Two old men in a tower

Two old men in a tower.mp3

The last week has been a bit strange. Odd encounters, chance meetings, an apathetic atmosphere. Twas to be expected after such a great weekend. Outdoor sorts talk of a natural high... they rarely mention the natural low.

Last Sunday i went to Maximum Arousal at the Toff in Town to see DJ Olive play an ambient set. Olive was right to suggest that his delicate tapestries of sparse, melancholic spaces, populated by rich and luscious drones may induce sleep. Some audience members lay down on the floor, to allow the gentle waves to wash over them - as we sat there in the darkness, most eyes closed, i thought a tiny flower pierced the flesh and found it blooming on the forehead. Sequences of audible light slowly spiraled outward as digital fireflies - as insectoid beings powering their flight with liquid screens upon their backs. So was the aggregate of images in this quantum of perception. Each arrangement of colour wriggling hence from the cocoon, pushing upward, fluttering upon the air, sizzling and smoluldering, becoming vapour, sinking on the screen. The set was deeply engaging, deeply relaxing - a sedative without sedating. The dreamy disassocia of a ketaminous sea - a tide letting the floor closer, now further away. At a moment somebody coughed, and i thought my foot had met the sand. My eyes flickered open and all the sky and the stars rushed in - then i was back below the water - now closer, now further away.

When it was over i looked at my friends and said that was great. We were all smiling and amazed by the beauty of an artist who understands the value of restraint. There were two other acts, but i shall not discuss them here.

Since then it has been a week of strange errors - nothing "bad" has happened... but the optimism that accompanies the first promises of Spring has passed (so soon), and now we oscillate between cold night and the heady warmth of jasmine and cherry blossoms. People go crazy at this time of year - Winter is finally over and we all put on shorts and get excited because Summer is coming. Spring promises beaches and beers, surfing and psychedelia, parties and playmates. Yet summer rarely delivers. Did we all have one really amazing summer? Do we fall under the delusion that the warmer weather shall come baring the same idyllic memories, again and again, floating over the ocean, wreathed in ecstasy, pulsing with irresistible music? Or do we somehow collapse all the moments of wonder from all our summers in to one big super amazing summer and momentarily imagine they were all like that and that there is no reason the next one won't be? How did one little moment, when we fell in love and kissed the sun and danced till we fell over and over and over, expand into a season?

Other pessimists have expressed their wariness about Spring and her promises... so perhaps this year we will be pleasantly surprised. We can only hope.

To get in the mood, i've been listening to the Boredoms a lot. They were a huge presence in my summer of 2000/2001, and have sort of always been in my head ever since. I met EYE once, at a Sonic Geometry party (nostalgic sigh). He offered to take me to Disneyland when i went to Japan the following year - "Mickey Mouse is very psychedelic."

Which may have had some influece on the recording i've posted this time around. Alex rang me while in the park - i went to his place and we set up a bunch of junk around the microphone. Listening to it now, it sounds like Statler and Waldorf (from the Muppet Show) took some acid and went on a string animated rampage - the chef desperately trying to slow the carnage by throwing utensils into the fray... of course, that only accounts for a few moments in the piece. A lot of the time it is just a sparse arrangement of weird percussion, chimes, a recorder and some voice. It was a lot of fun, as usual. I hope you enjoy it.

Regards,
Ben

Don't look back

leaving.mp3

The above recording was made this morning - i was just singing some opera stuff and got involved and thought i'd plug the zoom into the mac and see what i could do, improvising and stuff. It took me a while to figure out that once you attach the zoom to a computer it becomes an audio interface - whatever that means. But after not being able to make it work for a bit, i must have figured it out cos the little meters were thrusting forward each time i scratched the cool metal gauze.

To enrich the experiment, i played with some "garageband" loops, a field recording from Rishikesh, and also contributed live effects with some glass and a vial of Chinese herbal tablets. It runs for 13 minutes and consists of three distinct chapters. It was one of those things - i just kept doing and laying down stuff and then pushing 'record' again and in an hour i had this piece and it is the first thing like it i have ever done and so it seemed like a good idea to post it here. So one day when i'm still looking up at the night sky i will know that i climbed these stairs and hundreds of others on the way.

Keep your mind sharp and your heart open. Now... write just one true thing -

I sat down to write but not sure why. Or what. But i felt like posting something, and if one doesn't do things when they feel like they should, then i guess most other reasons don't make much sense. I am sitting about in my house in Essendon - sipping Jasmine tea and watching the shards of pink day slowly melt into the deep pastel of night. Casiotone told me that happiness is something we have to fight for and even then, it usually just happens to us - no more is it our doing than the wind and rain that worry our eyelids. And today i think i have been happy - and it is all invested in things that are yet to occur.

After the end of Landscapes Within, the last piece of theatre i performed in, i didn't ever want to perform or direct ever again. I think some of my friends were disappointed, but i would have been happy to have burnt down the black boxes in my head. Everyone starts doing their own things again - holes are dug up and the rain fills them in. Again and again. So then it was singing and computer music for a while - but after came travelling, which seemed to wither and die in memory, but has returned thick and lush. I remember sitting in the Ganesh cafe on Om Beach and gazing out at the Arabian sea. We wrote so much poetry and it was easy because we were living it - the inspiration was in the tides - drawing us out, happily drowning, again waking, again walking, our footsteps swallowed by the sand. I remember crying because i could not think of ever feeling such joy. Each night the voices of the rainforest giving chorus to the dying of the light - and we begged the sun to stay, to keep doing the sun for us, more sun, forever. Just so long as you don't mess with our nights.

I woke with sand in my hair and distortion on my tongue. It was mountains that had popped up out of the ocean and the trees had laid down for snow. We were so warm and the words dripped like honey oozing from a crumpet. Two mouths floated on the surface of my tea - a train tore a fissure, the all knowing, the sleeping rocks, the nearness of the Friend. I was still crying my, the delicious sea salt, and i hoped i'd never stop.

I got up because i needed water, and after walking around and doing a head stand and looking at the morning i played with a disc and noticed the glasses and remembered i was thirsty! I sent out a text message and got replies from nearly everyone and so in a week or so we are going to get back on the floor and workshop and play with the space and see what comes up. I haven't got a script in mind. I don't have a performance in my head. I just think i have the strength to tell a room how to move and to help the white walls crack, spew, and bleed. But maybe not... maybe i never will ever do performance ever again. But if i don't act on this impulse then i will not know if i could have, as i would not have written this if i had not just felt like i might.

If you are reading this and you haven't listened to any of the chotto matte rehearsals, then you should. They're pretty funny. I like them now that i don't hate myself so much. I know these words are a bit melodramatic - but isn't that how we feel sometimes? Perhaps the tide is not yet out, but only another wave has struck, disdain and weed sucking between my knees. But i know that another shall soon build, roll, collapse and cry upon my shore. And i should love to remember the salt beneath my nails, the footprints, sinking in the sand.

And we are imagination as the earth is sun in all its manifestations - see me sitting, writing, weeping. See me standing, upon the shore, see me waving.

Ben

alone in a bowl of water.mp3

tea and tom.mp3

some words in my head and some tea

Just above this entry are some new recordings i made in my kitchen today.

Okay so the last little while i have been slack with recordings and writing - i guess sometimes it has been a bit hard to focus. But it is finally Spring for real this time and the sun is out everyone has got that optimism that feeds on the promise of an encroaching summer. In two recent conversations i shared my conviction that the promise is more valuable than the season delivered. It is the fantasy of parties, swimming in the ocean and being able to go out with less clothes on... the idea that certain types of music will sound better because it is hot and we can feel the sun on our shoulders. Summer, in my experience, doesn't often live up to the fun filled sand sprinkled fantasy. I think maybe we all had one really great summer at one point and that when the jasmine blooms we all delve into the future with a smile on our face cos we think of that glimmering, delicious time. Maybe we pick and choose from a highlight reel of memories, piecing together a perfect summer and then imagining that they're all like that and that there is no reason why the next one shouldn't be. Winter has been a long time, and i guess the cold will do strange things to the dreamer's mind.
In anticipation of the new heat, i've been revisiting some old friends - the Boredoms, ooioo, Brian Eno - and some new friends - Deerhunter and Boris. Lots of great Japanese stuff. I am really very much in love with music at the moment - and without giving much time given to dreaming of being a rock star one day, my focus has been on my singing.
The recordings are just of me singing some stuff, one old Tom Waits song, while doing mundane stuff in the kitchen. You can tell when i sort of lose focus, but its all there.

I was a bit self conscious about singing while my folks are home - as i used to be scared of singing when my housemates were home when i lived in North Fitz. But with the early mornings to myself, it has been easier to make time. And i'm not so worried about other people hearing me anymore. With a bit of confidence in my ability now, i have started listening to certain musicians and trying to identify what it is that they do and what it is that i do or don't quite do and how the gaps can be bridged. With so many recorded voices being treated (and i am thankful for this as i revel in the soup of halucinatory spaces a treated voice can muster) it can be a bit hard sometimes. I keep going back to classic singers like Elvis, Gil Scott-Heron, Sinatra, Cash, Waits, etc. They're all kind of completely diferent, but most of this indy rock contemprary stuff (which i like a lot of) relies heavily on a droning, detached vocal that sort of peeps and slides between the guitars. I guess i just gotta learn where it all fits and what it sounds like, and keep exploring and trying different stuff.

Am i repeating myself? Even thought is a drone.

Ben