This Second Sleep & ether^ra Collaboration

 This Second Sleep & ether^ra - Panorama by This Second Sleep

Another quickly realized track that utilizes the sonic skills of brother ether^ra and the sometimes disturbing aural machinations of my Buchla 200e.

SOME FORMS OF THE UNKNOWN

 This Second Sleep - Some Forms of the Unknown by This Second Sleep

A track that was born out of the detritus of a moment's experiment,  a rush to finish,  and my usual battle with the quirkiness of my Buchla 200e.  And as always,  there's more than a passing resemblance to organic material than to machinery.  Ask the robots.

TWO TRACKS from the DELPHINE & CAGE CDr

These two pieces represent the variety of noise heard on This Second Sleep's latest CDr,  its fourteen brief tracks ranging from the rhythmic drone of "Sentf" to the glitchy percussive textures of "Three-Headed Figure #1 (remix).  Enjoy.

OPTIK: ALPHAVILLE

This 1965 film by French director Jean-Luc Godard has been one of my all-time favorite high-minded low-budget features since reaching my eyes and ears as a teen.  Subtitled "A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution",  this science fiction/film noir/pulp hybrid embraces and morphs the conventions of all those genres to create something far darker,  funnier,  and more touching than any of them.  Eddie Constantine plays intergalactic secret agent  Lemmy Caution, a melancholy pock-faced romantic who somehow manages to combine pulp menace with poetry.   The stunningly beautiful Anna Karina plays Natasha Vonbraun as a slowly awakening mannequin.  She portrays the daughter of Professor Vonbraun,  the creator of Alpha 60,  an omnipotent computer that has Alphaville in its complete control,  and has barred all emotion,  art,  and poetry from within its borders.  Those artists,  writers,  and lovers who seem to be acting illogically by Alpha 60's strict standards are gathered up and executed by poolside assassins (which include a bevy of knife-wielding bathing beauties).  Lemmy Caution arrives from the Outlands with orders to return Professor Vonbraun  to Nueva York,  and if he resists,  kill him.  During his first meeting/interrogation with Alpha 60,  the computer asks Caution a question that will later prove  the techno-god's Achille's Heel:

                           Alpha 60:  Do you know what illuminates the night?

                           Lemmy Caution:  Poetry.

It is just that,   the expansive (and in this case,  explosive)  illogic of poetry (use of quotations from Jorge Louis Borges and Surrealist poet Paul Eluard) that throws Alphaville and its inhabitants terminally off-balance.  Caution carries a copy of the latter poet's CAPITALE DE LA DOULEUR along with his gun like some sort of warrior/poet.  It is in this role that Caution serves up a riddle for Alpha 60 that proves unanswerable through logical pondering or file searching.  Caution ends this encounter by stating:

               

                            If you find it,  you will destroy yourself simultaneously

                            because you will become my kin,  my brother.

At long last,  Professor Vonbraun dead,  Alpha 60 nullified,  and Alphaville in the state of chaos,  Lemmy Caution finds Natasha in order to bring her back to the Outlands.  Here,  amid the violence  (Caution shoots several agents, steals a car and even runs over the owner's head for good measure), Godard shows himself both the optimist and the romantic,  as Lemmy and Natasha speed toward emotional freedom and love's unreason.  This film has none of the special effects 21st century viewers  expect from such a movie,  which ultimately helps the film focus on ideas rather than explosions,  and allows us to luxuriate in its narrative,  visual,  and conceptual quirkiness, or  as Alpha 60 says at the beginning of Alphaville:

                             Sometimes reality is too complex for oral communication.

NEW CDr: DELPHINE & CAGE by This Second Sleep

This brief CDr (14 tracks totaling a bit over 18 minutes) is my first release under the name This Second Sleep.  Its title refers to John Cage (whose ideas about listening, chance, and silence were an early influence),  Delphine Seyrig (actress,  director,  and feminist) ,  and the Delphic Oracle (run by a priestess of Apollo, who was consulted on various matters,  both earthy and divine).  This combination of logic/the irrational and  masculine/feminine seems the creative currency all artists should capitalize on.  A balancing act would generally ensue in which chance and intention are embraced and made use of.    The instruments used for this recording were my Buchla 200e and Serge M-Class modular.   Given that my approach to these very complex and perplexing instruments favors accident over techo-speak,  the resulting "noise" gives new meaning to ideas about both beauty and irritation.  Track titles are:

                                  

These very brief tracks,  some as short as a minute, are more like sketches than anything else.  It seems to me that noise often outstays its welcome and in doing so,  loses its power to shock,  as well as its potential for a kind of hardened lyricism. Opener "Three-Headed Figure #1 (remix)" gleans its chaotic percussive punch from its contrasting intro,  a gently transparent textural figure.  "Zanti" breathes and percolates like a giant ant hill,  much like its inspiration,  1962's OUTER LIMITS' episode,  "The Zanti Misfits".   And so it goes... in twists and turns                      

                                

ABSTRACTIONAIRES

A bit of Serge M-Class ritualistic noodling here.  The phrase "My Name Has Knots"  comes from THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD which I recently had the chance to see at the Brooklyn Museum,  and that certainly refers to a deity,  but can just as easily refer to the rich complexity of individuals and the myriad contradictions that form us all..  The beauty of these words and their inherent complexities suggest a flux we should celebrate,  the gods whose mysteries drive us,  and  the creative shifts (and  accidents) at the root of discovery.