notes on the making of 'what means solid, traveller?'
Some notes on the making of the album "what means solid, traveller?" by dtorn
madness, first....
(please note, o patient reader, that these wordy meanderings are very much post-facto, as regards my involvement in the creation of the music: i cannot seem to find a consistent rationale, nor even any substantial ideological "bone-to-pick", while in the midst of composing/ playing/ recording. the sad fact is that i seem to become mildly sub-human... and, certainly, pre-verbal... during the process of making my own records. really; just ask my friends.)
but, why should i mention The Blues at all, if this stuff's "not really" The Blues? well... in my mind, the Only Real Film Worth Watching tends to repeatedly jump-cut to this incredibly overplayed scene in which approximately 135,000 folks are queued up to guilelessly ask of me, "So, what kinda music d'yoowall play? Rock? Country? Jazz?" to which i typically might respond, (remaining shockingly dumbfounded after twenty-five years of this presumably normal query): "Uh, well, hmmm, yeah, so uh well, this airline food really sucks, don't it, eh?, and, ummm, uh, well, hey!, where you headed to, today, anyways?"
so, returning back to the pointless point i thought i might try to make: at this moment, about this record, i will finally answer that remarkably Koan-like query emphatically, and thusly: "i play The Blues, albeit from the point-of-view of a post-psychedelic-quasi-punk-cyberdog-fuzzbox-non-market-driven-high-contrast-ambient-artist with a junk-food-junkie's bent towards deconstructing-musical-high-technology til it sweats'n'bleeds'n'starts-to-smell-lifelike-all-over-you, and oh yeah i've got a background in Jazz and comfort with non-Western music & Country'n'Western music & New Music & ism-this & ism-that & hey don't you think that some cheesy marketers did a bang-up job of creating an oxymoron of the word 'Alternative'?" anyway.....
and from it, method:
the title of this CD was wired directly from my built-in psychobabble ramblings. in the past few years, i've unintentionally begun to think in bits & pieces of other languages and, increasingly, in a polyglot internal tongue that, while continuing to use English as its base, has an odd Eastern-ish accent and is rather uncomfortably stilted, gramatically. (i do not, myself, ascribe this to the effects of the tumor that was removed from my brain in 1992.) i was (at the time of said title conception) considering that the concept of "solidity", as regards the so-called "material world", may be an illusion... especially when seen in light of the experiential teachings of so many ancient mystic routes and, also, the trains of thought now current in the Fine Sciences. The ramifications, as regards living one's life with a sleepy adherence to such unstated concepts, are manifold. I was on an airplane at that moment, and my mini-philosophising temporarily led me to glimpse all of us, we ostensibly human thingies, as travellers, molecular spinners & spinnees on our way to..... well, whatever, i guess. i would like to think of my music as a pointer, not as a point; & not as an answer, but as a question. ergo, "what means solid, traveller?"
i will leave you, reader, with some personal imagery specific to the shards of music contained on this new CD; but, before i do, i would draw your attention to the fact that there are no synthesizers employed in this music. if you don't recognise a 'sound', i'd like for you to assume that it's been generated by my weird little guitar..... however improbable that may seem. and: my sincere thanks to you, for listening.
the songs:
spell breaks with the weather: i'm deeply affected, these days, by strong changes in atmospheric pressure. this piece acted as my incantation against a particular hypnosis that's induced by related physical pain.
what means solid, traveller?: i told you 'bout this, already!
such little mirrors: the bitter & sweet breaking of unnecessary images, portrayed by a kind of guitaristic pointillism.
tiny burns a bridge: tiny, she's my friend, she acts like Kali: the loving destroyer. America (though i'm sure that *any* of the names of the "finest nations" could be substituted, here) pays her no heed, which is to its inevitable undoing. i pose the question, "who, among you, can withstand her elation?"
Gidya Hana: all travellers seek their places on the round map. this describes one such geographical location, for me: unattainable, maybe, but.....it might be found in the Moabite Hills.
each prince, to his kingdom, must labor to go: there are instances in which it is necessary to abandon the tribe, in order to fully belong. the piece was inspired by my two sons.
particle bugs @ Purulia Station: i harbor fond memories of Ac. Nityasatyananda's effortless, heartbreaking singing at this outpost in Bengal Province; while he sang, i was ruthlessly attacked by some helicopter-esque creatures. i think they were real, but.....
in the sand of this day (i will not be free.....til you are free): i took the bodhisattva vows when i was fifteen years old; it was an unretractable commitment. this piece is dedicated to those who fall briefly under the sway of their own charlatans & deceivers. one day, their suffering will end.
elsewhere, now, than waving: sometimes, i like better to wonder than know. vanished, again.....abreq ad habra.
