{"id":12722,"date":"2024-08-13T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/?p=12722"},"modified":"2026-05-07T19:31:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:31:07","slug":"ep-review-hazel-fog-hazel-fog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2024\/08\/13\/ep-review-hazel-fog-hazel-fog\/","title":{"rendered":"EP Review :: Hazel Fog :: Hazel Fog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"backlite<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

by maggie astrid clark<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from my partner and a handful of friends with impeccable taste, one of my go-to sources for locating new music is Cam Scott\u2019s UMFM program \u201cRadio State.\u201d In March, this was how I first encountered the ambient drone stylings of Hazel Fog. After some digging\u2014which is what I like to call \u201cdoing a cursory Google search\u201d\u2014I found that they\u2019d released a self-titled two-song EP on Bandcamp on February 6, 2024, uploaded to the page of local label Makade Star. I\u2019m always on the lookout for things obscure, mysterious, dissonant, and unsettling, so I was hooked immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

(I pause here to recognize that UMFM, of course, is a competitor station to the one that publishes this magazine, so I must apologize for my impudence and disloyalty. Rest assured that I turn the dial right back to CKUW for the remainder of my campus radio needs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The qualities that make experimental sound collage so compelling to listen to are exactly what makes the genre difficult to review. You can\u2019t do a lyrical analysis, for there are no lyrics to analyze. You can try to describe the sounds themselves\u2014but even then, it\u2019s often tricky to pin down what those sounds are<\/em> or how to convey that information in an evocative way. You\u2019re now left having to discuss the general \u201cvibe\u201d of the record, but this is highly subjective and not necessarily transferable from person to person. This is where the artist\u2019s self-description can come in handy: per an Instagram post advertising their March 9, 2024, show at the Handsome Daughter, Hazel Fog\u2019s compositions contain \u201c[a]nalog warbling drone, chimes and wild nightlife eventually escaping the fuzz. Distant yet tranquil psych-drenched guitar passages. A soundtrack for all seasons change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That last line is interesting. Nothing in the sonic experience of Hazel Fog<\/em> made me contemplate the changing of the seasons\u2014not on my first, second, or third listens. But upon revisiting it after reading the above passage, I realized that the signs were there: the warped chimes and reverbed cricket chirps permeating the opening track \u201cLand Line\u201d could indeed have been meant to conjure the image of an early fall or late summer evening. In my mind\u2019s eye, I can see the waning daylight and rolling black clouds; in my mind\u2019s flesh (?), I feel ominous, forceful gusts of wind sweeping across the plains. Perhaps I am standing on a porch, darkly intoning \u201cstorm\u2019s a-comin\u2019\u201d to an audience of no one, or perhaps I am being swarmed by locusts in a wheat field as in the climactic sequence of Days of Heaven<\/em>. Regardless, I am left with an inescapable feeling of impermanence. Nothing\u2014good, neutral, or bad\u2014will last. We are all future corpses and future dust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s possible to have a different reading, of course, and I would know. The first few times I listened, after all, my thought process was closer to \u201cwow, what a neat aggregation of sounds! I am intrigued by this art without a knowable theme!\u201d because I hadn\u2019t yet seen the above Instagram blurb. If, on the other hand, you picked up the \u201call seasons change\u201d thread faster than I did, our interpretations of the same tunes and imagery will still diverge: you wouldn\u2019t frame autumn winds as \u201cominous\u201d if you\u2019re someone who enjoys the winter, for instance, and you wouldn\u2019t be so prompt to turn every composition into a meditation on the inevitability of death if you have a more cheerful affect. What do the lilting guitar riffs of \u201cChime I \u2013 The Ground in the Air \u2013 Matrix \u2013 Chime II\u201d mean? I don\u2019t know. What does a riverbed or a horse or a grilled cheese sandwich \u201cmean\u201d? What is any of this for<\/em>? Your guess is as good as mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But perhaps you\u2019re not satisfied with this capitulation to the instability of symbols. \u201cYou\u2019re the music critic, maggie; you tell me<\/em> what to think about this!\u201d But, dear reader, the imagined version of you that I\u2019ve invented for my deranged rhetorical purposes has just committed a critical error: I\u2019ve already<\/em> told you what to think. The very act of describing this EP to you has already prejudiced any forthcoming experience of it. My words, filtered through your brain, have now produced an expectation to which Hazel Fog<\/em> and, in turn, my review thereof will live up to, fall short of, or exceed. Your reality will differ from mine; though there may be mutual influence at play, the two are ultimately irreconcilable. When it comes to sound art, I\u2014to quote Roland Barthes\u2014\u201clive in the interstice, delivered from any fulfilled meaning.\u201d I was born in the interstice, and I will reside here forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by maggie astrid clark Aside from my partner and a handful of friends with impeccable taste, one of my go-to sources for locating new music is Cam Scott\u2019s UMFM program \u201cRadio State.\u201d In March, this was how I first encountered the ambient drone stylings of Hazel Fog. After some digging\u2014which is what I like to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1420,171,1484,1653,563,1104],"class_list":["post-12722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-album-review","tag-cassette","tag-ep-review","tag-hazel-fog","tag-local","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12724,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12722\/revisions\/12724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}