GutterPutter

Content Warning: Contains a transphobic slur in one of the songs’ titles.

It is better to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. That is a famous quote attributed to Mark Fisher in his most well-known work Capitalist Realism although he claimed that it was originally from other left-leaning thinkers in spirit. The seemingly self-enforcing loop of our acceptance to the system that is looking to grind us to the bones is nothing but nihilistically realistic. Trans rights are plummeting in the United States and in the United Kingdom, right-wing authoritarians are winning elections around much of Europe be it in suspicious circumstances or genuine support, and many economies are skyrocketing in an inversal to the quality of living to most people.

In 2024, one of the disillusioned victims who is afflicted with the plague of contemporary politics happens to be Monty Cime – a Texas-born trans singer-multi-instrumentalist of Latin American ancestry. She had previously made one album in The Independence of Central America Remains an Unfinished Experiment back in 2021 with virtually no fanfare. While a lot of her works are influenced firstly by avant-prog music, she is strongly tied to the political undertones of nueva canción latinoamericana with its leftward framing. 

A bout of homelessness and discrimination as a trans woman left her under the care of her bandmate Sean Hoss with whom she recorded her sophomore record – The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble. It was released on the 2nd of August with initially little fanfare before word-of-mouth got its reputation built up at a slow pace. Under her project of Cime, she built it up from being almost her stage name from her debut to a more full-fledged band with several members, both seemingly set on permanent additions and session musicians to fill in the gaps. 

The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble is a work of ambitious avant-prog scale. While it only contains six tracks, the total runtime is around 56 minutes long with one of its tracks lasting for a whopping 25 minutes. The length not only highlights its daunting stature, but the very music is itself dystopian. By 2024, almost every aspiring Gen-Z artist who aims for underground prestige would have nicked a style or two from the Windmill names like Black Midi and Cime is no exception. What stands out however is the band’s sheer homage to the spontaneity of their key genre influences – jazz, post-punk, and tropicália. The way that it is played under avant-rock is one that stretches its sanity to the brink; its identity often being grown through strained vocals, chaotic improvisation, and long linear song structures. A great taster for that would be ‘DIYUSA’ with its largely Spanish lyrics, damning remarks on systemic problems in America, overt Latin-inspired rhythm and instrumentation, and a sense of breakdown in the end.

Beginning with a vulgar name in ‘A Tranny’s Appeal to Heaven’ [sic], the rhythmic bassline and dangling upright piano builds on the major themes that will be explored – hopelessness, transphobia, religion, and the right to exist at all. The way that the song develops after the guileless comment on whether to apply makeup before dying sums the entire frantic experience with its flute solo, the abrasive trombone, the repetitive guitar note, and the dissonant cacophony as the tempo picks up to the max. With ‘Lempira (Or, The Lencan Crusade)’, the vocal delivery is more reminiscent of Slint’s monotonic mode of speech albeit with a more layered array of instrumentation before it collapses under the irrationality of nationalism. 

The 26-minute epic, ‘The North’, is best thought of as being made of three arcs given its absurd length. There is no doubt that Cime intends this to be the definite cornerstone of the album with its multi-layered structure and a clearer verse-based narrative. The first arc is more comparable to the daunting no wave of DNA or early Swans with its dissonances and atonality which lasts for nine minutes before we clock into the second arc. From there, the song structure begins to become more conventional with a monologue surrounding abandonment, disillusionment with pursuing your dreams, and eventual lashing out at the worldwide problem. As the whole music swells up with its synths and the instrumental gradually becoming more improvised by the minute, the socialist undertone gets swept away with venting about the unfair luck that brought Monty’s downfall since her birth. When the final arc commences, there is calm after the storm with the cricketing and the intertwined Spanish guitar playing. The future is tranquil but what is left is uncertain.

All this stands in contrast to ‘The Ballad of Tim Ballard’ which satirises the immediate valorisation of anti-child trafficking organisations even as news got out that their executives happen to commit acts similar to that like sexual assault. With mock-triumphant trumpets, a more melodic singing, bouncy bassline, and a sharp wit against right-wing double standards, it might be a matter of time before underground radio stations play it whether a government scandal happens in the upcoming Trump presidency. On one hand, it has a surprising sense of humour given the otherwise sordid subject matters in the album (“make sure Timmy looks in the shot”) which adds a Zappa-esque slant to the whole ordeal. On the other hand, a track which tackles corporate narcissism doesn’t have to sound this good! The way that the abrupt tempo switches happen and the growing snarkiness of the lyrics make the whole ordeal cartoonish in its serious subject matter. It beckons the revolution’s distaste of the establishment in a way that is contrapuntally catchy all the while defying what one would consider “commercial”.

The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble is among one of the most exciting releases of this year; an achievement for the amateur while the likes of Geordie Greep are hunting for some critical respect. The dramatic length for their songs, especially with ‘The North’, risks overstaying its welcome to the point of being an exhausting experience. I would frankly consider that track in particular as my least favourite as while it does deliver in the middle section, it feels like an attempt to show off technical prowess in structuring your instrumentals when the overly long runtime would have been cut down by ten minutes. It’s not at all like Sufjan Stevens’ ‘Impossible Soul’ where its inclusion of more sections and greater diversity makes it an odyssey to listen to in one sitting. 

However, when its length is just right as is the case with ‘A Tranny’s Appeal to Heaven’ and ‘The Ballad of Tim Ballard’, there is genuine life within the album. Given the room for breather, it is exhilarating in its performance and its open left-wing political framework makes for a treasure one would keep if they ever sit down to read Das Kapital. Fans of Black Midi might not entirely appreciate the Icarian reach that leaves The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble short on gas, but its potential is one that should not be trifled with. And so, with the departing grace of ‘Goodnight from La Ceiba’, the unshackling of chains remains to be seen in the foreseeable future.

4.2/5