“There is no antidote against the opium of time.” So begins Maria W Horn’s Melting Pillars of Snow, before the winter shine reveals “how soon the light fades” and, at 58 seconds, “how soon the light folds and how time itself grows old.” The words sound less like lyrics than fragments from a strange winter fable, setting the tone for a video where the familiar passage of time becomes distinctly uncanny.
Directed by Portuguese video artist Pedro Maia, the film moves at a restless speed, images appearing and transforming before they have time to settle. It feels less like a conventional music video than a moving painting, the kind of work that, together with the music, could easily exist on a screen in a contemporary museum, demanding attention without ever fully explaining itself. Maia’s images and Horn’s soundscape are abstract and faintly horror-like, creating a world where beauty never feels entirely safe.
Horn’s language hits with unease. Time is not described as something simply passing, but as something with a physical presence: light can fold, winter can reveal, and time itself can grow old. The effect is both poetic and unsettling, turning an abstract idea into something almost tangible. It suits Horn’s music. The Swedish composer and performer moves between contemporary composition, experimental electronics and darker underground territories, with black metal and punk among her influences. On Melting Pillars of Snow, her forthcoming album, contrabass recorder, shō, percussion, electric guitar, voice and electronics converge into long-form structures of drones, feedback and otherworldly textures. Michael Gira of Swans also appears on the record.
The film-turned-music-video does not simply translate these sounds into images. It finds their equivalent in movement: something constantly shifting, breaking apart and reforming. The speed of the film makes time feel almost physical, while its painterly quality holds onto a strange beauty amid the unease. Melting Pillars of Snow is concerned with disappearance, light fading, seasons changing, permanence becoming temporary. The artists give that impermanence a visual and sonic language of its own. Time does not move neatly from one moment to the next here. It flickers, fractures, and dissolves before we can hold on to it.
The Maria W Horn and Pedro Maia audiovisual collaboration premieres at the upcoming XKatedral / Katalog evening at Slaktkyrkan in Stockholm on October 2nd.
