LOST MY TOUCH

i don't know, i'm a word man, i read a lot, i enjoy a good line, i appreciate a nice bit of narrative, something that comes at you from a different angle and carry's you along on a journey. destination never matters does it? it's the journey. 

that's what they say down in esotericville and new age book shops.

here's a song that i feel really encapsulates this, 'lost my touch' firstly what a song title, it immediately conjures up a melancholia, somethings missing, somethings not there from the picture, and what exactly is 'my touch' i guess you have to take the journey to find out more. 

and as that opening chord rings out the train leaves the station on it's super slow but steady rhythm, we get steve's voice but it comes from somewhere else, not quite there with us, he is the driver and we are passengers, there's separation. we look out the window absorbing the view but he fills in the gaps in the landscape.

i don't know if it's self indulgent to write about it as a subjective experience, you can hear the song yourself get your own meaning, but i guess all church songs to a empathetic listener have a subjective quality and this one goes very deep for me.

plus here we can share, it's safe to do that in 'drums and bells' it's our connection and we understand because here we try to define it, song by song.

i really don't know where this song takes me, it's filled with such richness, such incredible powerlessness other than to take ones self away from the equation.

from that strange operatic female voice and that jews harp twanging away somewhere in the mix, the piano notes and that chiming filmic bit from a ghost story / love story that ends bad for everyone. the guitars are almost absent but they they leap at you from oblique shadows, strange shapes haunting and fading away, nothing here is familiar, nothing is really what it seems. 

the first vocal lines almost sound like the divine comedy / tragedy re written for the modern age, science fiction nihilism with metaphorical trip through some sort of failed relationship, bitter words, resoundingly absolute in the fact whatever was, is finished. it's a song of walking away, resigned to the fact there is no return journey, and it will never be re experienced.

'it's like halloween time' steve informs us.

the next verse, reveals the ghost in the machine marty's chords strike away like some sort of heartbeat pumping us onwards, the atmosphere begins to shift, base notes pulse through the air and then more of the picture is filled further with steve repeating the mantra, 'i don't owe you anything.'

and then the train crashes, the landscape pours through the windows, the journey is coming to an end, the destination comes to us as we hear 'his name was ray' and the following verse takes all we have experienced and compresses it into a black void. 

i adore this song, it has a bravery about it, a strength, something that just cannot be broken or diminished, the idea that we all have the choice to exit at any station on our journey but we still have to ride the train to the end of the line.

this song, wow, it's not really a song, it's a key.

LOST MY TOUCH

LOST MY TOUCH

I read Luries expose not too long ago and its funny you know how things hit you impressions really they are and btw when I say read I really mean skim because I was never one who reads for pleasure much it’s always something else can you dig? But it’s an intimate bit and how could I get sucked into its vortex right? And the man’s got a true determination that the best of us should be envious of and I mean that sincerely and I can’t don’t care about the rest. And truthfully how can I resist comparing Luries odd naked exposed obsession to my own I mean one just doesn’t randomly put a record on and think hey I’m going to really be into this and start showing up to gigs wandering around out of ones mind in this state of half-limbo half-nirvana bardo – because there’s something more opaque to this all. And its only when one recognizes this similarity in attempt to see through it, you’ve discovered it and certainly if your reading this you’ve seen it all before, right? So back to Laurie I keep skimming his book putting it down picking it up reading a few paragraphs… hmmm… hmmm… what about that… Marty said, what… geeze what a funny haircut… and out of all these impressions one is helpless to form opinions and observations and naturally there’s a few what the fucks but hey you gotta crush all your expectations to read something like this and keep crushing until the faintest your recollection has risen to the surface and drifts away… lets give credit where credit is due but for the rest there’s no accounting for taste is there especially when all these divergent opinions, alternate endings, parallel universes are a dime a dozen. And I keep reading and eventually disparity finds me (shuffle on an IPOD is a space-time continuum) all the while my higher-self prompting me to keep asking is all this inevitable as it is necessary? So while I am helpless to alter what’s been said before let me offer my own comparison. Wasn’t it Deborah Harry who actually first introduced this semi-iambic pentameter in her ballad RAPTURE (be pure) go out to the parking and get in your car and drive real far and drive all night until you see a light and the light comes down and lands on the ground and out comes the man from mars he’s got a gun you try to run but he shots you dead and eats your head and now your in the man from mars similar painted I thought by Kilbey was Lost My Touch the Baudelairian epic of SA playing like a sacred hymn of a secret Rosicrucian sect you laugh, you laugh (is this finally the irony of self delusion?) you can’t get the staff (the wand the symbol of personal effervescence that somehow remains out of reach, but why…what have I done to deserve this?) hold on to the raft (imagery of Dante and Virgule and the river Styx) It’s my craft (Indeed it is) It’s finished. Kuput. Fineto Beneto (but that as just another expectation waiting to be crush now isn’t it) gone for song like old Hong Kong (and it certainly was) its past time its meantime all over in between time its like Halloween time (and it certainly is…)

I

'DEAD MANS DREAM'

the first notes arrive on the back of the previous track, the haunting song 'fly home' which i will talk about later, those final notes fade into the sonic cyclic drone of tone, the harmony that steve and marty attain is perfection, the wonderful picture, no make that a landscape painted with words, and dreamy choral echo of those guitars in loop. there's a beautiful little bit where the instruments just fade out and we are left with that lovely acoustic ring, then slowly as your mind accepts that it's the end, the song slips back in full regalia, it shimmers and shines like a precious jewel. and then the most unexpected 'whoosh' it soars above the clouds, i'd love to know how they came up with that bit, and before the surprise can register this wonderful hawkwind like harvey bainbridge synth takes the song into the stratosphere. it's just bliss. towards the end a female voice starts to talk deep in the mix, my ears struggle to make out her message, what does she talk about, who is she and what is her message to the dead man? i struggle to decipher its meaning but i never have despite repeated listening and internet searching. there's something narcotic about this track, it's the dead mans dream, slipping from consciousness to something else, the book of the dead charts the souls journey, the dead man's dream sees him in memory clinging to earthly things, between things of myth and magick, between a time of wizards and witches and machines and technology. it's a journey to another realm that once your sucked into its vortex, that moment of surrender you begin to think dying dreams are just like the living ones, for in life don't we all dream of magic and unicorns and the wonder of innocence. i love this song and think the album it comes from is an underrated master piece. i'd like you dear reader to give it a listen again, light up that jazz cigarette and dim the lights low, kick back with your girl and enter the realm of sometime anywhere.