You never send me those lovely letters any more

That time you dreamt of dreaming of being taken up by the birds surfing over the capricious spirals of a wind drawn with delicate lines rising to face gaping clouds dissolving into faces telling you of things you ought not to forget, of things that needed solving down in that ground you had just abandoned, you covered your ears and closed your eyes and let birds with glimmering eyes take you up, just below that space in the unforgiving dome which glimmered with the intensity of a mystery awaiting beyond the grey veil, this is the music you left behind you in an empty grove where things that needed solving were left unsolved so that mysteries that had to be faced were faced, and so they were, we saw a lightning bolt but we never heard the thunder.
Tickley Feather- Fancy Walking
We have championed Tickley Feather since we first listened to her in Art for Spastics, her bewitched S/T album out in Paw Tracks (Badmaster Records if you want vinyl, you so do) is the realisation of a lovely promise, or isn’t Fancy Walking the echo of placid and dreamy humming emerging from a heart-shaped den in the midst of the forests where the threads of the universe are being knit, so you can wear it like a warm sweater covered in the most beautiful patterns?

That time you went to the island, you told me about it with words stolen from someone who had been there before you
‘All down the west coast of the island at night glitter the lights of a city five miles long, its towers like black and gold cigarette packs standing on end. In the malls fluorescent light skids off the surfaces of hard and soft designer goods: matte plastic, foams of lace and oyster satin, the precise curves of cars and shoes and shoulder pads. This city is well-known for the scent of Anais Anais in its street; stacked video screens in the cocktail lounges; and, down by the ocean front- where men push past you smelling of sweat and seafood, and you can hear the soundtrack of your own life playing from the dashboard of a white car- neon of green, red or frosty blue. Music pulses from the amusement arcades, clears its throat in the night clubs. In the jazz bars they serve only Black Heart rum, and you can hear the intricate bass lines twenty miles out to sea‘.
I fell in love in this city I had never been with someone I had never seen, all through the words you had stolen and the music they became
Automat- The Rise, The Advance, the Genius (Original 1978)
The Cosmic Club people keep going from strength to strength, Automat’s ‘The Rise, The Advance, the Genius’ included in the fourth volume of their fantastic 12” compilations is the sound of a quartet of tuxedo-clad chrome androids passionately re-interpreting Giorgio Moroder’s the Chase to soundtrack Aha’s famous music video of romantic adventures across the pages of a graphic novel if only it had been written by early era William Gibson, shot in the perfect blue of a Michael Mann stylistic overdose, and ended with the echo of her stilettos fading away in the distance of a neon-lit back-alley, love doesn’t get any more synthetic than this, but it doesn’t get any realer either.
This one goes for Hugo, we hope last night was magic.
Epilogue -This post is tagged with Cosmic moroder
You never send me those lovely letters any more.
I will die in the world lit by fireflies. I will die facing the sun. Surrounded by bats in the sci-fi twilight. Wash the dirt from my nails in the cola river. I will die at the end of it all, “straining towards the joy of ended joy”. We will win. We will hide in the mountains. We will take our time. At the end of it all, the farm, the woman with cheeks as burnt as the sun, the man with the proud chest. All this joy. But we died there, in Floro Perez. Buried in the roasted coffee soil, where moths drink the tears of dying birds. Where the snakes eat their screams in the tobacco smoked moonlight, and the tired parade of flesh in the beachside resorts eat and drink until they’re full and forget, full of regret.
But not us. Like Marti: the two man charge. A poet’s death is always poetic. By the sea, chiaroscuro scarred village boys and a solitary speaker pushing clamshell shamanism. We are all You Shall Know Our Velocity, trying to hide our cracked lips and Arbutus skin.
Yours sincerely
Sean Orr9th May 2008
[...] while I’m posting — classic 1978 epic Italo-electro mp3 over at xxjfg — Automat, ‘The Rise, The Advance, the Genus’. Imagine a 16-minute long Kraftwerk [...]
Yours sincerely
Undersea Community » Blog Archive » Crystal Castles vs. Creative Commons9th May 2008
Automat makes me want to jump off a clif and learn to fly in the way down. Makes me really believe i can do it!
greetings from Madrid. First time i coment but i read you everyday, keep it up boys!
Yours sincerely
nano9th May 2008
I have missed your letters Sean. I should be having el Bajo coming around for mojitos at some point soon, it’s going to be totally good times of reminiscence and expectation under the Caribbean sun.
Nano, glad you like! I am sure you could fly with this tune, but don’t try it at home!
Thanks for commenting
xx J
Yours sincerely
20jazzfunkgreats13th May 2008
Actually, that was about El Bajo, me and him man, he had his cool baby blue suit on, I thought I was pretty cool with my hipster jeans and ridiculously white hi-tops, this is about when me an him smoked salvia and thought we died in the back of a cuban farmer’s field.
Yours sincerely
Sean Orr15th May 2008