The burden of the reasoning animal is death.  When you have a project – and by project I mean “project” as Eisenman put it, something that’s important to you to say or to do, but which is ongoing, like for example to put forth, indefinitely, your evolving ideas, your creations, pieces of your mind, through your work or craft, maybe in different areas or through distinct specific subprojects, be these a piece of writing, a piece of music, an architectural project, or any other vessel that will carry your ideology and/or taste that you want to share – you start, as you gradually start ceasing to be the perennial immortally-minded teen or young adult with, as Gilmour and Wright would put it, “time to kill today”, to feel a certain urgency about keeping on getting your project out.

Cover illustration by Ars Electronica, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The Urgency

Day of Glad

Amaro Cacao

October 21st, 1940

The man whom I'm named after, Adolfo Ernesto Samudio Avila, nicknamed Fito, studied in London and went on to become the Chief of Detectives in Panama around the middle of the last century.  He was my grandfather's older brother, out of several older than the two.  He married Verna Levy, a beautiful, blonde, blue eyed Jamaican young woman of British descent.  Verna had an older sister, Esme Veronique, of whom I only recently learned about, during a recent trip to the family mausoleum.

This piece is an imagining of their doings-about as a trio during their young times in and about Kingston, Jamaica, Panama City, Panama, and London, England, during the late nineteen twenties.

Esme Veronique, Verna, and Fito, the Scotland Yard Freshman

Experience

Amaro's Theme

Amaro's Theme, Pt. 1

T.B.T.V.B.B.S.M.E

The Beneath the Velvet Beach Bunker Siamese Mermaids Experience

Come and drink the Amaro Cacao with us.  The complete album in one single track.  This is the recommended experience, enjoy -- and thanks for visiting this part of our mind -- through listening... you're most welcome.
https://youtu.be/20WSrXE7xwI

Amaro Cacao:
1. October 21st, 1940 (2:36)
2. Three A.M. Lounge Intro (0:57)
3. Foray Into Genre, Inc. (9:37)
4. Amaro's Theme, Pt. 1 (0:20)
5. Experience (6:19)
6. T.B.T.V.B.B.S.M.E (2:53)
7. Amaro's Theme, Pt 2 (0:16)
8. Both Men Knew They Were Cacti (2:24)
9. Liandam (5:05)
10. The Dream of the Purple Maiden (8:52)
11. Esme Veronique, Verna, and Fito, the Scotland Yard Freshman (5:26)
12. Terrace Days (A Kind of Outro) (0:41)
13 T.B.T.V.B.B.S.M.E (Reprise) (5:44)

Amaro Cacao [FULL ALBUM]

This Fog - XITX and Arcachata

A musical depiction of this man's 2021.  Enjoy.

2021 Seasons

On May 10, 1996, three officers of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Tsewang Samanla, Dorje Morup, and Tsewang Paljor, were part of a six-man expedition to reach the summit of Mount Everest.  Delayed and facing a storm, the three decided to disregard orders and press on while the rest of the team turned back.  Around 18:00 the climbers radioed their expedition leader back at base camp to inform that they had reached the summit.  While credited with summiting, whether they actually reached the summit or not is to this date debated.

These two songs wouldn’t exist if not for the irony surrounding the perishment of one of the climbers, Tsewang Paljor.  The irony is that Paljor became famous not in life but in death and simply because of the fact that his lifeless, frozen body, which no person or entity cared to remove from the side of the trail for at least 19 years, ended up becoming a landmark and reference point to climbers, his humanity reduced to an almost comical nickname stemming from the mountaineering boots on his feet and their bright yellowish-green color.  A Google search today of the keywords “Tsewang” and “Paljor” brings up, as the first result, a Wikipedia article entitled not “Tsewang Paljor”, but “Green Boots”.

“Jefe de condestables Tsewang Paljor, parte 1: Ascenso y muerte” is my reflection on Paljor’s resolve to climb, then the climb itself, then the summiting (or the thinking they had summited), and finally the descent and the exhaustion, confusion, and acceptance of defeat that probably came with it and the probable realization of impending death that frozen night as he lay curled up on his side, donning his brightly-colored mountaineering apparel, under a crevasse at the side of the climbers’ trail at 28,000 feet.

“Jefe de condestables Tsewang Paljor, parte 2: Fiesta en Leh” is an imagination of a summer day that Tsewang could have enjoyed as a young adult in his hometown’s capital, Leh, with friends and perhaps one or two love interests at hand.  An experience he might have remembered about during those few final minutes of his life.  

About the song names:  That isn’t me trying to be the most righteous of the lot.  Like, “look, I even include his military rank before his name, while everyone else just calls him ‘Green Boots’.”  I’m not trying to be judgmental or pretentious.  In fact, up until the last few minutes the songs were going to be called “Helado en altura 1” and “Helado en altura 2”.  “Helado en altura” translates roughly to “Ice cream at high altitude”, and is a pun because in Spanish “Helado” can also mean a frozen person, animal or thing.  So, for the cover artwork, I literally searched for frozen corpses in snow-capped mountains.  Not necessarily with those keywords.  And happened on Green Boots.  It was like the third result.  But ultimately, I felt it would be in bad taste to be so literal and use the pic and do the pun and all that.  In a way, the song titles are an atonement for my previous intentions.  And a pair of songs to honor a man who found very little dignity in death.  Some may point out the old adage that there “is no dignity in death”.  I’d say as so much else in life, that it’s a matter of degree.

Thanks for taking the time to read, and above all listen.  I hope you “get” the songs, and above all, enjoy them.  (No pun intended with “above”.)

Note:  from the information I had access to on the World Wide Web, Paljor’s body has not been officially identified or removed to this day.  However, it was last reported seen in 2015.  Its current location and state is, to the best of my web knowledge, unknown.

Jefe de condestables Tsewang Paljor, parte 1: Ascenso y muerte

Bellatrix

Stemming From Hummed

Stellar Lifetimes

Presagios

Thanks to two of the best instrumentalists in Panamá for helping me make this track happen:  
Roberto "Toto" Ruiz https://www.facebook.com/totoruizmusic/ on trumpet and Osvaldo "Valo" Jorge https://soundcloud.com/osvaldo-jorge-3 on drums.  Thanks too to the beautiful Florence Hill lending her spectacular sustained G's and E's on vocals.  Hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed recording it and mixing it!
-A

Voice: Florence Hill
Trumpet: Roberto "Toto" Ruiz
Drums: Osvaldo "Valo" Jorge
Bass and sequences: Adolfo Samudio

Composed, mixed and arranged by Adolfo Samudio

To Dream Of Past Glories [SESSION VERSION]

80's Lament / Freedom [REMIX]

In commemoration of the 20th of december, 1989, the day when the United States government invaded Panamá and ousted the country's military dictator, Manuel Antonio Noriega, the Government of Panamá recently decreed this date as a National Day of Mourning, to be commemorated yearly.

Panamá's citizens would do well not to regard this event in isolation.  Preceding the U.S. invasion, Panamá went through over 21 years of military dictatorship.  The dictatorship in turn was the result of years of questionable leadership and politics and a self-serving ruling elite and political class.

The way things are going today, almost 33 years later, it would seem these lessons were collectively not learned to the extent that they probably should have.
"Aquellos que no pueden recordar el pasado están condenados a repetirlo."
(Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.) 
-George Santayana

The song uses part of a melody by Avelino Muñoz and drags it across the entire length of the song.  The melody is part of a piece of Baile Típico, one of the main genres of Panamanian music, on which in turn the main theme of RPC, one of the country's regime-sanctioned TV stations during late 70's and 80's -- the heart of the dictatorship era -- was based.  The theme was thusly ever-present during those years that I was growing up and to me thusly almost synonymous with that dark yet wondrous time.

Los Años De La Dictadura [REMASTERED]

Music by Adolfo Samudio and Alexander Herzfeld
Lyrics and programming by Adolfo Samudio

Alexander Herzfeld - Guitars
Ricardo De León - Bass
Roberto "Toto" Ruíz - Trumpet

A nod to Aldous Huxley, Mike Wallace, and Sam Harris, whose voices I use on this track and whose ideas -- Huxley's and Harris', to be exact -- I mean, nothing against you Mike, but... -- helped inspire it.  I should also credit Desmond Morris for shaping my conception of primitive man and my understanding that we all, at present at least, are still no more than apes.  (Maybe some slightly more evolved than others, eh?)

Check out X.I.T.X.! https://soundcloud.com/user-760232283  (The E.P. posted there is so good, I rack my brains over why it's got so few listens!)

PS.  The story behind the drums on this one and the female vocalist are fun.  They're a nightmare, too, and may be published some day in some book I may write.

Enjoy!  Thanks for listening.
-AS

The Stone
Defenseless
I am naked, at mercy
Nothing
An off-thought of the gods under the stars
At the portal between naught and
Becoming

I took a stone from the ground
It became a weapon in my hand
I conquered it all with that 
Which I found

Fire gave way to a million thunders 
To light 
If ignorance is blindness 
The stone now has sight

Sight gave way to enlightment
True one
I can see further than you ever could 
No flesh
Once ape and stone now
Transhuman
----

The Stone - Arcachata, Reynor And XITX

Tune in controlled fury at the intersection between reverence and disdain.

In Deference to (indifference to?) the Seminal Works

LARD

Off of the upcoming album In Deference to (indifference to?) the Seminal Works.

Marcha a la mina

Check out the full album at https://open.spotify.com/artist/5AEP7Bm7CH4z0LHjAsSdhX?si=jmcgis8QTJ2MlcXuDvph_w

Peristeria Elata

El ayer

Threatened to Spill

1.  I Love All People (7:06)
2.  A Rhapsody in Red (6:01)
3.  What Suit? (5:06)

Threatened To Spill [FULL EP] w/ XITX

What Suit?

A Rhapsody In Red

I Love All People

Una perspectiva de la invasión de Estados Unidos a Panamá del 20 de diciembre de 1989.

A perspective of the United States' invasion of Panama of December 20, 1989.

Invasión

The Stone - ROUGH MIX vers 20250228

Distant Melting Sunday

Crab Paradise:
Get tiny iceberg.  Drop inside highball glass.  Fill glass halfway with rum.  Cut a lemon from the lemon tree in half.  Squeeze juice from both halves onto glass.  Add cola.  Splash of Angostura.  Crank up the volume.  Sip.

Year of the Hermit

Crab Paradise Under the Lemon Tree (With Tiny Iceberg)

Crab Paradise Under The Lemon Tree (With Tiny Iceberg)

The Jaunt (Part 1 of 'Discovery (Part 2 Of 53,5)')

Our "THREATENED TO SPILL" EP -- Another merger of two projects, Arcachata and XITX, available for your checking out today!!
---------------------------
The new album In Deference To (Indifference To?) the Seminal Works now on Spotify!!
https://open.spotify.com/album/5KvBqfQXbgQdz6uibwwuY0?si=Jg3GeuFCSbCEVS2gLF1y-Q
---------------------------

Arcachata:
Main alcohol:  Trumpet, Piano, Acoustic and electric guitars, Monotonal and polytonal vocalisations, Bongo, Drum kit, Bass guitar, Trombone, Synthesizers, Sequencers, Percussion.

Ingredients: 1 oz rock, 1 oz trance, 1 oz avant garde, 1/2 oz instrumental hip hop, 1/2 oz metal, 1/2 oz world, 1/2 oz prog, and a splash of traditional Panamanian folk.

Preparation: Add all ingredients into sonic mindspace filled with 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 00’s nostalgia.  Mix vigorously.  Strain electronically.  Stir gently.  Garnish with beats from the future.  Serve with some 20’s ghost whistling.

Drinkware: Store the lyrics away for the future generation.

ARCACHATA
Serving isthmian goth hop since November 2018.
Thanks for listening.
All music written and produced by Adolfo Ernesto Samudio Stec.

Arcachata

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