{"id":46107,"date":"2020-05-19T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T21:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hollandreno.org\/?p=46107"},"modified":"2021-07-27T14:44:20","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T21:44:20","slug":"local-music-pick-trust-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hollandreno.org\/2020\/05\/local-music-pick-trust-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Music Pick: Trust Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a new series, we\u2019ll be hearing from a different person every month, reflecting on Reno music projects, current or not so current, and what makes them special and personally important to them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Erin Miller<\/strong> reflects on Trust Fall<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“The lights went out overhead, leaving only a colorful strobe to illuminate the densely crowded living room. At the front of the crowd, quiet and yet commanding everyones attention, were Tara Tran and Jelani Best. The pair created the nostalgia core noise-pop performance art project, Trust Fall. Clad in soft white lingerie, the duo began their set and a hush fell over their captivated audience. The words to “Crazy” by Patsy Cline, tumbled out of Tara’s mouth as they softly plucked their guitar strings. In the space between them and the audience, Jelani began to dance. Only, it wasn’t quite Jelani, and it wasn’t quite Tara. It seemed as though that, as soon as their songs started, they both became possessed by the ghosts of jilted lovers from a time long before ours. Their song progressed, and with every bar Tara’s voice would rise, haggard and trembling, into a bellow of distraught anguish, giving a different kind of passion to the songs they were covering–a passion that I don’t think those songs were ever allowed to have before. Jelani, as though he were a physical vessel for these words to come alive in, fell to the floor choking. He writhed on the area-rug, hand halfway inserted into his mouth, eyes rolled back into his head. Before him laid an open suitcase with bloodied tissues and carnations inside of it. They were momento mori of what once was, reflections of a love now lost, though desperately clung onto. He leaned his head back, and he screamed. As he screamed, Tara slammed onto their guitar, looping the chaos and bringing the volume of their once soft country-pop cover to a deafening roar. It was hard not to cry, and even writing this I’m getting choked up, because I have never witnessed something quite as devastating as when I was watching Trust Fall perform. It was as though they had tapped into generations of torturous what-if’s, “crazy” women, love letters that went unanswered, longing that was never reciprocated, and gave all of those things the voice they deserved. It was more than a performance–it was a reclamation of space, an act of radical vulnerability, and an uncompromising and guttural demand to truly, finally, be seen. As the din receded, our mediums finally exorcised what had come over them and returned to their bodies, breaking the spell cast upon everyone else in the room by once again smiling their crooked grins, as if blissfully unaware of the power they had just held.”
<\/em>– Erin Miller<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n