We are building peaks so you don’t have to. Carefully scraping the earth from dust, sculpting mountains in the shapes of sine waves and injecting our dreams as carefully as we can. With each rising set and every setting rise, the landscape that reflects from our deceptive senses soothes and settles. I center my self as separate from the “we,” and I’m sitting in a soft easy chair, a remote control in each hand, flipping through the channels— knowing that the static in between each will be enough raw energy to move the mountains that I must the next day. Today is my day off. Today I relax, settling my mind into a tristeza moment, sequencing my brain to dream signals in full circles.
With each breath I inhale, the world gasps a sigh of relief, collectively. Respira is our breathing ritual here. We build the mountains, only to climb to the top, dignity waiting there in the form of a mechanical apparatus that we are assumed to know its usage. My mind is scattered, but with each breath—the rise and fall of my abdomen like mountains or sine waves, the image becomes more complete. There is a symphony in our minds, and it progresses ever-forward without wagnerian pomposity, but simply in a supra-psychic manner, allowing the locus of control become the lotus of thought. Two-fold. Three-fold. Ever closer to becoming not only one on top of the mountain, but the mountain itself. My feet are tired, scabby; this is immaterial. This is paper thin, I can rip it with my fingers.
The City of the Future operates on something purer than logic. I can see it from the top of the mountain, but only faintly. It could be some disintegration of the clouds in addition to my mind’s eye’s trickery of physical dimension. From the peak of vantage point that I now command—that we all command, each individually our own; there is a biofeedback machine. I put on the headphones. I put on the headphones. I put on the headphones. I put on the headphones. I am on the street. Information fits together in tetris-like blocks, as a physical representation of my self passes another, a thought from my mind (like sweet turpentine static) forms and transfers. There is no playing to win. There is only open communication, where each rip of static brings not only the beholder closer to the dream, but the dream closer to the dreamer. There is timing, and it is off-center. The rewind button, press the rewind button. For you are surely still on the easy chair? No—I climbed that mountain, to the top—the very same I had wrought. I had climbed and then plugged into the biofeedback machine, where I had put the headphones on. I had put the headphones on. I had put the headphones on.
Once the floodgates have opened, there is no stopping the rush. From the metaphorical to the literal in this world, underneath my legs I find a giant body of water, which is millions of molecules of H20 both metaphorical and literal, working together this becomes a body of water. Apparently with designs of its own, as it swifts me through the giant buildings that surround me, from grid-to-grid, we flood the city of the past, and I can see the business men and women, in their offices, on the phone—cup of coffee in hand, watching me body surf by. This world is of my creation; they think nothing of it, shifty and drifty.
We wish it to be so, and it is. For the power is all in that intergalactic static, which is more than just a noise. From the city surrounding me, and the water between my feet—in my hands a piece of paper, that I rip with glee to enter the next level. The auroura borealis—from this perspective my senses become useless to me. It’s almost like that one joke, where I guffaw fractally, each unmesurable moment happening inside each unmeasurable moment happening inside, a guffaw. A flat inside a fog, The cat that was a dog.
I am a cheetah and these are my pastures. I have with me today my young. There they are, scratching on that tree. They are twins and I have not named them. There, futures are laid out, operating on many levels. You, the human have simply forgotten how to operate in multiple dimensions at once. Sometimes you get the picture, reeling in ecstasy. I know what it’s like. But we, of the feline creed (in this particular case), we are operating on multiple levels all at once. You’re abilities and directives are disproportionate. So much more can and will be done. Just don’t be bored. Your mind can withstand the jump, we all did back before the multicontextual wars. You’ll get used to it, I’ll get used to it. Slowly transforming, what I was once… the cheetah fading away in front of me.
Chiaraoscuro? Median. Euskadi. Is nee! Is nee! What you need will set you free, the lonely doorman said. When the baskets are done you will awaken. Chiaraoscuro? Languages. That sort of communication, arbitrary. Can we not communicate this to you enough? Chiaraoscuro? What you need is a language enema, boy. Well, heep, heep. I’m off this train.
”But are we people?” In the darkness? When we are in dream? Is that person? Where does this train end? How can I find the caboose? May be best to drop the meta, drop right out, communicate to the first three circuits. Are we people is a song title. Hold on, I’ll explain it to you right, in the last song.
We’ve been on one short trip this whole time. On this album. This opiate slope (that’s the title to the last song) has been presented to us by Tristeza, a band from San Diego who also share musicians with the Locust and the Album Leaf. This music is both what you would and would not expect from an album titled Dream Signals in Full Circles. Yes, it is music for sleeping. Yes, it occaisonaly has throw-backs (but tasteful) to music of the new age. But it is gentle, and sophisticated without forgetting that all that is just a mask, and that it strives for purpose and function of communication of injecting emotion of bringing the mind to a higher state. It is as recursive and within ego regress as much as I am and my writing is. But it never goes out of meta like I have. There are no mistakes, that make you remember this is just music. You, of course, as a listener can choose to come to that awareness if it can bring about a stronger sense of oneness with the work.
There are guitars. There are synths. There are drums. There are strings. There is a beautiful, warm bass tone pervading everything. The colors are light green and tangerine orange. Recommended for fans of Tortoise, Pullman, Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, the Black Heart Procession etc.
Tracklist
- building peaks
- respira
- city of the future
- shifty drifty
- auroura borealis
- I am a cheetah
- chiaroscuro
- are we people
- opiate slopes
Dream Signals in Full Circles was released by TigerStyle records in 2000. There is now a remix album available of this album, Mixed Signals. It is alright.