The Birth, Death, Release and Rebirth of the Torley Threnody Melody

by Alphaville Herald on 17/03/05 at 11:16 pm

By Neal Stewart

Torley Torgeson Jnr, daughter of Torley Torgeson Snr, alt of Torley Wong, recently announced the release of 2.7GB and 16 hours of 230 complete, high-quality MP3 tracks – entirely conceived, galumphed and outgrabed by the uffish Torster. They are released openly and freely into the Creative Commons and the LSD-inspired bat-country of Second Life.

I cannot remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen or heard so much talent crammed into one single 140kb blog page.

It is truly an ‘Epilogue to a Lifetime of Music’ but it is also the Forward to a Second Lifetime of… well, more life!

This compendium of Torleydom – literally years in the making – sounds like a fantasy collaboration between Aphex Twin, the Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha, the soundtrack-composers to Final Fantasy, Bladerunner, Alex Kidd, The Legend of Zelda, and the countless cartoon mornings of childhood-gone.

The archive is introduced with a revealing and personal written-salute to Torley’s old life and a frabjous bear-hug to the new. Torley touches on the subjects of hyperacusis, catharsis, letting go, and the rebirths of personal identity. And that’s just the words. The collection itself includes everything from “fragile ambient soundscapes”, “4-to-the-floor peaktime pounders” and “arpeggiated trance anthems” to “straightfoward rockers” – “love songs, songs about babies being born, songs dedicated to my dead Dad, songs about nothing in particular…”

Torley writes: “Learning to let go is a difficult thing, and actually letting go can be even harder. There is only so much tension that can build up in someone before an unhealthy type of self-destruction, that lethal kind of implosion from within that crushes the spirit and breaks a person, happens: I prefer it not to come to that and have opted for an overwhelming catharsis instead. I want to release a great deal of what has been built up, to cleanse myself of past trauma, and to be able to walk on into the future with brighter, more open eyes — and a smile reflecting the happiness inside.”

In Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’, Vladimir tells us that “Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps”.

This is an abstract truism for us all but for Torley it is a virtual cliché.

Because Torley is the Yorrick-alassing, grave-digger midwife, lingering in her own grave with a shovel and a pair of forceps, to deliver her infant self kicking and screaming from the corpse she has just buried.

Then lightning crashes again.

Torley tells me, “Life works in mysterious ways … Without my hearing loss I wouldn’t be in SL. So even though I’m angry and frustrated about it — one thing has led to another … It’s a strange sort of thing this Second Life, it originally was more escapist to me. But now it’s really become my life.”

Now it has really become our life too. No amount of prim-sitting will keep you safe. The haunting ‘Lude’ series of tracks knocked me clean out of my chair. And there are other absolute stunners scattered throughout.

But I’m not even past the ‘A’ section, so what do I know?

Torley has traded his ears for ours. And we are in third-world-nation debt.

After hearing these, you will never see, read, taste or smell the Torleys quite the same way again. I lay a thousand flaming watermelons at their altar and pray that my burnt offering has a pleasing aroma.

Because a god walks among us.

In pink and green shoes.

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