A Body Like a Home by Alejandra Cardenas

For fans of Tim Hecker, Talk Talk, Old Saw, spoken word post rock, and the mundane horror of Adam Curtis documentaries, A Body Like a Home by Alejandra Cardenas uses an experimental ambient musical approach to reveal a life permanently altered by the inhumanity of authoritarianism. Field recordings place this album firmly within the context of the artist’s childhood in Peru, a country which has long struggled under successive governments which thrive on corruption, ethnic division, and militaristic violence. Within this broader historical context, however, Cardenas also tells more intimate stories of interpersonal abuse, the two themes weaving together and congealing at the hand of an intensely psychedelic and absurd use of diverse instrumentation. The convergence of the personal and the political point to a trauma cycle which regresses upon itself, as conceptions of the other as expendable ruin both the fabric of society and the individual families within. Though walls may fall, governments may topple, and people may flee, the scars of dehumanisation linger for generations, proving the unspeakable damage of even several years of immoral rule.