In psychology, you’re taught to separate the individual from the illness. Because mental illness is such an all-encompassing malady, it’s important to reiterate that it’s not a personality trait. Think of it like a cold, or a broken leg. Leg’ heal and cold’ get better. Why shouldn’ depression be thought of in the same way?
So it’s interesting that someone like Brian Poloncic is celebrated as a musician suffering from schizophrenia, as though it’s not only an irrevocable instrument but a badge of honour. So if I didn’ know that Poloncic had been in mental institutions in three states in America throughout the Nineties, would I judge his music differently? That’s the inherent conundrum with outsider art: personal biases will always inform our opinion of everything in the world, so does the fact that we know something was created by an individual suffering from a mental illness, do we critique it with a different set of rules? Should I review The Moon Is Green differently to, say, albums by Kimya Dawson or Devendra Banhart?
The back-story to Poloncic makes for a far more interesting listening experience when you’re worming your way through The Moon Is Green, an EP of songs written by Poloncic released under the moniker A Tomato A Day, a group which includes David Downing on cello, Allen Hug on synthesiser and Dave Nordin on drums. Brooding and troubled, the songs are built around Poloncic’ impressive 12-string guitar playing. The ramshackle lo-fi recording does nothing to aid in the presentation of the numbers, though. Drums play out of time with the guitar, the songs speed up and down and generally nobody really seems to know what they’re doing. Poloncic’ gravel-scratched voice is limited and buried beneath Downing’ swooping cello and Hug’ occasional bursts of incongruous synths. “Silver Fox’ becomes a muddied shell of a song by its end, as does garage rocker “In A Book’.
Perhaps with a guiding hand, The Moon Is Green could have turned out much better. There’ promise in songs like “Moonshine’ and “Winter Wind’, which houses a strong pop aesthetic. But it’s the fact that you know Poloncic suffers from a mental illness that imbues The Moon Is Green with a certain voyeuristic feeling – you find yourself listening out for the lyrics that communicate his schizophrenia, and sometimes you think you can hear the personal demons haunting the music. Put that aside, and The Moon Is Green becomes an aborted anti-folk EP with more potential than achievement.
Dom Alessio
