Words by David C. Obenour
Before the extinction of humanity there will exist a final human. However the end comes – through environmental catastrophe, mass detonations, or a drawn-out collapse of any of our many needed supports for existence – someone will be there to bear final witness. The flickering last light of human cognition for the world we left behind.
The prequel to his post-apocalyptic God Docks at Death Harbor, Pakistani-American composer Qasim Naqvi offers us this instrumental soundtrack on Endling. A world marred by an inextinguishable fire from a superbomb, a floating glacier of plastic, the fading memories of artificial intelligence, the seas rising into the clouds, the eventual end of everything, understanding that and understanding who you are in the midst of it all.
Off Shelf: Envisioned as a prequel, can you tell us a little about the world you created for God Docks at Death Harbor?
Qasim Naqvi: The world of God Docks originated from a dream that my wife had. It was more a dream of words where a phrase appeared in her mind, “God Docks at Death Harbor.” At the time I was starting to think about a new work for the BBC Concert Orchestra, and as soon as she uttered this phrase to me, it immediately took hold of the music. I began to imagine our planet many years into the future, where the human race no longer exists. With a world peacefully resorting itself in the absence of us. I’m not sure exactly where this idea came from – perhaps from all the years of watching science fiction movies. But this narrative became the music, almost like a tone poem. And the tone of the work ended up feeling joyous for me, because it was about our world getting a second chance.
OS: What made you want to revisit this work with Endling? What still felt compelling to continue exploring it?
QN: Writing orchestral music is a pretty challenging process for me, and my approach to form and structure is largely my own—idiosyncratic, involving a lot of trial and error and experimentation. So the outcome is always a bit of a surprise. But when I heard this piece, for the first time it felt very close to how I had envisioned it in my mind. It felt like a step forward for me. When I got a copy of the recording, I sat and listened to it over several months and when it came time to think about a record, I felt compelled to continue the story of God Docks—to see how far I could develop it, how far I could expand the musical language, which I was proud of. I started thinking about making a concept album of sorts and it led to this idea of a prequel to the story of God Docks, about the last human being on the planet. The tracks would be like chapters, as a journey through a world of faded human ingenuity that was now being overtaken and reclaimed by nature.
OS: Do you intend it as a warning? A call for humanity’s course correcting? Or is this more just of an exploration of a scenario?
QN: It’s all of these things. But I always want the listener to have their own response to the music. I don’t want to be heavy handed with my message. Personally, making this record was a way to redirect a lot of sadness, anger and hopelessness that I was experiencing from the world. I’m sure a lot of people can relate to this moment and this pervasive feeling. Rather than going onto social media and yelling at people for their religious and ideological differences, it felt more meaningful for me to channel all of that into this world that I was building. The atrocities in Palestine — witnessing the unimaginable and indiscriminate massacring of people on a mass scale every day — losing friendships over differences of opinion regarding this war, the chasm-like ideological divide among people in this country, and trying to raise a daughter within all of that… it felt, and continues to feel, really bad — worse than I could have imagined when I finished the music in the fall of 2024. So making this album was a way for me to deal, a way to achieve some catharsis. And my hope is that others might have a similar reaction. That they can maybe for a moment offload their feelings in a meaningful way, no matter what side they’re on.
OS: Can you talk about collaborating with Moor Mother? Did you share your full vision for Endling? Did she bring something to that which further evolved the setting and space?
QN: I gave Camae a streamlined vision of the album mythology. I didn’t give her the whole album and I didn’t want to bog her down with too much backstory. But I did spend a little more time explaining this track narrative – where our character comes across a dying A.I. being. As its heart is powering down forever, it recounts the beauty and horror it has witnessed over centuries. I asked Camae to be the voice of this A.I. and she came back with a very beautiful and sad oration. Her words elevated everything. Sadly, a lot of what she’s saying is happening now. To this day when I listen to the track, I imagine our characters sitting in some cave that was once a parking garage – one comforting the other as it’s reaching the end.
OS: For as much as it is a statement on the way we treat and then leave our planet, Fires and Plastic Glacier are both very beautiful songs. Do you think there’s anything there that in creation, even when ugly or destructive, a beauty can be found?
QN: For me I gravitate towards art that is emotionally dynamic. Things that aren’t just light, fun and easily absorbable, but also expression that appreciates the strange, the dark and the sad. I value art that takes some of that murky sludge and mixes it with the light, to create a kind of work with some emotional depth, just as we have the capacity for emotional depth. I think a lot of art today is suspicious of that murkiness and it’s misconstrued as being too dissonant, or cold or just not fun. But it’s something that’s inside all of us, and worthy of being elevated through art.
OS: How do you think creating music so conceptually affects how it’s made?
QN: Making a concept record of sorts—with a character and this kind of narrative arc—allowed for something that’s best appreciated as a complete experience, from beginning to end. Much like watching a film in a theater – which I love doing – when all the elements are dialed in, you can have this immersive and transportive experience where you’re not really thinking about anything else other than the world of the film. My goal with this album was to try to elicit that same mindset—to invite the listener to hear the whole record and go on a journey. I realize it’s a challenge to ask someone to sit uninterrupted through 43 minutes of music, but it’s worth a shot!
OS: A photo from Vincent Moon, can you talk about the cover? How did you first encounter it and what about it speaks to you?
QN: In retrospect it’s kind of a funny story, for me at least. I designed the first cover and it was the word ENDLING in this huge red brutalist font that took up the whole cover and my name was microscopically visible underneath, like an ant about to be crushed. Robert Raths of Erased Tapes was very supportive but deep down the album deserved something more and Robert shared this still from a Vincent Moon project. It was a person standing on what appeared to be a piece of wood, out in the middle of the Ganges in Kolkata. There was this feeling of isolation and really of nowhere to go. Vincent’s work is amazing and having this image created a form and an environment that was akin to the mythology of the Endling. My design made it feel like a book on the history of typography or something. [laughs]
OS: Do you think at all about how the visualization changes so drastically in the minds of the listener?
QN: That was sort of my hope with this record, to have a dynamic experience with highs and lows and the sonic equivalent of that. One of the things that i’ve always loved with experimental music is that it demands this attention from me and if it’s dialed in, all of that dynamic change opens a different door to my mind, where I feel like I’m accessing a deeper part of myself- coming face to face with everything, the good and the bad but in a more cathartic way.
OS: If there’s one visual you have that you would like to more fully share from the album, what would it be?
QN: There’s been this association that the album is dystopic, but really it’s more fantastical. It’s about a world of our creation that is slowly being absorbed and reclaimed by the natural world. One of my favorite tracks, and possibly the most challenging one, is called In the Distance. It’s kind of the climax of the record for me. In it, I was imagining our character, the ENDLING, seeing an event in the distance that is so big and beyond their imagination: the seas rising as high as the clouds, and crashing back down.