The Afterlife and Outer Space in Sonny Smith’s Antenna to the Afterworld.
Whether he is making dog heads out of clay or publishing personal vignettes on his website, musician and artist Sonny Smith’s eccentric creativity is unlike any other. Although Smith has worked as a solo artist, he is most famous for his collaborative work with his band “Sonny & The Sunsets” (which is just as idiosyncratic as Smith himself). Initially composed of Smith and a rotating group of other San Francisco musicians, “Sonny & The Sunsets” first formed in 2007. The group’s members varied until 2011, when a core lineup of Smith on vocals and guitar, Kelley Stoltz on drums, Tahlia Harbour on guitar and vocals, and Ryan Browne on bass solidified.
The band’s record Antenna to the Afterworld was released in 2013, drawing inspiration from two distinct events: the murder of Esme Barrera, the group’s Austin-based patron, and Smith’s psychic contact with a dead friend. Smith’s use of outer space to represent an ‘afterworld’ that is both outlandish and beautiful allows the musician to come to terms with death and the afterlife.
Antenna to the Afterworld is one of my favorite records. Bits of cosmic synthesizer and celestial audio samples peppered throughout the record ground it in its extraterrestrial themes, and you have no choice but to picture the space Smith sings about while listening: the stars, the planets, the endless darkness, and most of all, the alien people the musician counters. The use of these timbres is explored beautifully in the the last thirty seconds of “green blood,” the final track on the record, where Smith uses an almost eerie-sounding blend of reversed guitars and synths, messed up tape effects, and pitch-shifted, echoey vocals to create the feeling that listeners are truly being spoken to by something beyond comprehension - a message that could come from both the far reaches of interstellar space or the afterworld of the record’s namesake.
Throughout the record, Smith maintains an immersive narrative about outer space. In the opener, “dark corners,” he sings: “I have found the planet of ghosts where the day is night and the night is long / I tried to get a job but they said I don't belong.” This “planet of ghosts” serves as the setting for the entire record, and the otherworldly beings he encounters make up the events of the song, as we deal with Smith initially struggling to find his place among these alien people.
As the second track, titled “mutilator,” picks up, we’re introduced to Smith’s extraterrestrial love interest: a “mutilator” alien woman. She “drags herself to class and all that, swallows swords and all that,” writes Smith. “Mutilator, you send shivers down my spine.” With the track’s echoing background vocals and upbeat melody, it becomes clear to listeners that this woman, despite her alien nature, is a positive force in Smith’s life. The musician begins to find a place for himself in this strange and alien land through his relationship with “Mutilator.”
Smith’s relationship with this being only grows more complicated as the record progresses. His infatuation with this powerful and unfamiliar woman — in the eighth track, “I want you so, I don't know why. It's so primitive” — rapidly turns into a more meaningful connection by the ninth track: “Don't you know I love you, love you.” To listeners, it seems as though Smith is no longer feeling out of place or adrift. Rather, he is building a home for himself on the “planet of ghosts” with his love, the Mutilator. There is a catch, though. This alien woman has a violent ex-husband, which complicates her relationship with Smith. He sings and as a woman’s voice, seemingly the alien Mutilator, responds:
“Mutilator
Yes?
I see you walkin' with another guy
So?
and I wonder I wonder I wonder why.”
Smith and this galactic woman eventually split, in a dramatic and climactic ending to their relationship. In the final track on the record, Smith explains that he “tried to steal her away,” but while the couple was on the run, Mutilator’s “cyborg husband followed with his gun. He shot her, he shot her, she bled green blood.” Here, the woman’s voice cuts in again - "What happened?" To which Smith responds, “She lived... And I really tried, you know… We tried to make a life / But we were so different, such different types / We had to break it off, but I'm still messed up.” And so, after nine tracks of exploration and love, all it takes is just a few lines of verse to sever the connection between Smith and his lover. Here, their cosmic relationship ends.
On the fourth track, “path of orbit”, Smith directly references the psychic experience that he cites as an influence for the record: “I had a visit from a dead friend, she told me not to wallow in this loneliness.” Smith uses Antenna to the Afterworld to process this death. His encounter with his friend’s spirit inspired him to seek genuine connection, something he writes about experiencing with Mutilator.
The story of Smith and Mutilator’s relationship throughout the record reveals the truth about how the musician has learned to conceptualize death and the afterlife. Death and outer space share much in common as great and mysterious forces, and Antenna to the Afterworld ties together the “planet of ghosts” where Smith finds himself and the afterlife of his friend that the musician cannot completely grasp. In the same way that Smith feels out of place on the “planet of ghosts” during his visit, he doesn’t yet belong in this afterlife. His relationship with Mutilator gives him reason to stay for a while, though, just like his friendship allowed him to have an experience with the afterworld. If the afterlife consists of a cosmic journey through the stars and a complicated but loving relationship with an alien woman, is death so scary after all?
Antenna to the Afterworld is such a powerful piece of art because it explores death in a subversive and unconventional way. The final track on the record ends on an unfinished note, with Smith searching the universe for Mutilator to no avail. “My antennas went deep into the afterworld, and I looked for her,” he says, as the background track devolves into layers of echoing synths before the record abruptly ends. As a listener, you’re left with unanswered questions and a surprisingly acute feeling of loss for the unfinished love story between Smith and Mutilator. Simultaneously, though, comes a feeling of satisfaction stemming from the journey that Smith himself has taken, and what you and him have perhaps learned together through the album’s progression. When his relationship with Mutilator crumbles, Smith is left searching for her fruitlessly in the void of outer space, mirroring how the artist presumably felt after losing two people close to him to an afterlife where he could not follow. But Smith seeks anyway, and on this journey he finds love, joy, unique beauty, and newfound connections with those who he thought long gone.
Edited by Tatiana Jackson-Saitz, editor of Reviews
Cover art by Trent Davis