Four years later, Beasley continues to explore the installation’s collaborative possibilities. His debut album, a double LP also titled A View of a Landscape, brings together artists from his initial Whitney performances, as well as a sprawling network of poets, musicians, and performers that includes L’Rain, Laurel Halo, Kelsey Lu, Moor Mother, and Jason Moran. “I wanted all the artists to consider the questions surrounding the sound of the motor, its history, and how one could generate a sonic experience with it,” he wrote in a statement. Paired with a 300-page monograph containing essays, photos, and other documentation, the multimedia project is both a retrospective look at Beasley’s career to date and a conscious effort to reframe his practice in terms of the community it’s fostered.
The album opens softly with a ringing metallic drone, followed by the voice of Fred Moten. The poet, critic, and theorist has devoted decades to writing about the lingering traumas of history, and here, Moten returns to a piece that also appeared on his 2022 jazz album with bassist Brandon López and drummer Gerald Cleaver, placing the existing poem in dialogue with Beasley’s work. “All that blood is the engine,” he says. “Is that gin a computer?” By bringing Moten/López/Cleaver’s closing track to the front of his own album, Beasley suggests a continuity between the two projects that runs deeper than thematic overlap. About two minutes in, a barren kick drum enters at the pace of a slow heartbeat as the noisy mechanical drone intensifies and rattling loops of industrial percussion fall in and out of sync. The piece sets the stage for a series of collaborations that situate Beasley’s source material in new environments, wading further into the harrowing soundscapes that define his artistic practice with rigor and grace.
Much of the album is subdued and instrumental, with soothing ambient patches punctuated by moments of focused tension. On “Resin,” the composer and producer Laurel Halo considers the textural qualities of simple synth and organ tones, uncoupling each element from the originating instrument to build an organic assemblage reminiscent of her 2018 album Raw Silk Uncut Wood. Pieces from L’Rain and Kelsey Lu layer looped keyboards over rumbling noise likely taken from Beasley’s installation, bending and pitch-shifting the audio like any other sound on the album. Toward the end of Lu’s “Lines,” thumping kicks and synth chirps are overtaken by a knotted string arrangement that leads into “Face the Rock,” the sole contribution from composer and jazz pianist Jason Moran. High-pitched noise peeks out from behind a wall of carefully arranged piano lines that take cues from Minimalism, impressionistic film composition, and free jazz. It’s a standout moment in which the churning mechanical rhythm present across the album feels not only atmospheric, but as essential as any other element.