This track is from the album Falling and is available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/isabellamarriott

Moonlight

Lavender and Honey

Lullaby

Break Free

Spanish Coast

The Right Words

Instruments: DIY Electronics controlled by a trombone outfitted with a ultrasonic distance sensor. Serge Modular Synthesizer. Field recordings.

Discrete Events organized by turbulence theory. A vortex is a region in a fluid environment in which the flow rotates around an axis line, which may be straight or curved

Vortex

When inexpensive video tape replaced costly 8mm film for home movies, parents leapt at the chance to document their children’s every move.  This art song describes the frustration of a young boy who is trying to remember an incident that wasn’t part of a home movie.  He repeatedly watches these videos to look for clues as to what happened just outside the frame.  His mother leaves the family and, having little to go on, the boy concocts an imagined alien abduction with a few objects his mom left behind.  Originally conceived as a choral piece, the song was “reframed” for 2 voices and piano.  Lyrics written below.

Music & lyrics: Steve Mobia

Sung by: Megan Stetson and Jill K. Wagoner
Piano: Feona Lee Jones

Lyrics:

We all remember home movies
at first on film, quite expensive, 
so reserved for special occasions
birthdays, graduations, trips,  But!!
with the advent of video, we can document everything
and parents did this
including the father of the nine year old boy. 
Crawling, Eating, Sitting on the john - 
all recorded his every move 
solidified in repetition.
The tapes piled up around the room.

The boy's mother a reluctant actor
as if their real life didn't exist without a camera.

But then the mother vanished.
His father ceased discussing her.
So he's left with the video to re-watch again:
Where did she go?
While the father draws storyboards in the beach sand 
auditioning new mothers for a future home movie, 
until the waves erase all those plans.

Rewind tape once more watch again
There must be a clue for it to end so... 

His life was on record
time in a plaster cast
A camera was always present
but now he can’t remember his past
It wasn’t in the frame
alien abduction memory reclaimed 
That would be good
Saves a lot of research
into finding reasons
for the card that was in her clothes 
a calling card, In the dark it glows.
It can show the stars
and even Mars
but no names or numbers
nothing close.

So he watches the night sky
out through a camera’s eye
to look for clues or a message
between the cracks that thought can deny
It wasn’t in the frame 
alien abduction memory reclaimed
 that would be good.
Saves a lot of research
into finding reasons
for the necklace his mother wore before she left with that visitor
It had purple stones that sounded tones 
Her closet became an open sore.

So was the stranger a rumor
trying to become fact?
A hanger-on or an angel?
Until he knows, he keeps looking back

The CHASMS have swallowed mountains and oceans
flowing through disconnected emotions
Blinded by maps
no face to go with the thought 
Video amnesia has struck again

CHASMS are blind spots so dark and empty

He can't fathom the chasm of space
he dreams of that place in the sky where...
CHASMS have solid walls that you can’t see

Go back, go back...
See the strange man inside your house again
 What did he say?
Re-tie the knot before it slips away

CHASMS break up the world into pieces 
moments adrift as balance decreases.
Searching again for the source
of the missing name 
Naming has force in the FRAME!

Rewind tape last time say goodbye to
all the years frozen in review so...
Can a lens see the truth
if the picture is fake?
A forgery made of poses
Resolving sleep, the dreamer can wake.

It wasn’t in the frame.   It doesn’t matter
for a life re-claimed 
that would be good

© Steve Mobia (2001 & 2016)

Vortex

Conceptual Noise

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