Vote for Mysticism & Spirituality in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Download Hi-Res Infographic

Vote for Mysticism & Spirituality in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Download Hi-Res Infographic Explore all articles related to influential thinkers

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Related posts:

1. Midday Veil – Moon Temple Music Video (Subterranean Ritual II)
2. Translinguistic Other Interview : Forever Sounds (w/ Midday Veil’s Emily Pothast)
3. Nikki McClure Tells You To Vote For Survival

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Mystical & Spiritual Ideas in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Pitch

In Midday Veil’s new video for “Moon Temple,” vocalist Emily Pothast has edited source material she and guitarist Timm Mason generated last year during a residency at Experimental Television Center in Upstate New York. At its gentlest, the video is a silky smooth ripple; at its most severe, a rigid and noisy gallop through harsh-edged brain wave terrain. Pothast guides you to step through purple-hued worlds as she morphs from a candle-wielding human into multiple faces of sensuality, to disintegrate in and out of forms of ghostly apparition. 23:50 in duration, “Moon Temple” is the type of video you’d want to project on a big screen, for a richly synesthesic experience.

The band has just finished mixing The Current, their second studio album with producer Randall Dunn (Boris, Sunn o)))). Stream the entire improvised EP below, and catch them on a string of tour dates, including a set at the upcoming REDEFINE SXSW showcase at House of Commons, Austin. (More details and full lineup coming soon, and you can see last year’s recap HERE.)

Read our interview with Emily Pothast about Midday Veil and her record label, Translinguistic Other

MIDDAY VEIL TOUR DATES
March 1 Rat & Raven, Seattle, WA
March 3 Bad for Jazz # 12 at SPACE, Seattle, WA
March 9 Pastime Tavern, Dallas, TX
March 10 SXSW Runoff Fest at Super Happy Fun Land, Houston, TX
March 11 Cafe Istanbul w/ PSYCHIC ILLS & WOODSMAN, New Orleans, LA
March 15 Austin Psych Fest SXSW Party, Spiderhouse, Austin, TX
March 16 Redefine Magazine Showcase, House of Commons, Austin, TX

Related posts:

1. Translinguistic Other Interview : Forever Sounds (w/ Midday Veil’s Emily Pothast)
2. Midday Veil – “Choreia” Music Video Premiere
3. Midday Veil – “Anthem” Music Video

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Midday Veil – Moon Temple Music Video (Subterranean Ritual II)

Q&A With Emily Pothast, Translinguistic Other Founder & Midday Veil Vocalist

I first became interested in Gnosticism when I was living in a part of Texas that is completely dominated by fundamentalist Christianity. I knew the dominant culture was fucked, but I didn’t feel like it was useful to be completely dismissive of the religious mythologies that held so much resonance for these people. I wanted to know where these ideas came from and to see if I could learn something about the patterns behind them.

– Emily Pothast, on mysticism

Didn’t you tell me once that you had some kind of experience where you went out-of-body because you electrocuted yourself with some of your gear during a sound check? Talk about that a bit.

Yep. It had to do with a short in an amplifier and a building with old wiring. It was super weird. My lip touched the microphone, and everything went completely white. Whatever electromagnetic integrity holds my consciousness together was completely overridden by the strength of the current, and for a brief moment, I became a passive conduit for electricity. I felt my “self” taking the form of the wiring of the building and reaching out into the electrical grid beyond. And then I came back. It was over within a matter of seconds.

'The years... when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me... Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration and the integration into life.'
-- Carl Jung on The Red Book, 1957

BUY: THE RED BOOK

In general, I’m interested in the mystical strains of various religions because they tend to emphasize direct experience over dogma. I first became interested in Gnosticism when I was living in a part of Texas that is completely dominated by fundamentalist Christianity. I knew the dominant culture was fucked, but I didn’t feel like it was useful to be completely dismissive of the religious mythologies that held so much resonance for these people. I wanted to know where these ideas came from and to see if I could learn something about the patterns behind them. So I started looking into the history and politics of early Christianity, which led me to Gnosticism¹, which is far too broad of a topic to get started on here — but yeah, it’s super interesting.

As far as my personal history of spiritual experiences, the big one would be losing my parents in a car accident in 2005. I was really close to my family — especially my mom — and that experience just threw me into this incredibly deep and infinitely painful abyss, which ended up being very transformative for me as an artist. Pretty much all of the assumptions I had about life before that point collapsed and everything I have done since then has been rebuilt in the shadow of that experience. The album Eyes All Around is about that process of going through hell and eventually coming through the other side.

Jung’s The Red Book is endlessly fascinating to me because he also went through a very harrowing period personal crisis, except his had a spontaneous onset. The The Red Book was his personal journal where he recorded all kinds of visions he had during that time, which essentially amount to prophecy, both visual and literary. He went in a psychiatrist and came out a prophet.

Midday Veil are about to go into the studio and work on another more song-oriented outing right? Plug away.

Yep, Midday Veil are about to go into the studio with Randall Dunn and record our second full-length album. It will consist of some stuff you’ve probably been hearing us play live for the past few months, and some other things that are very much still in flux. I’m excited because I think the new stuff really represents the band coming into its own.

Didn’t you guys record some stuff in The Integratron²? That’s one of the cooler ideas I’ve ever heard. How’d that go? Any weirdness?

Aw, thanks! The Integratron is amazing. The building is incredible and it’s situated on a geomagnetic vortex, supposedly. They also do healing sound baths with these quartz crystal bowls that are designed to resonate with the frequencies of the room, so you can feel the sound coming through your body like a physical current. If you go, you definitely need to get one of the sound baths!

As far as weirdness beyond the inherent weirdness of being there, I didn’t feel any. We did make some recordings in there but we’re still sorting out what to do with them. They have some incredible moments, but we didn’t multi-track, so we just have room mic recordings and a big part of the amazingness of The Integratron is the way it actually feels to be there. The acoustic properties are very strange. The sound travels in unexpected ways. Learning to play music inside The Integratron is like learning to play a completely new instrument! So whatever happens with the stuff we have, I think I’m definitely interested in making another trip down there at some point to see if we can’t figure out a way to record more spatially in order to really get a sense of what it’s like to be in the space.

How do you feel about how the drug war influences the culture surrounding our music scene? Do you ever find yourself wishing you could shill something other than booze legally? Any thoughts on the ridiculously high prevalence of alcohol problems among musicians?

Well, I don’t feel like it’s my position to shill booze or anything else (except records!), but it’s true, nearly all of the legitimate music venues in Seattle are bars first and venues second, so I guess everyone in a band that plays those venues shills booze indirectly. The bars make money off selling alcohol, which no doubt influences the music that gets played and promoted and also probably encourages musicians to drink more than they would if they weren’t hanging out in that kind of environment all the time. It would be an interesting experiment to play music in a club that just served pot brownies, for instance, and see how that changed the overall contours of the experience. It would be very different.

“I think the idea of having songs that are completely set in stone is a little like having a supreme deity who created the world exactly as it is, static and unchanging. Charting the development of themes in linear time, or intentionally building toward a climax is, in fact, a very idiosyncratic and Western way of looking at music. But if you take a longer, wider look at the history of humans making music, you find strong traditions all over the world of music that unfolds around a central point and illuminates the contours of a single eternal moment.”

– Emily Pothast, on spontaneous creation

2011′s Escalator Fest³ featured like 2 bands (out of 10, Midday Veil and Rose Windows) that I would say wrote “actual songs” by any conventional definition of the word. Both of these new releases on your label are based on spontaneous experimentation. What are your thoughts on the importance of spontaneity in the creative process, as it’s obviously something you pursue?

I definitely pursue improvisation in my process and am most drawn to musicians who also practice a certain kind of cultivated spontaneity. The four core members of Midday Veil have been playing together for almost three years now, and our process has definitely matured a lot. Early on, I had some songs that I had written on my own that we adapted for the full band, but now when we write songs together, it’s generally something that starts as an improvisation and gets refined over time.

To me, there is always something magical about the very first time a melody or rhythmic idea emerges, and so on some level, taking an idea beyond that initial improvisation is always a little like trying to draw a picture of a bolt of lightning from memory. (That’s why, as far as my personal tastes go, Subterranean Ritual II is the most exciting thing Midday Veil has released so far.) But we’re also working on bringing some of that spontaneity into more recognizable song structures by creating compositions that are a framework for improvisation to unfold in. Like, this is the shape and color of the tent, but what happens inside the tent is always a little different.

For me, that interest comes right back to your other question about spirituality. I think the idea of having songs that are completely set in stone is a little like having a supreme deity who created the world exactly as it is, static and unchanging. Charting the development of themes in linear time, or intentionally building toward a climax is, in fact, a very idiosyncratic and Western way of looking at music. But if you take a longer, wider look at the history of humans making music, you find strong traditions all over the world of music that unfolds around a central point and illuminates the contours of a single eternal moment. For me, that expansion of time is the essence of psychedelic music. Music is art that unfolds in 4 dimensions, and psychedelic music is psychedelic insofar as its ability to imply dimensions beyond that.

I’m interested in music that explores, but first goes to the trouble of setting up good conditions for exploration. Set and setting. Then it becomes more about the journey than any particular destination.

Is this maybe a subtle way to encourage different, maybe healthier choices in chemical consumption among the listeners? Clubs themselves won’t make dick on any of that unless the laws change.

Well, Fungal Abyss are very open about the fact that, for them, the process of getting into that meditative, creative headspace involves mushrooms that are currently illegal in the United States, despite the fact that they were deemed sacred by many of the indigenous people we stole this continent from. But ultimately, we [at Translinguistic Other] put out their album because the music is excellent, not because we have any agenda of encouraging one drug over another. The shroom thing might inspire some people to turn on and tune in, but other people it will probably just use it as an excuse to completely dismiss it before giving the music a chance. However people choose to react, I think that says more about them than it does about the label or about Fungal Abyss. I think it’s my job to help put the art I want to see out into the world and try not to worry too much about what other people do with it in their free time.

From Improv To Tape: Recent Releases On Translinguistic Other

Fungal Abyss — Bardo Abgrund Temple

Every time I take mushrooms, I personally experience a similar sensation of a veil lifted and a world of guitar noise, cresting electronics, and godhead reverb echoing eternally behind the scenes of our manufactured reality. I feel this is relevant information when discussing an album by Fungal Abyss, Seattle epic metal dudes Lesbian’s mycology-obsessed free-form psych project.

Members of Lesbian were in a crazy technical spazz-core band called The Abodox and have been practicing their instruments obsessively for decades now. Despite this, they’re smart enough to know that when free-from riffing on the fly, it’s best to keep things insanely simple as to avoid glaring fuck ups.

Most of the tracks on Bardo Abgrund Temple are little more than a base primal drumbeat laced with no nonsense fills and a bunch of same key effected guitar noise layered on top. In fact, that’s pretty much what the entire first 20-minute “song,” “Arc of the Covenant,” is. It’s cool for sure, and reminds me of bands like say late nineties/early ‘aughts Bardo Pond sans vocals. Not honestly what you’d expect from the Lesbros. Dudes are choppier than a schooner ride through hurricane waters — and they’re toning things down on that front quite a bit here. On the plus side, they’re not singing for once, which is a bonus, and there’s exactly zero bullshit metal posturing. So its way chiller vibes than what they thrown dow in their main project.

In my mind, the album, which is over an hour long, peaks on the song “Time of Bones,” when one of the guitar players remembers: “Oh shit, yeah, I can shred,” and proceeds to drop some light speed blues licks for a spell. Or is it the song “Timewave Zero,” which references in title and then actually samples the immortal Terence McKenna? You can never go wrong with shit like that, and you know what, you can stream the entire thing online for free (see below or visit their Bandcamp) but you can’t buy it as a download for some reason.

Midday Veil – Subterranean Ritual II

You might also want to grab Midday Veil’s Subterranean Ritual II on Amazon, because it’s less than $2 for a 35+ minute record. The Veil have been pursuing the art of spontaneous musical channeling from the jump, and you should be able to tell just from the cassette’s moniker that it’s their second foray into cutting free-form experimentation to tape. It definitely works better than the first, due to longer song lengths, less instinctual vocal outbursts and more focused intentions.

The first track, “Moon Temple,” starts off meditative, turns tribal, and unsurprisingly peaks at the end when guitarist Timm Mason drops some staccato fret board shred-i-tude for a few sustained minutes. It’s what the whole track seems to be building to and when it hits, your mind is taken to a wondrous level of sublimely blown. It’s probably the most structural moment on the tape, where years of scale worship bear luscious rewards. The next track, “Naxos,” is ominous in tone and kind of doesn’t go anywhere much but sounds spiritual nonetheless. You just kind of think its building to a crest like the first song, but it never comes. Interesting in a sound-tracky way for sure and makes me think about performing arcane internal rituals in a cathedral at dawn while the sun drenches my spirit with life rejuvenating energy. Good, but in a background music kind of way.

The thing about Midday Veil is, they’re one of the few psych bands writing actual songs these days, which sets them apart from the pack. Their strength rests largely on the potency of Miss Pothast’s pipes which are wisely restrained to background ambiance here. Trippy improv albums are fun, but I’m more looking forward to their next studio outing which will most likely feature something I won’t be able to shake out of my head after the music ends. Then again, maybe that’s just the drunk in me talking. That dude never shuts up.

Midday Veil – Naxos by Translinguistic Other

Upcoming Releases On Translinguistic Other

Dictionary Of Terms

¹ Gnosticism (from gnostikos, “learned”, from Greek: γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge)
A scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common toearly Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism (especially Zurvanism), and Neoplatonism. A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis (esoteric or intuitive knowledge), is the way to salvation of the soul from the material world.

² The Integratron
PHOTO CREDIT (R): The Milky Way over the Integratron by Wally Pacholka
A space in Southern California, self-described as “an acoustically-perfect tabernacle and energy machine sited on a powerful geomagnetic vortex in the magical Mojave Desert… The Integratron is the creation of George Van Tassel, and is based on the design of Moses’ Tabernacle, the writings of Nikola Tesla and telepathic directions from extraterrestrials. This one-of-a-kind building is a 38-foot high, 55-foot diameter, non-metallic structure originally designed by Van Tassel as a rejuvenation and time machine. Today, it is the only all-wood, acoustically perfect sound chamber in the U.S.”
(Source: www.integratron.com)

³ Escalator Fest
A multiple-day festival of psychedelic music, which has taken place annually in Seattle, Washington, since 2009.
(Source: www.escalatorfest.com)

Related posts:

1. Midday Veil – Moon Temple Music Video (Subterranean Ritual II)
2. Mystical & Spiritual Ideas in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Pitch
3. Midday Veil – Eyes All Around Album Review

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Translinguistic Other Interview : Forever Sounds (w/ Midday Veil’s Emily Pothast)

It’s been quite some time since he has referred to his original notebooks, and Field has since forgotten how the album title originated. When prompted, he muses, “One of the lyrics says, ‘We’ve painted all the grass blades black,’ and it may have been that? The word ‘grass’ looks green to me even without the word green next to it. Some of the songs deal with feelings of disappointment: in others and in myself. So, if the grass is always greener on the other side, I might be standing in black grass.”

Field tends to stay away from too much commentary, however. Stating the album’s foundations outright can detract from its overall mystique. Some things are simply indescribable, their magic better sonically experienced than verbally explained. That sense of magic is present throughout the creation of Black Grass.

“When I am lucky, I realize that so much of what informs the content that I am working with directly relates to what I surround myself with, and that can create a proactive net wherein all of the people and things around me get painted into the picture,” Field explains. He cites a moment of synchronicity when he realized the album art photographer, Barrett Gentz, had the initials B.G. – which is also the acronym of Black Grass.

“Those realizations are rich,” Field continues, “and that is when I feel like I am being a good artist. All of the technical things that someone could do just don’t compare to when I can feel something magical coming through…”

Symbolic Connections

Black Grass‘s trajectory was permanently shifted once Gentz gave Field a copy of Joseph Campbell’s book, The Power Of Myth.

“I read it almost straight through in a few days,” explains Field. “[Campbell] basically links all of mankind’s stories to one another, through the different religions and folklore and fables that humans pass down. It was a really important book for me at the time and helped me to come to peace with some of my ideas and accept the big picture in a different way.”

The Power Of Myth inspired Field to incorporate well-known symbols into his songs, as well as dissect each of their diverse meanings. The cover for Black Grass features a simple photograph taken by Gentz, a lopsided apple encompassing the whole of the frame. Field synthesizes the apple’s symbolic interpretations, listing that it, “relates to William Tell, Snow White, Adam and Eve, New York City, and Michael Jackson’s ‘Human Nature,’ when he says, ‘If this town is just an apple…’”

The most obvious references to apples fall in with the album’s Biblical references. In “Fall Skull,” Field references Adam and Eve, the serpent, and the Tree of Life, with the lyrics, “Adam and Eve and the snake and the dust life breathed…/ The snake is resting in the tree of knowledge/ The kind that you can’t get in college/ Eating from Eve’s hand.”

In “Can I Knock On This Door?” Field sings, “Asleep inside a hollow log/ Snake, rabbit, snail/ Lighter, cigarette, immune to flame.”

The snake reappears once again here, and the album abounds with references to nature. Mentions of leaves, twigs, breezes, branches, animals, and autumn are plentiful, coloring the album a brownish, nostalgic hue. A general mood persists throughout, but to make actual sense of the lyrics requires one to delve into the wide and varied world of symbolic interpretation.

Yet not all of the references on Black Grass are serious or live in the world of myth, alchemy, and ritual. Some are humorously more pedestrian. Lil’ Wayne’s mixtape, Da Drought 3, influenced Field significantly during the crafting of Black Grass.

“It’s like the excitement of a high school football game on a Friday night to me, with the lights and the impact and the people and the wilding out…” says Field. And though the words “mixtape,” “Lil’ Wayne,” and “football game” may make this influence seem shallow or ironic, it isn’t.

“My friend Adam Forkner [of White Rainbow] gave it to me two or three years ago, and most every time I listen to it, it’s magic,” Field explains. Like Black Grass, Da Drought 3 is an album full of lyrical depth.

“I am still grasping [the album's] lyrics and metaphors,” says Field, “and I think [Lil' Wayne] is an amazing artiste.”

Communal Fruit

From fruition to completion, Black Grass followed a trajectory Field could never have predicted. Though the album was originally intended to be a “Pet Shop Boys-style record” utilizing only drum machines and keyboards, that idea was quickly scrapped when Field realized he had never listened to an entire album by the UK band. For the next incarnation of Black Grass, Field worked with Tim Bluhm to reintroduce organic instrumentation and revisit a more familiar method of creation.

“We recorded different versions of some of the songs, and over the next year, the material went through every state imaginable to me,” Field explains. The rigorous recording and editing process soon became exhausting for him. “[The record] was hanging over my head in some way like a black cloud that I couldn’t get rid of; it was very heavy and deep. It was so hard to tie it all together, and at some point, I didn’t know what to do, so I just dropped it for maybe six months.”

Luckily, Field’s friend Alexi Glickman emerged to reinvigorate him and aid him with finishing the record. “[Black Grass] was like a shaky house to me — one in which I had experienced an earthquake, and I wasn’t sure I could go back because I was scared,” Field recalls. “[Glickman] helped me put wood over metal, so to speak — to warm up the songs that were all electronic instruments because I was in over my head and couldn’t make sense of anything.”

Black Grass finally came to complete fruition with additional assistance from Paul Oldham, who mastered the album, and Brett Simundson, who, according to Field, “helped change the overall gluing of the album by running it through his gadgetry and warming the sound in a way that wouldn’t have occurred to me.”

“It was a stone soup situation, and everyone put in their worth,” Field expresses thankfully. “We all sort of live in the same neighborhood [in San Francisco], and it’s nice to feel like you live in a place that’s rich in resources where something can go from start to finish without really leaving our zip code.”

The general interconnectedness of life and human beings, as inferred from The Power Of Myth, has helped turn Black Grass from an outlet mired in tragedy to a wellspring of positive lessons.

“[I've learned] I can trust others’ opinions and let people get involved and not try to take over and control the whole thing. I think it has built some new gears into these important friendships and that we have made something we are all proud of,” Field explains.

“Also, that something can be brought back to life,” he continues. “I went through a period of anxiety when I was afraid of the songs and what they exposed or what truth they held for me, and it felt almost too telling. I am really glad to have moved past that point and am just thankful that I was surrounded by the right people who gave so generously of their time and energy.”

When you see a Little Wings performance these days, Field’s on-stage banter is more reflective of that of a stand-up comedian than of a wallowing grump. He may still be singing about life’s pains, but he is a changed man. Black Grass served its purpose as a cathartic tool, but through it all, Field has managed to keep his secrets close to him.

“I am always trying to put it in a nutshell, and a fancy mixed one at that…” Field says. “I try to strike the balance between what feels important for me to say and what I think people are capable of understanding.”

And it is this fundamental quality – a mixture of myth and reality – that makes Black Grass the compelling, complex listen it is.

Black Grass Lyrics

1. Gold Teeth

Gold teeth by candlelight poured some wine
We clipped a wick and we both went blind
All of the hands have long quit clapping
And though we undid all our wrapping
It seems so long how have we managed
To make it back from all the damage?
The greatest green giant ever seen
Now that this Earth has all gone green

Up in smoke you dope and holler
I ask a stranger for a doller
The leaves will change but that don’t matter
For when they fall the wind will scatter
Autumn’s red rooster came to stay
And pecked it’s hole as the summer’s say
Though the cock fight soon was busted
By winter flakes that Snow White dusted
We saw some peckers do their darndest
To reap the flesh of foul mouthed harvest
If scuby can co-exist why can’t we?
As he floats by chill as can be

We start wars that we can’t finish
We criticize our neighbor’s blemish
Nike Christ peace sign Mercedes
Pergatory Heaven Hades
A couple people gathered round the apple tree
The serpent was a pusher rather naturally
All of the fig leaves that he sold us
Would make us pretty so he told us
Dad was so mad his thunder clapping
He closed the park and sent us packing
It seems so long how have we managed
To make it back from all the damage?

BACK TO TOP

2. How Come?

Let’s raise a family warmly now growing
Which waits a while in the mean time we’re knowing
All that I see all that is a part of me
Turns into the past eventually
Could is good should is beaked and feeding
Some things drift again and nothing new survives repeating
Yours and mine hope is a beacon
So we watch a while go by and all the light is leaking
What would it take to make it right?
We’ve blurred the colors of our face
When you’re a dark and empty night
How come I let you in my place?
What would a little bit still mean?
We’ve painted all the grass blades black
When I’m a cloud/claw like I have been
How come you always take me back?

Let’s think it through again, see it in some meaning
How to sweeten up the sight that we’ve been busy beating
All that I can all that part about the plan
Take it back and try to understand
Should is tough likely to call out the bluff
Clipping at the peak and all the noise is just as much
My cold crown I’ve been busy freezing
So we watch a while go by and all the light is leaking
While we wait a while goes on and all the light is leaking

What would a little bit still mean?
We’ blurred the colors of our face
When I’m a claw like I have been
How come you let me in your place?
What would it take to make it right?
We’ve painted all the grass blades black
When you’re a dark and empty night
How come I always take you back?

BACK TO TOP

3. Mr. Natural

I don’t really know if I ever get to see you again
The branchy things above are breaking in the cold and falling in
Old Mr. Natural made of grass did he burn?
A smokey old scarecrow who would never learn
All of his stuff gets pecked by the birds
A hollow head is all he heard

He invited me to his cardboard chalet
A better time could not be had he’d say
Though he’d mussed up so many other times
He had to ask me anyway

I don’t really know if I’m ever going to see you again
The branches up above are breaking in the cold and falling in
Cover the place when you spread yourself on the ground

BACK TO TOP

4. Can I Knock On This Door?

Can I knock on this door?
Hey are you here what are you here for?
A gingerbread apartment what a score
Can I knock on this skull
Hey are you there beware (what is) the autumn’s pull
A cornacopia that’s almost full
Full of what’s coming tomorrow
And characters to tame
Asleep inside a hollow log
Snake rabbit snail/lighter
Cigarette immune to flame
I called (the) family up in a dream
A movie we all know
What is so powerful that it stayed/stays the same?
The sun came back tomorrow

Can I knock on this door
Can you open it some more
I’d like to see how your house rearranged
An earthquake, big loud boom then a shake
A wave within a wave

BACK TO TOP

5. I Grow Too

Out of all the ashes
Of the past it crashes fast
Waving to you
And the flag is flipping on the pole
Black hole ripping
Like some kite soul shredding in two
or the rise of the hill humped up
And breeching in the meadow

I Grow II

Out of all the ashes of the past it crashes fast waving to you
And the gail is shredding the flag’s tail like some dark veil tearing into
When the day and it’s ray
Are cloud-hid hit the hay haleigh-a-loo
Like the crack in the glass on the window of the van I’m crawling into
Why does all the canopy seem taller now that can’t be true I grow too!
Lose sight of the life that’s sometimes right but didn’t you?
Help remind me please I just can’t place what I was trying to do
And like a flash it comes back from the distance I remember now / remember anew

Why does all the canopy seem higher now that can’t be true
And in ways I guess that I feel smaller, yeah maybe I do
Is it mirror in a mirror looking back all of them you?
And does the distance make me more or less the same and how I came looking to you?

BACK TO TOP

6. Come Fall

When the rising tide is rowdy
And the summer crowd is crowdy
I feel your leaves cover with ease
Sidewalk and seam awoke in your beam
When the fall flood is a vapor
And I put myself in paper
The ink is like blood so it feels good
Fingery branches arm and hand wood
When the light at last is dying
And the truth in me is trying
To see what I do looking me through
Focus and bring all the bells to ring true
Come fall come fall come fall come fall
Come fall end it all

BACK TO TOP

7. Stay Joking

Changes carved in other changes
Pattern forms then rearranges
I blanked out within the recess/abcess
Wore the day in several pieces
Only as the twig was snapping
Did I twitch awake from napping
Noticing a shadowed outline
There in front of the wind white capping
Late day breeze brings something stranger
Stay joking to cheat the danger
When the heat gets caught git in anger
Woah, the wind won’t die
What have you brought me here?

Pidjin morning learn to suck beer
All folded in coast is crisp
And a shoelace makes a last wish
Ditch witch a britched young lass
So say at the sick bridge pass
I showed myself to them
As they showed me such a wicked grin/grim

BACK TO TOP

8. Fall Skull

Fall skull breathes the trees rain leaves
The skies reign pleas the seashore seethes
Rustle the ground a new skulls found
I see through now eyes I now know disguise
Nesting in head and resting in bed
My life feels funny my skull’s been bled
Skull nest is wide where the dead birds do hide
On a bridge in the bay on the sea monster’s side
Before our race is run before our best is done
Oh lord here’s your sword for when the war is won
Or you’re bored a rabbit and a Capricorn
Like a skull in the leaves linked to animal characters
Adam and Eve and the snake and the dust life breathed
Gold plated skulled rabbit in the capitol
And the snake with an evil head
The snake is resting in the tree of knowledge
The kind that you can’t get in college eating from Eve’s hand
In a skull by the bay where the seagull songs play
As a seahorse by evening where the setting sun lay
And a seasong to sing of a sea feeling thing
A skull in the autumn what mercy death brings

BACK TO TOP

9. Little Bit

When will you be (with) me
When will the day make way
When will the hold let go
When will the sky open?
Just a little… bit
Only a little… bit
I tried to go fast at first
Bury the worst of things
Barrelling blind
Deaf to the truth that rings
Slowly to rise
Above the cursed stings
Only to find
Some quiet song that sings
A little… bit
Just a little… bit

When will you beam through me
When will my skull start pulling
All of the things I need
This quiet song to feed
I tried to make way and make room
Bury the gloom and go it can be tough
Though you already know
All of this stuff
It really helps to show
Just how it came
And how it can start to grow
A little… bit
Only a little… bit
When will you be with me?
When will your eyes open?
When will the day give way?
When will the sign just show
Only a little… bit

BACK TO TOP

10. Black Grass

Of the darkened past and the shadows in the grass
All that exploded like a shattered glass
Followed on foot indeed the cliff by the county line
Ran on up the road a piece making up some time
New night like a battery
New night for ye old choke soak
Feel the wind unwind
Like the end of a shredded rope
The Neptune’s net parking lot pets all know
That the sun is sinking down into the big below

Moon shining on the black grass

I got lost sometime found some fruit rotten on the vine
Dumb but still talking looking but still blind
Surprised to see it here I thought I left it all behind
Seems the seeds been planted the entire time
With a big black cloud from the valley coming over the hill
Hand perched on the dark burnt cup so careful that it spills / so special that it spills
Like a thorn in deep
Seeking something so strong that it kills
And the human being and the bird and beast on the window sill
Moon shining on the black grass

www.kyledraws.com

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The relationship between ritualistic drumming and consciousness alteration is an age old tradition stemming largely from the overlooked shamanic cultures of antiquity. It should go without saying that viewing the supposed “triumph” of Western materialism thought over the more “primitive” concepts of animism is a retardedly short-sighted way of oversimplifying the universe, but that’s the way most of us look at it. Those crazy shamans, wasting all their time with that useless spirituality. It’s hard to blame us; we’ve been mind-raped from the jump by our society. How many beer commercials have I seen in my life? I’m sure the number’s in the tens of thousands. So, whereas conventional science won’t even come close to acknowledging this reality, it should be somewhat obvious that repetitive rhythmic patterns have the ability to create powerful trance like mind states either by themselves or more effectively, when used in conjunction with certain psychoactive substances (this band’s MySpace layout has giant mushrooms floating around in the background — I’m just saying).

This research is not being done, and it probably never will be due to the psychotic “war on consciousness,” as Graham Hancock refers to it, so forays into this type of calculated experimentation fall into the hands of artists, musicians, casual thrill-seekers, and neurological outlaws… which is where a band like Swahili comes in. Oh, did I mention that I can’t stand drum circles? Yeah, I’ve walked out of more than a few parties when they’ve spontaneously mobilized. Which is what’s kind of interesting about this new brand of psychedelic culture that’s emerging. Whereas hippies are hell bent on worshipping at the altar of the past, the urban tripster is starting to take the reins and push things firmly towards ecstatic hyperspace.

It’s not that the drum circle isn’t a fine way of screwing with your head; it’s just boring. Clichéd. Played out. Take your pick. It’s 2011. We’ve got Xboxes, smart phones, gajillions of FX pedals, sequencers, and all other manner of random auditory gadgetry at our disposal. Just a bunch of hippies playing drums? Booooooooring. Oh, and it’s been done. God, Phish suck too, and I’ve always thought Grateful Dead were insanely mediocre. Jerry Garcia was a fucking heroin addict, for Christ’s sake. I don’t know; that stuff just doesn’t have much of an effect on my headspace when I listen to it, other than that it fades into the background like muzak in an elevator.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW

I suppose the problem with both the rave scene, and the hippie movement (and really the New Age movement, in spiritual terms) is the insistence on ignoring or not even acknowledging your dark side. If you do this, it will destroy you, which is kind of what we saw in both cases. There’s got to be a balance between the two — the angelic and demonic, the yin and the yang, chaos and order, structure and anti-structure, etc. If you think, “All you need is love,” then why the fuck do we spend half our money on imperialistic wars? Why are the drugs that made you think, “All you needed was love,” illegal in the first place? Fortunately, a new brand of bands like Liars, Prince Rama, and now Portland’s Swahili are cropping up and reclaiming the trance drum ritual as a legitimate art form.

It’s a cool idea. This album is all about non-stop beats constantly pounding their way into your aura and boldly warping your thought patterns. These guys aren’t huge on melody, but when the witch vocals kick in on the album’s true stand-out track, “Soma,” it’s the kind of unholy sacrament that communicates the presence of the divine uncanny and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. The rest of the album is dense with succulent pulsing rhythms, calculated keyboard mindfuckery, and otherworldly dream incantations. So basically, it kind of owns. But you really need to see these kids live to catch the full effect. Having caught them at the Josephine last week, I had this experience where I was trying to focus the contents of my mind’s eye on some calculated sigils, when out of nowhere, the music took control and transformed them into the eye of abstract character sketch I made like ten years ago. I kind of floated back and forth through the colossal thought form Cyclops while the beats intensified and guided my visions. Neither science nor religion will ever be able to properly explain how this kind of thing happens, or why — so fuck ‘em.

www.swahilinoise.com

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February 2008 Interview

“[I find my materials in] alleyways, roadsides, and other places you’d expect to see junk,” Bask explains. “It’s like being on a treasure hunt sometimes, looking for that perfect panel to paint on.”

When we last spoke to Bask over a year and a half ago, his work was largely motivated by political and social issues. They featured huge amounts of iconic commercial figures and symbols, for example, the Morton’s salt girl or dirty ol’ Linus from The Peanuts.

“When I first started incorporating brand icons into my work, I started to notice how people would react to certain paintings of mine,” Bask recalls. “I started to recognize the power of “the brand,” and their collective messages to consume, consume, consume.”

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One commercially-inspired piece piece that stood out at that time was one that was created using a sign from an old coffee shop in Miami. The piece was entitled Harvey’s Cafe, and featured half of the green Starbucks crest emerging out of the carcass of Harvey’s Cafe’s old hand-painted sign. Bold red letters above the Starbucks crest read, “COMING SOON,” and a small message is inscribed in ink, saying, “Another failed attempt to fit in.”

At that time, Bask didn’t think much about the closure of the coffee shop and was simply excited to have found an interesting new panel to paint on. But when he returned to Miami months later, he saw that a brand new Starbucks had opened in the location of the old Harvey’s, and it made a significant impact on him.

“We all have heard and seen examples of large corporate chains pushing out the little guy, but this case hit home with me, and I didn’t really know why,” explains Bask. “Maybe it was the change of guard switching out one humble little coffee shop for the bigger, better new one, or maybe it was the fact I actually had a piece of Harvey’s in my studio like an old fossil, [as] proof that it once stood.”

Although Bask does not seem any less politically or socially-aware now than he was before, his works have changed through the years — in context and in influence.

“As an artist, I’m influenced by the current state of affairs as a whole,” Bask says. “There are broad issues like the war in Iraq and our government’s constant missteps, but I’m also influenced greatly by personal issues. Over the years, my work has become less political in theme and more personally intimate in meaning. I’d rather my paintings inspire than preach.”

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW

But in some cases, sometimes a message is on the tip of Bask’s tongue, waiting to be heard by the world. We were lucky enough to have Bask custom-design the cover of this issue for us, and as a fan of all types of music, he was clearly inspired by injustices in the music industry when he created this piece. The art features a vintage-style man who looks like a stereotypical corporate fat cat. He is donning a suit and smiling cheekily while a cigar pokes out from through his teeth. On the man’s hand is a scraggly puppet he is controlling; the puppet wears an anarchy t-shirt and is waving flags that say “indi” on them. It’s a clear and forceful message.

“The piece is inspired by the state of affairs in the music industry,” Bask explains. “Words like “indie” and “punk” seem to be fading fast, and in their places, we get deluded [artists] owned by large record labels. I’m not saying [all musicians] on large labels are evil and bad, but in many cases, large labels use smaller, more underground labels in an attempt to legitimize themselves to audiences. They are basically buying street cred.”

As a full-time artist, Bask works at home, in his studio. He may not paint everyday, but art is on his mind daily. Like most artists, if he has a show coming up, he tends to go all out and dives in headfirst. On the topic of crunch time before a gallery showing, Bask says, “I’ll paint 20 hours a day for a week straight, then crash for a few days and repeat the process.”

Bask’s pieces frequently have a decayed look to them, and the amount of detail in every nook and cranny of his work is sometimes hard to keep up with. His pieces look like they’ve been weathered for years, and the paints crack, blister, and peel with personality. These effects, coupled with the use of bright colors and innovative thinking, help Bask’s work command attention in the streets as well as in the galleries.

It is sometimes difficult for artists to find venues that have their best interests in mind, but Bask believes that with enough perseverance and patience, any artist can find those galleries.

And as for the ones that might not look as kindly upon his work as he’d like, he has no qualms about them. To him, it seems simple. Artists need galleries to hang their work in. Sell yourself.

“It must be my graffiti, ego-driven personality,” he says, “but I make my work to be seen by as many people as possible. I chose to be a career artist, and there is no room to be shy.”

But there is a little room to be shy as an artist, particularly when it comes to being present at your own art shows. “[It] is very intimidating,” Bask says. “It’s like standing in a room naked while people come up and praise and/or critique everything about you.”

Bask has not found much difficulty in finding galleries in where to show his street- and graffiti-influenced work. As far as he can tell, street art is becoming more and more mainstream.

“From my experience, street art today is so in vogue that galleries are open to artists that present street elements in their work. Too much so, in my opinion,” Bask admits. “Street art is becoming so mainstream that the figurative pond is becoming muddied up. But like with everything else, time will sift out the true from the rest.”

END.

August 2006 Interview

You use a lot of commercial references in your work. Why? What does this have to do with growing up and noticing the similarities between communistic propaganda vs. commercial icons?
I use commercial images as metaphors or symbols of contradiction in scenarios playing out in my work. The other purpose they serve is as bait to viewers who identify with a particular icon being used. I use the power of familiarity and twist them to deliver a message of my own. As for the communist and commercial comparison? They both use very similar tactics using images to promote a way of life. In capitalism, you have choices, but each individual brand pushes their product the same way a totalitarian regime pushes propaganda.

When did you first find a correlation between communistic propaganda and commercial icons?
When I first started incorporating brand icons into my work, I started to notice how people would react to certain paintings of mine. That’s when I saw a very specific relationship between commercial images and regular folks. I started to recognize the power of “the brand,” and their collective messages to consume, consume, consume. In the Communist regime I grew up in, the message was different, but the way propaganda was relentlessly promoted through the media was very similar.

Do you consider yourself a political person?
I think “conscious” would be more accurate than political. A political person, to me, is someone active in anything from protesting to running for office. Although many of my paintings are political, most of my work deals with more personal and social issues.

What advice can you give artists who are trying to get their work out independently?
I’ve never taken a crash course in art promotions, and have kind of worked on intuition. The secret formula is to be consistently productive in all things involved with your art, and don’t be lazy. The other advice I would give is: make your own opportunities, instead of waiting for them to find you.

What was the first art piece you remember doing that people took notice of?
I think when I used to make little handmade holiday cards for my family as a child. The satisfaction I got after presenting my toiled mess to someone and making them smile was the best feeling ever.

Your works definitely use a lot of textures. Is the love for textures something you’ve always had? Did it emerge naturally from being a street artist first?
Doing street art definitely shaped my approach my art, which would include how textured my work is. Aside from how appealing textured surfaces are to me, what I really enjoy is the challenge of painting on them. It makes it look more like art to me, rather some manufactured promotion.

What is the message behind your street art, and what do you think of random graffiti that does not put forth a message?
The Bask In Your Thoughtcrimes campaign promotes free-thinking and the separation from the status quo. The word “thoughtcrime,” as you may well know, was first coined by George Orwell in the book 1984. I found this word very fitting and appropriate to the message I was trying to put forth. As for other graffiti, I love it. I love all forms of street art, be it a commissioned mural or a tag on a dumpster. The art is the message when it comes to street art and graffiti, and to me, there is no higher art then it.

Can you pick one of your pieces and explain it?
I made ["Harvey's Cafe"] from a panel I took from a coffee shop that went under in Miami. I don’t live in Miami, so I never had a chance to visit this place. Now, I’ll never get the chance. From what I could gather, though, it was as mom and pop as you can get, and had been there for years before closing. At the time, I didn’t give it any further thought beyond [the fact that] I just found a great panel to paint on. A few months later, I returned to Miami and saw that a brand new Starbucks had opened in the old Harvey’s location. We all have heard and seen examples of large corporate chains pushing out the little guy, but this case hit home with me, and I didn’t really know why. Maybe it was the change of guard switching out one humble little coffee shop for the bigger, better new one, or maybe it was the fact I actually had a piece of Harvey’s in my studio like an old fossil, [as] proof that it once stood.

REDEFINE stands for a lot of the things that your “bask in your thoughtcrimes” mentality does. That being said, it seems similar to your mentality of non-conformity. Want to give our readers a message of sorts in your own vein?
I guess I would quote slogan coined by Joseph Campbell and tell your readers to “follow your bliss.” Non-conformity is a state of mind, so as long as you wake up every morning and love what you do, then, in my opinion, you’re winning the game of life. Not everybody can play a guitar or paint a picture, but everybody has individual hopes and dreams that can be achieved if pursued.

END.

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music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Bask In Your Thoughtcrimes Artist Interview