Chasing Horses by Marcy Angeles
The latest installment in our ongoing cassette series is Chasing Horses, Marcy Angeles' inaugural release on Voluminous Arts. It is an offering that developed on divine timing after her town experienced a flood. The water that rushed through her town during this natural disaster carved out new paths and possibilities. Marcy interpreted the flood waters flowing east toward New York City as a sign to make the work that would become Chasing Horses.
The title track originates from a family story about an ancestor who was a womanizer. He was lured by a woman who pulled back her veil to reveal a horse’s face. The horse served as a warning to stop his chauvinistic behavior and the encounter taught him that he could no longer treat women as objects. Sometimes we acquire wisdom through experience. The supernatural is beautiful and divine. The ethereal whisper that runs along the listener’s ears reminds us that trauma can travel through generations, but we can heal.
“If I Was A Dancer” explores the double-edged sword of visibility. Sex work can be empowering, but it is often one of the only employment options for trans people, especially when compounded by other forms of marginalization. Marcy is not a sex worker but has imagined a different reality in which sex work could have solved many of her financial struggles as a disabled trans woman. “Rroisin” cautions anyone trying to do harm against a person that is so fiercely protected by ancestors. It is not a threat, but a reminder that kindness should always be our default. We never know how loved and protected someone is by mighty forces beyond this realm. “Trauma Porn” challenges the mainstream “acceptable” narrative of trans lives as ones of suffering - there is much joy in trans experience. The opening track of the album “A Cyborg’s Wet Dream” uplifts this trans joy, it is a celebration and an exploration.
When Marcy speaks of “the ancestors”, she refers not only to those she is related to by blood but also to electronic music's queer and trans lineage. Queer and trans people have been at the center of electronic music since its advent and continue to be vital in its creative pulsations. Chasing Horses is not just an offering extended in healing to those still alive, but to all the voices, heard and unheard, that have made electronic music possible.
Tracklist
Credits
Written, produced and recorded by Marcy Angeles in Southern New Mexico, 2021, in her home land of Apacheria, the home of all Apache.
License
All rights reserved.
Marcy Angeles is a TwoSpirit Nednhi Apache & Guamares author, painter, journalist and musician from Southern New Mexico. Releasing music under the names Marcy Angeles, Llaace, The Hand, Coral Lamb, T,VOD, The Hand, Blue Mountain Mescal, & more. A range of sounds from noise rock to experimental electronic.