the antiseptic surface unmodified, like mad people stranded in outer space. By sapping their devotional heat and leaving only a chilling monotone. Cooke shows how brittle our words of faith are; test them, even a little, and they snap." Pitchfork (Jayson Greene) - Best Experimental Music 2019 pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-experimental-albums-2019 “Whispered prophetics, skull-vibrating bass feedback, stop-start static. The uncanny sonority of halted words, syllables once pregnant with meaning reduced to synthetic blips and glitches. The captivating gibberish that dominates Seth Cooke’s stark collages on Weigh the Word is sourced from spoken ministry cassettes recorded between 1996 and 1999, the devotional sermons digitized and chopped up beyond recognition to form something entirely new. Both sides of the C26 cassette contain elusive mixtures of sounds as jittery and unpredictable as the cut-up text that serves as the cover art, the synthesized speech sharing space with granular electronics and disarming dynamic changes. The largely indeterminate and computer-based method of composition used here might imply that Weigh the Word is too far removed from anything recognizably emotional or even organic, but the music itself tells a different story. Especially on side B, the random diatribes adopt something resembling lucidity; the male text-to-speech stating “They were the issue of slavery, you will model something for them yeah okay okay okay okay” while a whirlwind of aggressive static that sounds like an angry cloud of bees threatens to take over is one of the most harrowing things I’ve heard in recent memory. Weigh the Word is another fascinating and singular work from Seth Cooke.” Noise Not Music noisenotmusic.com/2019/02/10/review-seth-cooke-weigh-the-word-self-released-jan-27 “Recent cassette from Seth Cooke is Weigh The Word (SETHCOOKE.EU SC001), another conundrum and conceptual piece which does not surrender its meaning very easily. We had to exert a certain amount of intellectual effort on the last work we heard, Triangular Trade, a very layered and oblique statement which was informed by a strong sense of indignation, as it attacked what he perceived to be institutionalised, historic racism in the City of Bristol. In the case of Weigh The Word, my first thought was that this time the “target” is organised religion, but it may not be as simple as that at all. It’s a bewildering mix of collaged elements – noise, spoken word, and computer generated materials. The latter seems to have been a big part of the experiment; Cooke refers, in his terse manner, to “sounds derived from prophetic ministry cassettes” and “their inscription onto digital formats”; there’s also a process he calls “transcription of the spoken ministry via IBM Bluemix”. Even the cover artworks have gone through the computer; texts originated in MS Word have been passed through a Word-to-PDF conversion tool, and this has resulted in scrambled words, characters, numbers, and odd fonts scattered about the page. I assume we’re hearing an aural equivalent of this process, or something akin to it, on parts of this cassette. By way of further clues, there are two quotes from scripture (one from Psalms, one from 2 Peter) provided with the release; and one further quote from the lyrics of Pete Townsend. Both the scripture pieces refer directly to speech and to writing, while the song by The Who – ‘Substitute’ – is all about looking for alternatives. There’s probably enough conceptual mileage in that riddle alone; is our culture now at such a point of moral and intellectual decay that none of us can deal with the truth, and are settling for more palatable substitutions? I’d go along with a line of thought like that, except that the actual content of the tape is far from clear. A female voice has been passed through a text-to-speech device; the words are not clear, the meaning is scrambled, and the robotic tone is horrifying. A more recognisable voice – this time a man speaking – sounds more reassuring and convincing, but he too is speaking the most awful nonsense, some of it probably quite subversive. For these parts of Weigh The Word, I’m reminded of People Like Us and her determined efforts to scramble cosy BBC radio speech into something dark and nightmarish, but whereas Vicki Bennett creates satirical barbs that are both mordant and amusing, I somehow sense that Seth Cooke is going for the jugular here. Then there are the passages of noise and static, strategically placed to alarm and distress the listener, underscoring key points in the text. On side two we apparently have real-life conversations from Christian believers speaking of their experiences with God, but these segments are not necessarily presented in a sympathetic light through Cooke’s juxtapositions and editing. So far, it’s all very problematic; sense that I’m placed in a metaphysical quandary, which might be one of the desired results. If I am right about Cooke’s agenda, he would be interested in activating the mind of the listener towards decoding the difficult surfaces of his work, regardless of whether a “solution” is ever found. That might be a hallmark of strong art, or at any rate art which struggles against its easy assimilation into the culture. It’s a kind of resistance to the mainstream, something you don’t find in the work of many artists today, a lot of whom can’t wait to be absorbed into it, and look forward to being welcomed everywhere as “celebrities” (with the attendant financial gains as a bonus). Getting back to the “substitution” theme, it’s possible that computer technology is – according to Cooke – implicated in this process of confusion, since we have here ample evidence of the way that computers can distort meaning to the point of unintelligibility – very often without us even noticing it happening. If that’s half-right, it’s another line of thought I can go along with. As a second P.S., it might be worth comparing this record with the work of Professor John Harvey, especially The Bible In Translation. From 24th January 2019.” The Sound Projector www.thesoundprojector.com/2019/08/11/corrupt-communication “In his late teens and early 20s, Seth Cooke was the willing subject of students in his father’s evangelical School of Prophecy. In their ministry sessions, these religious delegates from around the world recorded themselves talking about Cooke—as he puts it, “essentially a room full of people who barely know me telling me what God thinks of me.” Twenty years later, Cooke took some of those tapes and ran them through an AI program, using the results to craft a compelling audio work that mixes real human voices, computerized speech, and abstract sound art. Weigh the Word resembles an impressionistic juggling of personal and religious history, with voices and noises blending into a mesmerizing, conflictory stream of subconsciousness. For me, each listen has revealed new words and moods while burying others, which sometimes re-emerge when I return. Cook traverses time to reflect the complexity of an experience that clearly still resonates with him.” Marc Masters Bandcamp Best Experimental Music of February 2019 daily.bandcamp.com/best-experimental/best-experimental-music-bandcamp-february-2019 "On Weigh the Word, Seth Cooke dives into the depths of a uniquely personal story, revisiting his teen years when he was the willing subject of prophesying evangelical students invited to lecture on, according to him, “what God thinks of me.” Cook runs recordings of those sessions through an AI program, forging a collage of real human voices, computerized speech, and abstract sound art. The result is oddly compelling: when the voices are legible, you can glean some sense of Cooke’s lived experience, and when the sounds become blurred, you feel the complex emotions that resonate in Cooke’s own history." Marc Masters Bandcamp Best Experimental Music of 2019 daily.bandcamp.com/best-of-2019/the-best-experimental-albums-of-2019 “Seth Cooke’s father is a bit of a celebrity in the Charismatic Christian world. Those who follow the leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation are likely to stumble upon one of his books or teachings if wanting to learn about prophesying in the contemporary age. Most notably, he has a famous School of Prophecy that draws in people from around the world. Many years ago, Seth allowed graduates from this school to speak words over his life that were said to be communicated from God. It’s been two decades since then, and Seth has held onto cassettes containing audio from these private moments. Excerpts from these intimate sessions are included in the 26-minute Weigh the World. In addition to these audio clips are IBM AI text-to-speech readings of said prophecies and intermittent bouts of monochrome, speckled noise. With this oblique presentation of the material is a disruption of its sacrosanct nature. For many Charismatic Evangelical Christians, prophecies (and signs and wonders) are the primary foundation for their faith. While followers are asked to “weigh the word” against biblical text, there are an unsurprisingly large number of leaders (be it pastors or regular church members who are attuned to their “spiritual gifts”) who are casually elevated in status due to their superior spirituality. In hearing Weigh the Word, I’m reminded of how the Bible’s authors often edited the holy text to ensure a propagation of their specific beliefs. For example, details from oral traditions about Moses’s birth were withheld from the Pentateuch in order to prevent any sort of mythologizing of the Israelite leader. His death was something that authors wanted to include for similar reasons. Cooke provides a similar service: this album prevents people (Christians included, maybe) from seeing these prophecies as something that’s imparted from the divine. In the A side’s second half, Cooke makes sure that a woman’s words are constantly cut off, every plosive an opportunity to end her speech. Despite all this, Weigh the Word doesn’t primarily read as a polemic. While Cooke is no longer religious, he understands that there’s a certain curiosity to these bizarre practices. After a series of disorienting, white noise drones on the B side, we hear an uninterrupted stretch of audio where a South American woman speaks. While bits of it are odd, there are generic word of encouragement sprinkled throughout (“You are one of a kind”). It makes for a fascinating listen that ranges from ominous to interesting to calming. It’s undeniably unique, and Cooke invites people to understand its complexities. In this way, it’s more robust and participatory than watching something like Holy Ghost People. And in a sense, Cooke has become like his father: he channels his thoughts and experiences about spiritual matters to those who are willing to listen.” Tone Glow – First Quarter Report 2019: Experimental Music www.toneglow.net/features/q1-2019-experimental-music