The
simple drawing on the cover says it all. Two birds, one perched regally, not a
worry in his head, the other, levitating supine, with similar headspace; if not
dead, surely making it’s way on out to the other side.
Allow
me to read between the powerlines:
Side
A
Tetuzi
Akiyama’s guardian sparrow has grown pregnant with sorrow, hypnotized by
distant church bells, the way full force gale and deluge take turns bending overtones
to uneasy warble as they crawl clumsily through the lone, cracked window in
their barren apartment. Songbird has given up matching TA’s patient plodding,
those slow steel wires taking their sweet, sweet time to die, a new
reverberation birthed just in time to see great grandfather’s death rattle
shake the driest side of said windowpane. The city outside is drowning chaos,
the lone swaying tapered candle within proudly lights a dust-free circle of minimal
warmth on the floorboards by TA’s feet.
Side
B
Tetuzi
Akiyama’s agreement was this; I will feed you and play for you and keep you
dry, but if you want to see the world, that sick world out there, the window is
always left open just enough to permit exit. In the meantime, do accompany me
as you see fit.
Songbird
dreams his “escape”, journeys through electrified amplification and processing,
makes friends with undesirables, gets a stick-&-poke tattoo that quickly
gets infected, narrowly avoids a watery grave more times than he can count,
sleeps it off under a park bench and “wakes” to the sound of his ribs cracking
under a feral cat’s hunger-weakened jaws.
This
recurring nightmare wakes him every night and the tape ends just before he
sings and sings and sings.
See:
field recordings, Tetuzi Akiyama worship, overtones, destroyed amps, tone v.
texture, how many sounds can you get from that guitar?, Not Safe For Sleeping
and/or
-
- Jacob An Kittenplan
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