For me on this end it's not easy being whitey on the moon in ghost town picking through memory skeletons of the holocaust nobody else sees. Hard to swim in local lakes knowing what went into tombstone maculate the eerie bottoms (search in this blog Rusalka water-walk, read if you care). If that isn't enough, the constant expansion of booty negritude on the virtual vevo vice channels in the received post-afro-futurism, where all the sweat and labor is off stage, sacrificed for the visual cannibals, leaves me troubled: when I think over the musical heritage of the USA where I cut my teeth doing anything (almost) and yet, it's easier to see, when I log into the news, the boot or knee or bullet on the neck on somebody whose ancestors served in the unconscripted armies of slaves that built the wealth of all nations*, well, it's enough. I'd even forgotten Big Floyd (of the Screw Tang clan) was the man down. When 8:46 it the stands, it was domino effective. Somehow that's how this album all got done so quickly. Energy from where it's taken. Entropy from where it's taken.
Davu's Intro went this way...
"Jeff Gburek lives in Poland but we first met in Boulder, CO, back in 2001 or 2. I was touring the bo-ho improvised music territory with some percussion instruments, beer and cigarettes.
I joined FB in 2008 when I was working a desk job in publishing and soon with family to worry about. In Saint Paul, MN. That's about when Jeff and I said hi again.
Despite the impression management scheme that social media infects us all with, I have admired Jeff from afar and am inspired by his integrity--you might even call him an artist. It is an honor to have made my favorite recording to date...with him...and Black Floyd.
You can begin to know me better here:
davuseru.com
In place of live performance, I have taken--for the first time--to multi-tracking.
Jeff submitted solo tracks via email, I listened for the lure, then bit. And then walked away to my garden where I would listen for it to dig and settle.
After deciding which instruments that I wanted to prepare (after interpreting the call) I set up the studio and improvised wearing headphones. Despite these being multi-track recordings,
I played with the consideration that I might someday be invited to perform the pieces; and, so, I limited my activity to something I might approximate live. The instruments include: drum set, glockenspiel (bowed and struck), 28" bass drum and voice.
All tracks were recorded at home directly to free software using a $40 USB microphone. Along with a little reverb, the silences that interrupt the drum set on "Breathing Gatha" are the only post-production edits.
--Davu Seru, June, 9, 2020
But let the tale unfold further, before, after, while you listen, where Davu also explains the album's cover art, in the writing and photos at this link
davuseru.com/2020/06/15/preview-black-floyd-akashic-records-2020/
While Davu Serus lives in Minneapolis, USA and we met I'm pretty sure in Boulder in the drive-gates of Jack Wright's home in 2001 where I and Ephia Gburek had been hosted en route to New Mexico. I had quit smoking for the 3rd time by then.
We noticed somewhere along the time-line shared passions for music, literature, an affinity for the queer turns of phrase that sign one's taste for the marginal & rebellious use of language one has to call poetic. My take, anyway. For the last few years there was always some speculation we'd wind up again on the same continent & share a stage. This year the speculation took a turn for the 99.999 percentile of extreme improbability with the panic of pandemic overwhelm. So we have hit the virtual pavement and mingled our composition and improvisation skill sets, wound up with this album.
I played the Hoeffner electric guitar and the Microfreak synthesizer, simultaneously (no dubs) for an hour and sent a bundle of this to Davu who added via audacity (software) his drum & voice overdubbed in whatever order he knows better than I. That this order is the way the music falls together so quickly seems happy enough on its own and yet perhaps owes something to the urgency of the times. As my friend pointed out, we might say, we created something to celebrate, extra.
I should like to confess that while recording I projected myself out of my body. Had a change of shirt after getting back inside. Uneasy. The birth of the the album with the project named Black Floyd has a bitter root. But the cooperation heals and joins hands & let's us imagine something else
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