16.7.17

presence

i have been utterly obsessed with the following song (and the album whence it comes) by massachusetts-based emo/post-hardcore/whatever the fuck band kolya. it's off their only full-length, the self-titled released in 2001~

"horizons"
kolya, 2001



EVERYTHING HAS BECOME WHOLE.


oh man. the riff that begins right at 2:30 is fast becoming one of my most favorites in the whole entire universe of music. especially at 2:40 exactly when the bass starts in again, soaring, simultaneously lifting the track up by miles and sinking it deep into the core of the earth. i keep re-playing this part over and over again. the bass line throughout the entire song - shifting in register from mid-range to octaves lower - is part of the wonder.

what really gets me about the style of this music, this particular brand of sound, is the juxtaposition of disjointedness and rhythmic displacement, mostly tonal/melodic harmonies (characteristic of a lot of emo - it's "emotional" which is what "romanticism" in music is, basically) with desperate lyrics, poetic and philosophical, similar to word painting but more like thought or phrase painting ("perfection is forever all around us, AND NOT MEANT TO BE HUMAN"). or what about "UNCERTAINTY IS NOT TOO EASILY SHAKEN." i mean, his delivery! the words and the mouth which speaks them layered on top of all this volcanic gorgeousity; it utterly thrills me.

i just feel so alive and filled with life energy listening to this, bursting sun and human and sky and language and music energies all intertwined. the entire album is full of such gems like this but for many years now (and not again until quite recently) THIS track, "horizons," has continually left me awestruck. i'm not sure what it is. the skilled and delicate use of harmonics? the sweeping gestures, the vivid colors ("IN THE ORANGE LINE THERE IS NO MOVEMENT")?

the best answer would be: all of it.



ever since i was little i loved to stare up at the sky. i would lay in my yard or on the driveway and stare up into space. it didn't matter what time of day it was, but in the evening around sunset the light shining through the clouds would be of an extra lovely gradient of slowly-shifting shades.

even now it's one of my favorite things to do, but when i do it i quickly become almost mesmerized; my thoughts no longer dart around but become still, focused. it's a form of meditation for me that doesn't take a conscious effort to initiate. i am absorbed into the ever-changing tapestry, the shapes and textures which exude softness, delicacy, perfection beyond our control or wildest dreams.

charles bukowski says that the majority of people murder the minutes that they are given by traveling, going to the movies, or whatever - "to fight for each minute is to fight for what's possible inside yourself." i find this inspiring, extraordinarily so (in his later years bukowski seemed to have attained a certain taste of truth which lights my days' way a thousandfold), but it is also one of the most incredible challenges asked of us.

to operate this body with the self inside and to habitually make good use of the gift of life.




have you ever found yourself swimming down the stream of someone else's memory?

it seems like some of the most lovely images i can recall are not actually of my own life, but were born of the nostalgia shared with me by others. the story of their childhood, the landscape of their homeland, the long forgotten rituals. stories of the early world, that which dawned and set before the rising of my own. i can almost taste the fruit of that far-off place, smell the wind through the grasses.

perhaps film is one way to preserve the dream, but for the most part it can be only two-dimensional. memories don't seem to abide by the laws of any dimension; they are flashes of light and sense, seemingly disconnected yet in an unbroken stream are bound tighter to the heart with each recall, reflect more of paradise or hell now that they have been lost to time.

 月

there is much more to talk about, but my body begs for sleep.

thoughts~

field recording of summer sounds, like cicadas and storms and frogs
finding pure silence, deep listening to non-synthetic soundscapes
the sky over the ocean at night, that vast dark sea under a vast dark sky and bright, bright moon
oceans and freshwater lakes - seashells and river rocks, their respective symmetry and asymmetry
cave formations
rocks not as beings but as physical manifestations of natural processes, what energies do they contain?
cave drawings, hieroglyphs and symbols that slowly became written language
what the fuck is modernism in visual art? a lot of scribbly, messy lines; thick blocks of color, smudges - reverting to simple outlines of the human figure, large-scale as opposed to fine, accurate detail
bird song, light, and the rising mist on the mountains at dawn
drawing with lead a mountain side (from) (of) memory, gray on white
sunsets that make the entire landscape bright orange, like from a streetlight
recalling and revering the depth of primordial consciousness
universally-interconnected mythologies
poems dedicated to nature
poems speaking to the ancient human
the ancient American human
the ones here before us
all of their stories


 
 
i've known rivers:
i've known rivers ancient as the world and 
older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

...

i've known rivers:
ancient, dusky rivers.

my soul has grown deep like the rivers.

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