THE MUSIC OF THE

i was working with Joey Casio the other day, and i was playing him this "string" part i had layed down that day, and tried to explain how it was that i had heard it... when i was listening to the track over and over, i thought i had heard it in the upper registers, but wasn't sure if it was there or not really.

He said something like "yeah you listen to something long enough, over and over, and you start to hear the angels singing" with a laugh, and i said YES!!!

its like you start to hear the music of the music...the music the music is listening to while it makes itself ....the backing tracks or the inspiration or ...... in my imagination its music is infinite (like reality, ha) there's many layers in many different directions. sometimes its hard to choose, you could keep going forever ....
god, i am glad someone understands. glad we are making some music together!


i am working on a mixtape, songs i am listening to right now and being really inspired by, until then, you should enjoy DIAMOND BLACK HEARTED BOY 's SPACE SLAVE TRADE mix
i don't think its on his myspace page anymore but i have the zip here ...

really loving this mix, and feeling inspired!

O frischer Duft, o neuer Klang

its spring where i am, things are stirring, in big and small ways. i have been trying to go to bed early these days, but something keeps waking me up. a few days ago, i am not sure but i think it was a song. or the start of a song, and visuals, and ordering, structure.

i sort of hate and also love that i am a slave to inspiration. i am glad it wakes me up. i am glad i don't sleep through its call or try to ignore it, whenever i don't, which i am sure sometimes i do. i guess this is why a lot of people don't choose to be artists, why have your life as you want it to be disturbed , be held hostage by this immaterial ....feeling, thing, being? whim? parents live this way, with their babies, but a baby you can hold, babies are very material.... but to me, this thing can be really real, realer that real life sometimes, so i guess thats why i keep going. i sometimes feel like real life is too much getting in the way of this other, bigger life, that sometimes wakes me up when i feel like i should sleep.

i have been meeting with joey casio a little bit, and its been great! i love the way he thinks, the breadth of his interests, and i think some good things will come from it, already humbling toiling on a few things. already i am excited and inspired, so that right there seems like a great gift...

we have been talking about kwaito a bit, i've been loving it for the last couple years, turned on by my friend Spoek the house scene in south afrika is amazing, and has been for years and years, can't wait to go there for real and check it out....

also been into:

• MNDR
• ACTUALLY
• The Voices of East Harlem (esp their version of Run Shaker Life, and their slogan "WE KNOW WHO WE ARE AND WE ARE FREE"),
  
• REAL shaker hymns and songs (run shaker life is based on a shaker tune called Come Shaker life...many of the shaker songs rose spontaneously from followers, living their simple lives, and, shaking ...they thought god had both masculine and feminine aspects in it, and that the founder of their church, Sister Ann, was the second coming of god/christ, as the feminine aspect ...),
  
• ancient greek and roman music,
  
• this great CD from rome where this guy is playing stalactites in an ancient cave .... SONOROUS CAVERNS

the earthquake off chile, all the earthquakes and tsunamis, its hard to make sense of it. the earth is moving, the earth is trying to throw something off. i don't want to intellectualize and spiritualize people's real sufferings, i don't want to ignore it because i have things to do... how to keep your heart open (if you can let yourself feel pain, thats the good side of it, at least, is that its a sign that your heart is open) .... but keep going too...

MUST

i was awoken this morning by some clear edicts, i don't know where from, or from whom (although i have my suspicions) and i knew i had to write them down (these days my journal open with a pen sleeps beside me instead of a human) .... first came:

YR MANE
YR STEP (...or GALLOP??)
YR EXCELLENT

which seems nice. and YES, it came in ALL CAPS.

then came, it seemed more like someone talking to me:

"Let's mix together and must the poison."

and i'm like, well, obviously.

so maybe thats all that's coming this morning. its something like 7 am. liminal times. its maybe over but i lie around with pen in hand. because, you never know. and this stuff is energizing
then, this comes in:

"there's no room for you on the elephant."

i lie around some more.

when i get up a little later, i look up must: its from the latin mustum meaning young wine. Must is the first step in wine making, the un-filtered grape mash/ first pressing of grapes. its often cooked down for making sweeteners and such. the romans used it a lot, middle easterners still use it. It is speculated that in roman times it was often poisonous: having being cooked in bronze or lead pots. its speculated (but highly debated) that lead poisoning contributed to the decline of the roman empire... the roman church declared that must could be used in very special cases as a substitute for sacramental wine (such as for alcoholics), but it does not have the clarity and lightness truly needed to represent christ's blood.


there is a persian word "mast" which means intoxicated. That is the source of the word "must" or "musth" as used to describe a periodic conditon of male elephants, where they exhibit extremely violent, aggressive and/ or aggressive/sexual activity, accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones. it mostly visits them in the winter. the secrete a tar-like substance from their temporal glands by their ears, rich in testosterone and ketones. they are known to gore other elephants, male and female alike, and also humans. domestic elephants are often chained to trees during this time and put on a starvation diet for a month to help curb the most violent of activites...

Elephant in Must

no room on the elephant....