fragments of memories wash over me, activated dna collected past life memories, while these may be fictions, some come on so strong i can't help by attach some significance to their impact. it's a diverse affair, a compilation of ambience, commissioned songs, soundtracks and a strange cover of an alice cooper song, nothing really holds the songs together except for the centrifugal genius of sk.
let's investigate the whispers.
'flummoxed' kicks of with the kind of classic eighties groove i'm particularly fascinated with, i would have liked words, some poetry or spoken word but it pumps along and invites you inside the wreckage of the piano, the haunting vocal of the next song, that voice calling out 'come inside' and now i want that song to go on for so much longer, the sublime piano, simple, elegance fades fast just as the guitar gets interesting. was it just a ghost i heard?
'the weird sisters' takes me to south east asia, a trio of black pyjama clad assassins, sisters trained by the khmer rouge, young killers with long swords moving silently through the jungle and ruins of ancient ankor ruins, the place over grown by dense vegetation, alien heat beating down on dark skin under the eye of towering buddha encased by vine.
a song arises in 'debbie and james' and i read this was written by someone else, it's very good, i really like the words and steve delivers them in some kind of languid style, the word's seem to slip away from his mouth like a dandelion being blown in the wind, spores in all directions, nifty guitars some bass notes that feel like dreams.
'persian garden' the sound of strange arabian instruments, plucked harps, string vibration, there's an ambient pad at work, and my muscles start to relax, tension dissipates from my body, i'm slipping away now, time can't hold me. quite beautiful, almost narcotic peace descends, i wish i could sleep for a thousand and one nights.
where doth tranquility lay?
the next number comes on like a wave of sinister western science, 'deserted exstacies,' it's forebodingly bringing me back to my body, short and slightly disturbing a transient moment, connection of vessels into the much softer 'flock' another ambient piece but almost the complete opposite of the previous song, this has an oriental mystical warmth i'm at ease with, it washes over me, soft reds and purples, some orange colour bathes me as i hear those chimes.
another song in 'crooked mile' the words blend into one another, i'm loosing myself, imagining a walk along the cliff, down clovelly to bondi, i remember my cat 'houdini' when steve mentions a cat. suddenly i'm feeling emotional, outta nowhere! i loved that cat, such sadness from divorce, sorrow slips out i guess, occasionally. 'we can go somewhere, nice' steve sings, i smile.
lovely simple piano playing along, plonk plonk plonk, i like piano. i like steve's playing, i wish he'd play a lot more, maybe do some piano gigs, in a suit with a candle.
'elegant europe' feels out of place, i love the piano and the almost brass feel it generates, it is very european in a sense but it washes over me fast sending me into the 'fragments of a vase' to which i have immediate affinity, alien music, this is what we need on those sci fi movies.
i've left earth now, orbiting some sexy purple planet, flirting with anterian women and those girls from pandorax 7. we watch the moons rise over the vortexian sea, we smoke alien weed and make love under the aqua moons. i'll stay here, thanks man.
'poison' had to google the original, i hated it! whatever happened to alice cooper, he was so cool, 'i wanna be elected' had a great video as well as being a great song. i recall it as a child, alice in a room dressed in a white suit with a pet chimp, and a room full of cash and they leap about singing, 'elected.'
here we have steve doing some sort of elizabethan cover with strings and it's much more bearable than the original. the song really stands out from everything else on this cd, it's unexpected which is always good, but i never saw this coming, it's to strange for words really.
'latin ate thing' brings us back to the familiar beauty of piano bass and some very cool and groovy sounds, yeah i'm digging this tune hoping it lasts but it don't last, steve's teasing like that on this cd, it fades away into the ocean of static. 'come back, latin ate thing,' i call, but it's gone baby gone!
gone out to sea into 'seagirl' a strange pattern of harmonics, shimmering away just below the surface of a greek watery inlet. oh, that water so blue, as it always has been since homer.
'carbon nitrogen oxygen' synthesiser sounds, haunting the home, my place shimmers in candle flame, flickering like time itself, the song goes straight through the corridor, the walls, the rooms, the space, it goes right through my bones as it leaves as eerily as it arrived.
from somewhere else, 'song for domenique' arrives with anchor points, frames of reference, sydney, melbourne via france, sexual chocolate, love, an affair, marriage, i sigh, story of the times, how come i missed out on the happy ending, i have to get out more, loves out there somewhere mission, it hides in the strangest places, molecular structures right?
it's the sound of close encounters, i see a lonely mountain top military precision lighting, the mothership stirring up a starry night looms overhead, but it's not close encounters, it's some 'stately garden music.'
oh what a lovely introduction this would make to some thunderous rock but it fades away into...
yeah desert 'swagger and stagger' which i adore, love at first listen. its got the new mexico groove, minimal funk for rattlesnake women in cowboy boots and their lizard outlaw men, shoot first solve equations later. i been to that bar, had myself a few tequila slammers till the mescal kicked in and it all turned bad.
sweet song comes along, saves me from some situation i just created in my mind, strange song, 'and you'll leave laughing' reminds me of pierrot / harlequin for some reason, sadness under the fake smile, but you will leave laughing, 'the way fate moves is quite bizarre.'
you got that right brother.
can't help but feel there's some secret philosophy within this simple little song, with its nursery rhyme energy but i'm already into 'the wild east' which starts off electronica and shifts gear into some fine guitar effects and loops, how i love this music, cast adrift i can feel the surf in my skin, i'd like to see some of this song used as surfing music, it would work, i hate the soundtracks they use on surf movies but this would work a treat. i can see it in my mind, just needs a good editor, those waves come in such perfect forms, just like steve's music. he's australia's crystal voyager.
'undergrowth' a portal into pans kingdom, i can follow the trail down into the woods, the animal kingdom, the flora and fauna, as the tone of the trees shift and slight alterations manifest, darker trunks, gnarly branches and root systems, i wander down, displaced and far from home, it's getting colder, the animals are frenzied as i enter the forbidden place to catch a glimpse of what mortals are prohibited to witness, the ancient gods. i peer through the dark static whispering through my hymn to pan.
when the 'panthalassic sea' kicks in i'm back in the surf, primal energies, the ocean that we came from, shall we return? i do everyday but... where is my baby?
well i feel like i travelled a long long way after listening to this music, i even feel like i seen many wonders in the static, places i never saw before, heard voices beckoning and strange hidden sounds desperately trying to be heard, all those colours and memories, transcended space and time and now i come back i feel kinda lonely, left here laying on my big deep rug, soft stoned, candles burnt down low, wobbly fan spinning around above me, coming out of an opium dream into the mundane.
the next day i wander down a supermarket isle lost and confused, alienated from everything around me, nothing connecting up, people i can't reach, colours i can't cope with, signs that drive me mental and i think about that place, miscellanaea.
like the great adventurers and explorers who discovered new continents, kingdoms and people and tribes, they have to leave to file their reports, i make myself the pact to return soon, back to the static i know and love.
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