This is an experimental piece called “Untitled. 2017.” It is sound collage I made based on an original sketch called, “Untitled. 2017.” I wanted to sonically map this art, which was created while I was curious about abstract expressionism, Wassily Kandinsky, Hilma af Klint, Piet Mondrian & co.

A great friend assisted with the digital drum work on a Roland electric studio kit, which features a really fascinating reverse delay effect.

One historical work which set the original visual experimentation in motion was a Kandinsky study of dancer Gret Palucca, who had been photographed by Charlotte Rudolph. Kandinsky used the photographs as a study in a 1926 work entitled “Dance Curves: On the Dances of Palucca.”

© Danny Scope Music/Grave Willow Records. 2024.

Untitled. 2017.

I would give thanks to the muses for offering me this song over the weekend, but the muses are really just the friends I have. This song is for one of them. Album art is an original sketch from 2017. Lyrics below:

Oh my child, oh my brother
Could you ever break your mold
Runnin’ wild in your chamber
When night time takes a hold

Oh my friend, old familiar
Can we take a song or two
Take you up when you are weary
Sing it soft when you are blue

Na na na na na
Na na na
Na na na na na

Oh my child, oh my brother
Days will come when silence reigns
Learn to sit inside the silence
Learn to ally with the pain

Oh my friend, oh my brother
Have you found it, and attained
What you sought inside your chamber
Wrestled from the hands of fate

Na na na na na
Na na na
Na na na na na

In a blinding fit of fury
I saw your vision there
Rising tall from up the pavement
In the surly sonic air

Oh my child, oh my brother
Could you ever break your mold
Runnin’ wild in your chamber
When night time takes a hold

© Danny Scope Music/Grave Willow Records. 2024.

Oh My Brother

"Land" is the opening track on a forthcoming LP entitled "Roam." This is a mono demo. Currently, this song and 6 others are being mixed in final production for the LP.

"Land" is about the borders of possibility, and the sense of leaving home that envelopes us when we tread to new vistas of experience.

The image above, which is feature on the cover of the LP, comes from the 1673 work “Phonurgia Nova,” or “New Science of Sound Production.” It is a text by the 17th-century scholar Athanasius Kircher. This is the first work ever to be dedicated entirely to the study of acoustics & sound environments. The first chapter of the book states:

“Sonus lucis simia est” — “Sound is like Light.”'

It reflects and projects the things that it carries.

Lyrics:

Brother if you wanna go
Look at all the land out there
It's a vast expanse you know
So go let down your hair
In the sand whipped sun
In the cracking dawn
I’m not a trickster and I ain’t no con
I won’t lead you on
Won’t lead you on, no no

Sister if you wanna go
Reading all the books that you see
With intent or aimlessly
Go let down your hair
To the ink on the text
As the syllables sound
Floating free, but tightly wound
They pass all around
They pass all around, uh huh

Mother if you wanna go
Sing a song at dawn and reclaim
Your secret, true, and timeless name 
Then go let down your hair
And sing it out strong
And echo it wide
Through the hills ever amplified
Ever amplified
Ever amplified


Land (original mix)

A song about vision, wayfaring, and the dead. "Roam" was written c.a. 2021 during a period of intense reflection.

The image seen in the center of the track's art comes from the Wellcome Collection in London, U.K. It is cataloged as:

A traveller is sitting in the shade of a tree with his cloak off and he is shown in the background buffeted by the wind, wrapping his cloak around him. It is an illustration of the fable “The sun and the wind” by Aesop, translated and paraphrased by J. Ogilby. Etching by W. Hollar.

The surrounding fleurons, or 'printer's flowers,' come from the public domain. They are found as decorative elements from a 1862 reprint of King Charles I's 1633 decree of sports.

Lyrics:

In the furnace of the midnight sun, the heat struck to my bones
Strong with all I had I did declare that I was damned to roam
When you’re out clawing at the road you have no hearth or home
And the only ember from the source into the sea is thrown 

The visions found me when I ceased to look, they were a vast connected chain
Like the word inside a foreign book, the full translation came

Revelation is that golden tome the fool alone can read
Revolution is a turning wheel, not a slate wiped clean

With the dead, all the living share their bread
Lifting up and letting down, all returning the ground

Body naked, back uncloaked, the feral night untied
Radiant, the fire can’t be choked
The blaze you must abide

Crying out in tongues I sang, I hailed the chasm far and wide
In the terror of the great expanse, surrendered to the tide

With the dead, all the living share their bread
Lifting up and letting down, all returning the ground

With the dead, all the living hang their heads
Sifting through and searching ‘round
All returning the ground

Roam (original mix)

The first track I ever recorded in my life roughly 12 years ago. I named it “Lo-Fi Stroll” at the time, and I’m sticking with it. It’s a crackly, beach groove. I feel like I’ve come a long way, but sometimes your least serious, whimsical stuff turns out to be cool as hell years later.

Image: “Dorothy McGrath lounging on a Los Angeles beach while using “Walkie Talkie” radio set, circa 1947.” Los Angeles Times Photo Archive.

© Danny Scope Music/Grave Willow Records. 2024.

Lo-Fi Stroll

Danny Scope is an independent songwriter and guitarist based on the borderlands of Pennsylvania and New York State. His music imbues stripped down instrumental elements with a seeker's impulse. A forthcoming album entitled "Roam" will be released in January 2025.