Words I can understand

Selected Ambient Life

I recently read an article that dissected Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works II and it pointed out that this record turns twenty years old this year. Throughout the article there are various accounts of hearing this album for the first time and the long lasting effects it has had on the individual.

This article(which can be found here) reminded me of my own experience finding this music, or rather it finding me as is often the case in my experience. I was sixteen years old. My best friend, his girlfriend, and I had driven out to the beach where we dropped acid. It was my first time. We hung around the beach, which was about 30 or 40 minutes form where we lived, hoping to have this experience together near the water. Nothing was happening. An hour later we were convinced we'd been given bunk acid.

We piled back in to Stephanie's Cutlass Supreme(which was a total cherry, by the way) and started heading back home, angry and disappointed, to find the guy who'd led us astray. After traveling east on I-4 from Daytona for about twenty minutes it started happening: from my vantage point in the backseat on velour seats I noticed colors(green on the left side, purple on the right) dividing my field of vision. I sat in the back and pondered this for a moment wondering what the fuck was going on. The head lights of on-coming traffic became sparkling diamonds veering off from the road curving directly into my eye sockets. They were blinding me and it was the most dazzling thing I'd ever seen. I started to realize what was happening and this realization spread through my being like a message I had always been wanting to receive. A song on the radio caught my attention. We were listening to Echoes on NPR. It must have been a Saturday night. It was the perfect song to begin what ended up being an insane journey. I was reminded immediately of Brian Eno and Harold Budd, which were my among my favorites having followed the breadcrumb trail from Cocteau Twins' collaboration with Harold Budd.

I was aware of Aphex before this album, having been really into the Polygon Window and AFX releases, as well as much of what had come out on Warp Records, that came before this and I can't say this album altered the path I was already on, but it certainly reinforced it. It's been part of my life longer than it has not been, at this point and though it's not something I turn to that often anymore I have a tenderness for it, it's sounds, and the remembrance of the sweet, naivete of my person when discovering it.

Happy Birthday, Selected Ambient Works Volume II.

As if you were listening/watching

In October my good friend and sometime band mate, Andrew, offered me to play at one of his Action Research shows that was in conjunction with one of Chris Miller's Boardwalk Shows(sure to be a thing of legend). It was a nice day with good people. Jacob played a one string droning object of his own creation while Ryan played trumpet and some percussion. I played an open tuned, bowed guitar, some pedals, and other gadgets. It turned alright, but it was better when we were rehearsing it in Ryan's living room.

Beats For Dinner

Violette Bule

I find the work of this photographer compelling.
See her portfolio here:
http://violettebule.com/

New Views

I am about to become a father to my second daughter.

New members have joined the ranks:

Ryan will play drums, stand up bass, maybe some trumpet, and whatever else he feels like.

Jacob is into guitar, but I've got a feeling he will be spending some time with a bass, some keys, and a vibraphone in the near future.

We are rehearsing with the idea of playing live sometime in late spring or early summer and looking for one or two more people to round things out.

inferior poet attempts v2

numinous nimbus
today the sky
is a map of unrealized dreams
and unrecognized potential.
a verse penned in
cumulus, a riddle
in stratiform,
observations of the cirrus.
undulating freely with
the slow, deliberate
poignancy nature
so often exhibits.
today the sky
beckons me to follow,
to closely examine
the text it has prepared.
to cast off meaning
and take shelter
beneath it's whispered
dreams.