SONGS #1

SONGS #1

SONGS is an experiment in listening and writing.

SONGS is meant to be a regularly released collection of songs.

Each edition of SONGS will present 10 songs, each with a few paragraphs of words written as a sort of response.

Elliott Smith_ Miss Misery

The mention of scotch. Thoughts of faraway places and faraway, long gone people. A letter that reads like a whisper, though the volume varies and at times it all rolls into one ball of collected moments and emotions, highs and lows.

A journey made up of sliding, pulling paths winding through the chilly days of grey-sky autumns. Speeding up here, then slowing down as it goes around the corner. Rising and falling through the wind that’s picking up as the sun fades and all the people seem to disappear, retreating to sheltered corners with glowing lights.

After a while, in a certain mood, at a certain time of day - a punchedin-the-gut feeling, like a reverberating, lingering heartbreak, slowly winding down. A tightening in the chest, and then a loosening, tapering off into silence.

Fruit Bats_ Union Blanket

Awake to glinting sun. Light bouncing and glaring. A walk out to the end of the street, to see what’s happening. There are shimmering sounds mixing with the morning light. A crispness of air against our faces.

The elements of the day circle one another, blending shades and tints, a spinning wheel. Cycling thoughts mirroring the steady movement of spinning planets. A brightness in the mixture of such coordinating participants.

Old memories attaching to new ideas, weaving themselves together to build a patterned blanket to use for an indoor fort where we can hide and where time might seem to almost slow to a pace better suited for long afternoons and long stories.

Mutual Benefit_ Advanced Falconry

A song for an intimate meeting of well-known conspirators. A gathering around a campfire in deep woods. A time to reflect on past adventures.

A gathering of birds overhead. A moment set aside for rememberance and wonderment.

A song for determining what will come next. A resolution regarding the clinging bits of nostalgia marching through. Swaying, plucking notes for watching flames shimmer, faces and trees lit from below. A looking forward to certain unknowns.

An incantation for the best of luck to scattered compatriots. A lightness of being that descends from glittering sky as smoke curls up into nothing, dispersing collected notions of quiet joy.

Evenings_ Softly We Go

Slow floating open space, expanding. Sounds that cause colored light to streak across blank space. Subtle shifting bodies of air and weight.

A song for rambling aimlessly forward, toward unseen places and unformed thoughts. An idea that maybe waiting and seeing what passes might be best.

Attempts at rolling along mindlessly - to focus only on breaths in and out. A series of always fading colors morphing into each other, blown by shifting winds and casting dancing shadows.

A long exhalation to release more colors to blend into the surroundings and make new patterns and textures of slightly vibrating light and space, cosmic in nature.

The Range_ Metal Swing

Now we are pulled along through spaces dense with repeating wavering ornamentation. A song for gaining speed and gathering momentum as the right moment arrives for this new action. An urgent calling forth of primed and attentive spirits.

An acknowledgement of necessities. A looping preparation for nights to come, with neon lights and warm city breezes. An inflation of moods and a ripening of ideas about unfinished missions.

We gather around for the speech - to hear the plan. We hold our breaths and wait while the wind picks up speed and blows over and through us, lifting. A series of sparks igniting a series of points of lights that begin to swirl around us.

Dean & Britta_ Hear the Wind Blow

A film about an endless road trip through open flat fields and starry nights. A swaying and at times billowing adventure through deserted forgotten places. A melancholy and fuzzy under-exposure of trees and clouds.

Sounds that are dusty and heavy and tired from so many past journeys but filled with new perception. A stack of photographs and stories filled with promises of future trips to go see the ocean.

Standing on the edge of a field, with space opening up before us. A sky of colors slipping by each other softly and winding down - a decrescendo to steely gray and blue night.

The Horrors_ I Only Think of You

A windsept field at night, with a fire out in the middle. It’s cold and the air smells of metal and smoke and empty space. There’s a feeling like there’s no one else around for miles and there’s no one watching and maybe this is what it will be like when the world winds down and everything stops.

There are no distant sounds, just wind and burning wood. Everything is stretched out and loose. There’s a lack of any kind of action. Just contemplation about what we have and what would we do if we lost it?

It’s not a fear. It’s more curiosity about causes and effects.

There are moments that build up to larger moments, filled with rushing feelings of immediate significance. At times like these it helps to have a steady pulse behind us.

Slowdive_ When The Sun Hits

Too bright white blue sky. It could be winter, with the snow catching the light and throwing it everywhere. Someone is missing though we’re warm enough, there’s a longing for reunion, for old times. There’s an uncertainty here, as though we’re just waiting.

A return to familiar spots. A story about a fuzzy memory of the way things were last summer, when things never seemed too important and the days went on longer than any of us could’ve hoped for.

A song for drowsy days during any sort of weather. A set of colors for nostalgic landscapes, For a time all we could think about were things that had already happened and were now long gone.

Claude Debussy_ Voiles

Idleness. We pass time by making up stories as we tell them. A meandering adventure that takes place in the some pristine choreographed setting.

There are spectators that gather and disperse and gather again. Storylines are picked up and dropped and picked up again and then forgotten.

A museum of intricately crafted objects placed meticulously on shelves and celebrated. A slightly twirling sense of space. An investigation of numerous paths, different routes to through the trees to the water, A collection of polished stones, all found by the sea.

A drawing made up of lines enclosing washes of many colors and gradients. A philosophy that alternates between sheer simplicity and utter complexity.

Parachutes_ Where Were You

An architecture of steadily blooming spaces, gathering lights around a center of increasing warmth that glows brighter and brighter to reassure us of some continuing unheard pulse, the universe’s heartbeat hidden behind all the stars.

An accumulation of sounds to frame each passing moment, highlighting the intrinsic latent meanings of each, linking one instant to the next. An underlying order of all things exposed.

An expression of faith in some unspeakable fundamental law. A reinforcement of the idea of the power of good.

WILSON & McAlistair’s