[descent of the celestial monkey wrench] part 1 [1997]

from strange tides: chamber music III [1997] by Lindsay Vickery

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about

[descent of the celestial monkey wrench] is a cycle of 14 songs for two sopranos and chamber ensemble. The work was premiered at Perth Australia's Totally Huge New Music Festival in 1997 by New Music group Magnetic Pig. The work has also been performed in the LA County Museum of Art Artists in Residence Series by the California EAR Unit and at New York’s Music at the Anthology Series by members of the Philip Glass Ensemble.

This recording of the first performance includes five of the seven songs from part I.

I. I see you
IV. between my breathing
V . I am counting
VI. in a room
VII. ok

lyrics

I. I see you infinitesimally small and without mass spinning you are growing in the blue sky at 11 o'clock I should look away I should blink and clear the page but you continue to grow without making a sound

IV. between my breathing your breathing inside my pulse your pulse translation of a star crossing my sky to the corner of your sky there
you seated shining I am drinking that light you lift me
part of the sky ascends from blue to the black of infinity
another sinks and drowns saturated in colour and there lost divided tries again and again to shut its eyes

V . I am counting over and over I have lost you you must be here here amongst these numbers I turn them over again and again as they fall like pieces of shattered glass I'm sure I can hear your voice [I stop for a moment to dream] let me find something a strand of hair a scrap of paper with your phone no. a sentence you forgot to finish please something these numbers are growing heavy they fill the sky and all the gaps between the pages
nothing not even your eye watching and trying to be nothing not even a moment when you pause hearing that unfamiliar echo of some lost indefinable sound

VI. in a room with white walls I place my seven dreams of you: in the corner by a window
there is a black tree in the room and in the opposite corner stands my dark recording angel she is smiling
I can hear my breathing as though my ear is pressed to my mouth
you are there in the doorway you enter and place your seven dreams beside mine (I ask if you need help because they look heavy you say its ok) we look at each other

I turn my angel is holding a picture of you you are looking at me in a distant room you are singing faintly but you lips are moving out of time we look at each other
I turn I am in a field on my knees there is a black tree in the field it is day (so blue that I can't stand up) it is a day but there is no sun in the sky
[I am lying on my back looking at the empty sky a black river is flowing from my head I feel like it will never stop]
quiet if I open my mouth the world will collapse these are the only words I write

VII. ok I will capture the ring of white hot suns that orbit my head
ok I'll lead them on a string down a dark street in single file in the middle of the night
ok I'll search for the largest cupboard in the world to bury them in behind the teacups

credits

from strange tides: chamber music III [1997], released October 28, 2012
Taryn Fiebig and Melissa Madden Gray (Sopranos), Lindsay Vickery (saxophone), Iain Grandage (cello), Paul Tanner (percussion) and Cathie Travers (piano).