New album – New website
www.darkensemble.net is our new website. We hope you’ll take a moment to visit us and listen to some of our samples and have a look at the book we made : Body With Drawing including our CD. Thank you!
album finished
It has been a while; from the first text analyses starting in December 2010 to the final audible result September 2011 it has proved to be an exciting and fruitful journey. I am very happy to announce our debut album release in January 2012; DarkEnsemble proudly presents: Body With Drawing.
The album consists of two different tracks (of around 25 minutes) both constructed according a very different method but with exactly the same ingredients.
Ingredients:
Blanka Pesja: writing and voice.
Gal Aner: synths, recording acoustics, constructing soundscapes, mixing.
Christian Pabst Trio: playing acoustic improvisation.
Method:
A) First method:
First constructing an electronic soundscape / second adding acoustic improvisation and language, recorded simultaneously in real time over the fixed soundscape.
B) Second method:
First recording the acoustic improvisation/ second constructing with the recorded material and over the recorded material an electronic soundscape/ third recording the language as the last layer.
C). the text:
“Body with drawing” used for part I can be read in the archives and “Body withdrawing” written for part II can be read in the book that accompanies the CD..
More writing on this exciting exploration of the delicate relationship of language and music will follow.
second verse part 2
First to face
On the level of meaning: First we need to confront. The beginning starts with addressing the issue. After the cloth is taken off we need to face, deal with reality….and dealing with our selves after the reference of shelving the Self.
Etching one line
On the level of meaning: after “let’s draw a line” of the first verse, this is a much harder expression. Etching is a harder way than drawing, it calls for a long term statement but also putting one’s foot down…not just draw a line as putting a mark or setting a limit or a border…no…with etching a line we make it more definite. It also calls for an association with ownership. In relationship with the title of the piece…body with drawing…etching a line points to a tattoo and therefor taking ownership of the body. Either tattooing it as a “rite de passage”, a ritual marking a new phase….again: first to face! A new love can be celebrated by tattooing a name or confirming a bond like sailors tattooing the word Mama on their bodies or entering a membership of some secret or illegal society like in Japan. Also the ownership of the body in the most cruel sense is demonstrated by tattooing a number on the left arm of the Nazi prisoners or marking slaves by burning their skin with a sign.
Electrified above the brow
Electrification can point to modern methods of tattooing done with an electrified needle. But electrified means also the birth of an idea like in cartoons some light bulb starts to shine once an idea is received. Also the birth of enlightment can be indicated, since the notion of a third eye is positioned between the brows, slightly above that point.
The seat of intelligence
….confirms the idea of a place above the brow where our human notions could start. First to face….that part of the face that is above the brow.
Erecting a sacred sign
…this resonates with the “put up a sign” in the last verse. The mark, the border, our pinning down of a center, our focus on the center. Putting a cross on the church, the flag up, the star on the Christmas tree, the Egyptian needle, the totem. Erecting has also a sexual connotation, linked to the word sacred it refers to the transcedence of human sexuality. Take of the cloth and lay down as well as first to face….all could point towards a specific sexual encounter.
Erasing it with our breath
Here the paradox is demonstrated: As the saying goes…What’s done can not be undone, making every action stand out for eternity yet at the same time we can experience the futility of all our action as in The unbearable lightness of being (Milan Kundera). The etching of a line should give us a sense of permanence and therefor importance but by simply breathing, by going through the motion, by living we erase…the footprints on our skin (a line in a later verse when the conclusion of the piece is build up).
On the one hand we have historic tragedy imprinted like a number tattooed on the skin that no breath can erase. This gives the image of breathing on glass to clean it…erasing marks so that we can see clearly…first to face. On the other hand we seem to erase all the sacred signs with our breath like with a sigh. In the sexual context the erecting is erased by breath, by release through orgasm. Erecting a sacred sign is the human need to get into action and plant the flag on the moon so to speak, the yang side of our existence. Erasing it with our breath is the release, the letting go, the surrender, the ying side of our existence.
Body with drawing second verse part I
First to face
Etching a line
Electrified above the brow
The seat of intelligence
Erecting a sacred sign
Erasing it with our breath
The first verse ended with The Self….the second verse takes it from there.
What needs to be done with this self and the whole story of the Shell, the Shelf and to shelve (see previous blog)? Here comes the advise…we need first to face.
Also this active advise tone is the actual beginning of the story telling within the first and last verse; both deal with the cloth and the line and in this way embrace the different bits and pieces in between.
To face something means getting real but also it refers again to the teachings of Emanuel Levinas as being confronted with the other. Our face belongs to us, we are known by it, we read faces all the time, the first thing we notice about another is often the face, the first thing we like or dislike in another is often the face.
On the level of meaning we have the face as the appearance of another and of our ability to confront. This creates a follow up on taking off the cloth, but also of getting inside the shell and finally to the self which has the face as a means of transport to contact the outside world.
On the level of sound and rhythm it has a F alliteration which pulls first and face together creating an up jump rhythmical break from all the shhhhhh sounds and the long e of the previous verse: the shell, shelf, shelve.
Sound wise we go from shhhhhhhhhh into f t f. Heralding again a new beginning.
On the level of value; first is quite a priority and face is also a strong word attracting force to it. The placement (as another indication of value) supports this even more so, being the new begeinning of story telling in a different language tone after the theme introduction of the first vers. Here the tone speeds up and gets louder waking us up from the contemplating atmosphere of the introduction.
Body with drawing analyses first verse part IV
Language as carrier of meaning:
Here I present a few combination as examples, the intonation, the language tone will of course dominate the meaning in the first degree. The rhythmical pattern set by the different combinations will be a dominant in the second degree.
Let’s see how this might work:
1)
Let’s touch the shell
On the shelf to shelve
The self
- shell as the cover to be touched and therefor it’s main function to protect and keep the inner safe or avoid touch/ connection or to be eaten…is denied with this active form of let’s do it…touch it.
The let’s…becomes the dominant lead…like let us deny the limit, the border set by another being…it makes the whole sentence aggressive. Go on…do it…is the active mode of expression.
- In the second meaning of shell being some sort of bombshell …it becomes even more aggressive…let’s touch the shell….next thing you’ll know is that we might use it, throw it…break it. It becomes even more threatening. In this meaning the let’s is no longer a one-on-one but could mean a whole army or all of us.
2)
Let’s touch
The shell on the shelf
To selve the self
- this on the other hand is much softer, the basic action is of touching while our shell is on the shelf...while our protection is put up somewhere on a board or while the shell lies on a riff giving it a more precise placement near the sea. This sets a slightly romantic tone.
to shelve the self
- to put aside for consideration what is thought of as our inner being called the self. Or even stronger to let go of the self all together if we take to shelve as gliding into the sea like a riff or land mark…the self could glide away from usinto nothingness…to shelve the self can mean to loose the self so to speak.
Let’s touch the shell on the shelf to shelve the self, could very simply mean let’s grab the bomb that is lying on the board to kill us all off.
Or
3)
Let’s touch
The shell on the shelf
To shelve the self
- Here the order is first to introduce the action of let us touch…while the shell is on the shelf ….to shelve the self…This order commands that we need to touch in order to be able to consider the self. Only in the connection with another person do we get to know who we really are…becaue by doing this we need to be putting our shell on the shelf. Without parking the cover, we can not touch andwithout touching we can not get to know the self.
Or it could mean: We need to touch to get rid of the self, this is because our cover is parked somewhere, stagged on a shelf.
Or last but not least
4)
Let’s
Touch the shell
On the shelf to shelve
The Self
- here we speak of a wish to do something…let’s…..could mean anything…Because of the silent break after the let’s…we create then a commando: touch the shell. Maybe we considered something else but we dare not proceed. It creates a longing of enormous proportion.
Let’s (sigh)…okay we deside to break the spell by demanding or pleading Touch the shell. It’s then we who are on the shelf to shelve….something called the self.
On the shelf to shelve could mean being parked away, lay on a board…to put aside for consideration…The self.
Also the slang meaning of being considered a no longer attractive-enough-to-be-married woman, could mean….remaining single or choosing celibacy so as to consider once self to get to know or even establish a self from which it would be possible to relate to another…getting back into the condition of the beginning let’s as in let us.
The form here is centric; caught between let’s and the self. So the starting point is Let us…considering a togetherness, touch the shell, then means connect with the outside or touch the shell from the inside where one is alone, because one has remained single to consider the self…the essential centre but also maybe the ego that keeps the other out of reach.
Maybe here we need to touch the shell from the inside to get to know what keeps us inside where we are parked away, hidden, so as to be able to consider our self.
Body with drawing analyses first verse part III
Body with drawing: first verse part III
Lyric: The importance of placement (value) for the tonality (sound and rhythm) and message (meaning).
The collection within the first verse:
Let’s touch
The shell
On the shelve
To shelve
The self
The placement here will provoke the meaning and set the mood for the music and vice versa, the music improvisation can drive the language into different modes of meaning.
Let’s first explore the language as carrier of meaning by sorting out each possible definition.
A) Shell
1) the hard outer covering of a shellfish, egg, nut etc.
2) an outer covering or framework
3) a metal case filled with explosives and fired from a gun
Active:
- to shell means to remove from its shell
- to shell means to fire explosive shells at: “the army shelled the enemy mercilessly.”
Later in the text there will be talk of a general and of spooky battlefields connecting with this level of meaning.
Extras:
- coming out of one’s shell:
Becoming more confident and less shy
- shell out:
You have to shell out 10 euro to pay for that.
- Shelly can be a girl’s name
Like the actress Shelly Winters or the poet Percy Bishhet Shelley.
The Shelf:
1) a board for laying things on: “There are shelves on the kitchen walls.”
2) A rock surface shaped like a shelf, especially on a mountain or under water. Like a riff or a clip.
To Shelve:
1) to put aside, usually for consideration, completion etc later: “The project has been shelved for the moment.”
2) (Or land) to slope gradually: “The land shelves towards the sea.”
Extra/ slang:
On the shelf:
Being an unmarried woman thought of as no longer likely to attract a man enough for him to want to marry her.
But also more general:
to be rejected (in love/romance)
Consider the following placement as defining the value in ways much the same dynamics do in music.
Let’s touch the shell
On the shelf to shelve
The self
Or
Let’s touch
The shell on the shelve
The shelve the self
Or
Let’s
Touch the shell
On the shelf to shelve
The Self
I think while playing with the above definitions (meaning) and placements (value) you can come up with a lot of differences that can alter the whole course of what comes next.
Body with drawing analyses first verse part II
Body with drawing
The first verse analyses part II
Verse 1:
Take off
The cloth
Lay down
Let’s form a line
Let’s touch the shell
On the shelf to shelve
The Self
In the second line:
- The Cloth gives a connection with unwrapping a mummy (mummy can come from the Persian word mum, meaning bitumen referring to the blackness of the body…hence the black line on fine linen in the last verse.)
Also the black line on fine linen makes the act of writing, or poetry itself, rather physical, as the whole text later on can be sexualized but at
the same time is also death related. Here comes the French use of La petit mort as a metaphor for
orgasm in focus.
In such a context the wrap me up in your cloth in the last verse is an act of preserving the died Self or even a metaphor for incarnation, if the cloth is the body on which life is written and that which is to be touched.
Only when wrapped can the act of being touched or known actually take place. Something has to die as the transcendence of sexuality is
visualized by the metaphor of La petite mort.
As such the cloth has a death relationship as it can refer to the body as being the cloth of the soul and protect it as a shell. Both can also refer to the ego as the embodiment of the “I” or ‘me’ thought.
The black line in relationship with cloth reminds me strongly of the drawings of Egon Schiele. Especially this one:
The word cloth creates another strong association with Europe’s best known cloth, the one hanging in Turin,
Italy, also known as the Shroud of Turin. For ages it is believed to have captured the imprint of Christ’s face at his crucifixion as it resembles very much a man’s face in pain. Today’s scientists have come to the conclusion that the cloth comes from the 13th century. However
nobody knows how the imprint, the mark is fixed on the linen. This creates a nice analogue with art-poetry-music; how does art express the image of human suffering. There is not a clear explanation of how the connection of contend and form is established and this seems not all to be important. In the end the image and the story connects the object of the past to be relevant for today’s observers.
The link with this cloth comes with the second verse, first line: first to face….introducing again Emanuel Levinas and his philosophy of The Face, the one-to-one relationship:
“The human face we encounter first of all as being the face of another, strikes us as a highly ambiguous phenomenon. It arises here and now without finding its place within the world. Being neither something real inside, nor something
ideal outside the world, the face announces the corporeal absence (leibhaftige Abwesenheit) of the other.”
Maybe this could help to explain the enormous obsession of the art world with the self-portrait.
On the cloth in Turin it symbolizes the face of a human suffering.
Another very important ‘cloth’ link for me is the town Turin; the place of Primo Levi…the writer of “If this is a man”…a book that I have re-read many times as well as many of his other works.
Primo Levi survived the holocaust but as other tragic survivors it has been mentioned he might have committed suicide on 11 april 1987 (strangely 11 April was the birthday of my boyfriend who commited suicide on 30 march that same year, not even becoming 25 years of age.)
The black line on fine linen in the last verse
is a metaphor for the tattoo on his arm…and the need to remember, to etch the memory of the human condition for what it is in our being or our archetypical body.
Hence the second line (verse 2) mentioning the: etching one line.
And of course the skin as metaphor for cloth shows our
suffering….shows how long we have lived and how we have lived and how our condition is now….like the fur of an animal.
- Lay down…in connection with cloth, is not only the cloth to lay down but also the body itself. When we suffer we lay down…to be unwrapped…(or wrapped)…or balsamed…or burried, wrapped in cloth and wrapped by earth.
We have also put down the cloth on the
face of a man suffering, lay down the paper to draw on, lay down the hands on the piano, the hands on the loved one, on the lover, lay down the ego, lay down together to make love…on the cloth.
Body with drawing: analyses first verse -part I
Body with drawing
The first verse analyses part I
Verse 1:
Take off
The cloth
Lay down
Let’s draw a line
Let’s touch the shell
On the shelf to shelve
The Self
It takes off with the first line:
-Take off, in the multiple meaning of 1) undress, 2) begin, 3) ascent and 4) leave. With this first sentence a vulnerability is implied: showing once vulnerability by undressing or leaving. Withdrawing when it is too much or you just don’t want to be seen. This also means drawing a line, indicated in line 4: it is in the NO where real intimacy is born, an intimacy based on the notion of vulnerability out of which we set limits and thus defining form; drawing a line than also refers to writing lines as in poetry and drawing lines as in pictures defining the form.
The philosopher Emanuel Levinas writes about
“…not ever wanting the be a pawn in another person’s script”.
It is in the not knowing the Other where we respect the other
on his/her terms…here a quote from wikipedia:
“Levinas derives the primacy of his ethics from the experience of the
encounter with the Other. For Levinas, the irreducible relation, the
epiphany, of the face-to-face, the encounter with another, is a
privileged phenomenon in which the other person’s proximity and
distance are both strongly felt. “The Other precisely reveals himself
in his alterity not in a shock negating the I, but as the primordial
phenomenon of gentleness.”
Touch in the 5th line can equal this gentleness of the connection. It is not a grab or hold, it is more like reaching out.
Heidegger writes about “warten in Gelassenheid” when he addresses the issue of a metaphysical connection. This waiting in equanimity is part of an artist’s skill. An active-passive reaching, an inviting that equals touching. In this respect the artist does not grab
or hold; like fish it will escape him only as we learn to open up and reach out in poise, sansfoid, can we touch upon it and experience such a connection.
body with drawing
Body With Drawing.
Take off
The cloth
Lay down
Let’s draw a line
Let’s touch the shell
On the shelf
To shelve the Self
First to face
Etching a line
Electrified above the brow
The seat of intelligence
Erecting a sacred sign
Erasing it with our breath
Facing cruel creeps, peeping through
Seeing through crap, the happy horror
Of a laughing mob and silenced sobs
Opening the line, spreading dead-sea scrolls
Telling an ancient story with no glory
With no sorry on the parchment, the skin
Blood red, the truth within
We all hope for a sunny summer
With lovers loving, walking everywhere
Rowing their boats through cool green water
Every park’s a temple
I’m not an architect but I love
To touch that silent mark
Just below your pelvis bone
Where you and I are still alone
Could be…home
Like the palm of a hand
Where I ask: Can you?
And you answer: Yes I can!
I once knew men, like a landscape
Traveling my hands up and down
Translating the lines on Europe’s Jewish cathedral
Down pass the sleepy fox in the den of the heart
Quite like dead then: A gentleman will never surrender.
Just below the stomach to the greedy pig
Ravelling in his needs: Wanting so many, so much
Left to the liver a shy camel abides his time in solitude
Back to the chest: a spooky battlefield
Gassed and gloomy: This general will never surrender
All the way up to the head,
Where in a bed of snakes the intellect weeps
And I said: Let me touch your brow my love
And sweep, swoop and sooth it all
And so I did
And he thanked me
And he walked away
Godlike in his naked hope
We accuse you: Sacrificing the sanctuary
We nurtured you with our abundance
You, selfish stuck on sugar and sweets
Sucking your stupidities
How you indulge in your pleasures
Cockles of creativity? Ha no way!
How you obey blindly your fantasies and fancies
Yes, a hollow hurray to your emptiness
Filling your loneliness with cravings
Hurray, hurray, hurray….party time
It’s not the holy head in the cloud
Lubricating on wind, high on warn out phrases
It’s the humble feet firmly rooted
In a child’s pray for adulthood of vision
Sober sanity…time to partake
Let our ravished sea restore into calmness
Silence greater than space
Erase the footprint off the skin
Imprints of a ruthless savage
A homeless soul was a careless soul
A careless soul is a lost soul
Wrap me in your cloth
And lay me down
Put up a sign, here it is:
A black line on fine linen
Here’s a new end to an old beginning
Now…one, two, three, four….the touch
