15. The Carriage of Light

Mountain fog rises from kneeling position, unveiling a treachery of storm clouds canoodled around you.

At this elevation trees no longer roam. What’s left are rivulets of red stones snaking through sagebrush, wending their wishes towards the summit.

A canvas-cover wagon perches against the slope up ahead. Still-low ceilings of mist hide the structure’s top half, but detached wheels and the warmth of light emanating from the wagon’s open entrance invite your questions.

[ Hike up to the caravan, maybe peek inside ] —

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From the drawstring, normally used for tying the wagon’s fabric closed, dangles a handwritten card. Block lettering: “BE NOT INHOSPITABLE TO STRANGERS,” comma included.

You clamber atop a wooden step then — into the prairie schooner.

There’s no one here.

An oil lamp, turned low, illuminates your surroundings: it’s a compendium of candles, pristine, unlit, spread in showcase by color and shape across two long tables run along the wagon interior.

Dots of rainfall upon the canvas roof now.

At cabin’s end stands a totem of the goddess, seemingly floating above its own floor-length candelabra, the only votive with a card — tied to a bundle of matches — hung next to it. Lettering by the same hand: “LEST YOU BE AN ANGEL IN DISGUISE.”

On instinct, you loosen a match and ignite the totem. Across the white canvas roof and hooped walls the figurine leaps into motion, shadows dancing in play, the wick of the goddess sparkling.

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// Side B //

Thank you for tuning in . . . that was track 2 from 2023-12-12’s morning improv, titled “★ search 1. voice-led elegy (4m kenny wheeler smatter melody quote) 7. soaring 12m sunburst”¹. It’s scary for me to show music closer to “the source”, but this past year, marked by facing frights full-frontally, requests that I try. I also hope you enjoy!

These days, my morning routine — cheerfully, the topic of 2023’s most popular instagram post — revolves around coffee but nonetheless leads to free composition. The track title’s long-windedness reveals what happens next:

When gifted extra time on train rides, I listen through recordings of years/weeks past, labeling them with whatever the heck I seemed to be playing at the time . . .

Dec. 12th’s exploration was an exercise in transcribing what I heard from the mind’s ear, in real-time curiosity about melodic + chordal movement. Sometimes my voice is recorded as faintly audible: singing during this exercise makes it easier to connect with the mind’s ear², the source from which all great melodies originate. (On this matter I welcome discussion, debate, mud-wrestling . . . )

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Hello from France’s middle-south bit — wish you were all here for la grande fête! It’s been an uncharacteristically restful holiday with friends, after a year of unrelenting provocations. Two days ago, a dear friend asked me for a single word encapsulating 2023, while opening her notebook to a page brimming with others she’s collected. Before I reveal a sampling of results — what’s your word?

I picked “alchemy” for my 2023. She admitted that this year trended negative — “shit” was chosen four times independently and hers was “tumultuous”. Other notables include “chaotic” and “cocoon-traveling”, hyphen included.

The alchemical procedure I discovered this year was profoundly personal. Long-held traumas, awakened by recent events through shock treatment, unfurled themselves into glorious opportunities for confronting insecurities — and even fear itself. I’d love to tell the full story at some point! For now, though, I just want to give a big hug to everyone reading this, and a celebratory toast to our infinite capacity for re-invention.

🥂🧡

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Lo, I made 4 music videos for you!

1. “Oak Island” is a photo-roman and a postcard journey. In February, the song landed on Spotify’s editorial playlist “All New Jazz” alongside some true heavyweights. Now, it sports a story-soufflé and photography from a trip to Poland’s northern coast. Thank you to Sebastian Chiriboga (drums) and Dean Torrey (bass) — full credits in video description.

2. “Noguchi Beach” is the first music video from Travel Poems . Chapter 2 . The night sea 🌌 🌊 — an album released last October. Similar to the music score, where local elements of the piece change gradually, yet add up to transformations surprisingly quickly, the animation tracks a peculiar passage of time, welcoming the listener+viewer to stay and wonder.
   
   This short film is A.I.-assisted: I directed machines to generate movement in a flow not entirely unlike the musical process. The main difference: the song was improvised in one sitting, whereas video clips were created 4 seconds at a time and strung together, selected for their visual and narrative coherence.

3. Chapter 2’s album-release tour kicked off its boots at Pandora Art Gallery in Berlin, where Nir Sabag (drums) and Giacomo Tagliavia (bass) held court, weaving their impromptu creations through the songs of Travel Poems and my spoken storytelling. We cut a trailer from a few musical performance moments:

4. “Twilight Far” is the first single from the upcoming Travel Poems . Chapter 3 . There is no path back, releasing summer 2024.
   
   The year is 6068. What did art and music from 2023 look like?
   
   The title and the song’s soundscapes take inspiration from the ocean’s timelessness, lives lived underwater literally and in metaphor, and the company of friends. Video-wise, “Twilight Far” crosses over into NFT visual-art territory, with a dash of conceptual commentary — check out the title card for the kooky reveal.

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Last, a piece of musical dessert for your momentous crossing 🍰

I was tasked to compose a Secret Santa song for someone with the pseudonym cyanflower, given the following prompt:

A lone traveller’s escapism, drifting into insanity before realization hits like a rock.

With two hours to puzzle something together, I ended up with the three conceptual stages — escape / insanity / realization — overlapped in a loop, where it’s up to the listener where each one occurs (and not necessarily in order) — loud drums alert! —

Understandably, “Skies Underfoot” received mixed — and very thoughtful — reviews, of which my favorite includes the phrase “confusing yet structured, frantic yet calm juxtaposition”³ — perhaps, at long last, the best description of my 2023 yet.

🐥

1. “12m” means at minute-12; “7.” means somewhere within minute-7; “32>” would mean minute-32 towards the end. Shorthand notations came about from filename length limitations, probably a helpful constraint. (A star means I dig it.)

This track was scored with Metzik’s excellent recording of rain atop a woodshed roof in Hässleholm, Sweden.

The two-part quote is my twist on George Whitman’s excellent reformulation (thank you Misha Crews) of Hebrews 13:2 — as seen in Shakespeare and Company:

2. Other tips for anyone who wants to try:

• Instead of singing while playing, you can sing a phrase (or a single note) before executing on your instrument of choice, then replicating it as closely as possible.

• You can start with melodies atop a chord that doesn’t move, and you can also replace a chord with the drone of a single note. Aaron Parks has a terrific way with a surpeti to connect to voice alone; I like a relaxed octave-roll with the left hand. If anyone wants more info on this I’m down to make a post/video diving into details 🛼

3. Thank you umbresp!