CPU (A post-apocalyptic electronic opera for the end of the world, in one act)

Prologue:
‘Imagine the prison of repetition
A pitch-perfect perpetual misery
Awaiting each player ignition
Is a blanket of unusable memory’

A fourteen-song cycle for 1 actor, 25 iPads (in a circle surrounding the performer), 3 musicians, and the last days on Earth.

Synopsis:
Guy meets girl. Girl falls for guy. Guy falls for girl. Guy brings girl into a cyber/eco terrorist organization. Together, they develop a virus that ends the planet, killing off all life on Earth. They survive, trapped in a bunker. Girl is in a coma, infected with her own viral creation. As guy works (tirelessly) to keep her alive, he is without food, without sleep, without rest.

[There is no hope. There is no rescue mission. There is nothing that can be salvaged. There is no future.]

Our story begins with a bright, loud explosion as the global power grid fails. Guy is forced to manually maintain her brain function through repetitive tasks:
setting and resetting 25 independently timed video alarm clocks on light-emitting tablets. As time goes on, the alarms become more difficult to retrigger, and his exhaustion begins to take over.

[If he misses an alarm reset, the alarm is disabled and it emits a tone that cannot be turned off.]
[If all 25 alarms are allowed to misfire, the opera immediately ends, regardless of the progress remaining.]

echoartifact.com/cpu_opera
All tracks recorded and produced at Traxler Studios, NYC (2015)

Buy on Bandcamp.com

CPU (EP)

From the original opera, CPU
echoartifact.com/cpu_opera

As I lie in wait the screen will load.
Why try perpetuate the episode?
I know just how far this will go.
Watch me chase her down a rabbit hole.

She stays folding constant memory
Like tape, all that’s left is shimmering.
Losing and over-clocking all that we
Won’t leave now witnessing through history.

Just numbers in the cloud
No signal to the ground

I wait calculating entropy (while)
She slips into something misery.
We are so far along the plot erodes.
Witness all at once the overload.

Just numbers in the cloud
No reason to be found
Six chambers in the round
Let’s find our way down

As she tries to stop the sound

I stay – partition partial memory
Someday duplicate my apathy.
She states “You only want what you can see”
I’ll create a better virus to release.

Stage 1 – dissolve the casing carefully
Stage 2 – deploy the virus properly
Stage 3 – This strain of poison digital
Now breathe – The devastation: critical

It shakes pixelating visually.
We break – electronic shattering.
Reshape the virus out of misery.
She will reboot a better part of me.

Just numbers in the cloud
No reason to be found
Six chambers in the round
Let’s find our way down.

We are. We are all a part of this. (We are, we are.)

We all, we all fall apart at this. (We are, we are.)

We all. We all had a part in this. (We are, we are.)

We are. We are all a part of this. (We are, we are.)

Like children in the crowd
Left screaming this aloud
Six chambers in the ground
We’ve found our way…

She fakes replicating part of me.
Retake deploy the virus constantly.
We make a first-world catastrophe.

She breaks self-importing gravity.
Create self-revolving memory.
We are all that’s left in front of me.
We drown celebrating gravity.

Recorded at Traxler Studios (2016)

CPU (Overture)

From the original opera, CPU
echoartifact.com/cpu_opera

This is love

This is love
Tried and true
(Black and blue)
This is what
He’ll come home to
(Our armor see-through)

This is love

This is not
A secret drug she’s dreaming of
(Broken wings from above)
This is us
Biting and screaming for the sun
(With our severed tongues)

This is love

As that sure thing we’ll not find
Save the replay in your mind
When the hardware won’t rewind
Break in 2… 1…

This is love

Recorded at Traxler Studios (2016)

This Is Love

This Is Love (03)

From the original opera, CPU
echoartifact.com/cpu_opera

I’ll return to earth in time
With your heartbeat next to mine.
How irregular it grows
When at last we know.
Lest we make a change within
We cannot make amends.
As if distant rhythms should collide,

Our pulsars realign

Heartbeat heartbeat pounding through me,
The sound of our last light corroding.
We will surely break, break apart in time.
If we never reinvent,
Termination imminent.
As if we could ever synchronize,

Our pulsars misalign

When we make mistakes again
Elaborate our giving in
As if distant rhythms should collide,

Our pulsars realign

Recorded at Traxler Studios (2016)

Pulsars

Pulsars (11)

From the original opera, CPU
echoartifact.com/cpu_opera

Further down the relay is a step I’m going to miss,
A message I won’t be involved with

Cancel these words and slow my tongue
There won’t be much left when I’m done
I’d never ever rather come running back from this

Undefined intentions make me want to mention
All I ever thought of you
I’m just not in 2
Saying goodbye to this time

Further down the relay is a step I’m going to miss,
A message I won’t be involved with

Fortify these walls and break my limbs
All these final moments depend
On you ever waking up from this
I can’t continue, friend

Break down these days one by one
All that we have left is undone
(No) No one walks away from this

I can’t shake this feeling in my bones
Like you’re in my hands and we’re –

Further down the relay is a step I’m going to miss,
A message I won’t be involved with

Codify these words and sheath my gun
Nothing will be left when we’re done
Our time expires just after these messages run

You can’t stop this chain reaction – only time can give us traction
Why we never thought this through
My clever head has failed us both
But I (I) won’t go without you

I can’t shake this feeling in my bones
Like you’re in my hands and we’re –

(Further down the relay is a step I’m going to miss,
A message I won’t be involved with)

I can’t fight this feeling in my bones
Like we’re in my head and we’re already gone

How much do you think we can('t) see before we realize that we’re gone?

Recorded at Traxler Studios (2016)

Relay

Relay (06)

From the original opera, CPU
echoartifact.com/cpu_opera

There’s just one thing in my mind,
Do you love me all the time?
And I’m not sure why I need to know,
I just do

Do you? Do you love me girl?
I think you do

As do all things heal in time,
Do you trust me? Will we survive?
And I’m not sure if I can stand to know
When we’re through

Do you? Do you love me girl?
I think you do

As I told you outside,
Could you love me through this demise?
The only one thing that I seem to know is
I love you

Do you? Do you love me girl?
I think you do

Recorded at Traxler Studios (2016)

Do You

Do You (02)

From the original opera, CPU
echoartifact.com/cpu_opera

I see your name written down
In a word, alone
I see no need to be found
In this world alone

And I won’t find myself in time
Tell me something I don’t already know

Our last story will be surrender
Deny everything and leave her

Out of my mind (nothing)

I, with this clock ticking down,
Create a world of tones
I’ll end this automated sound
And we’ll wash ashore

And we won’t mind this gap in time
Feel me disappear. It’s already done.

This task the only space between us
Defines now our only weakness

I am alive (nothing)
Out of my mind (nothing changes me)

I found you where I found myself

Out of my mind

I’ll bring this game crashing down
To a pile of stones
Raining destruction abound
Only skin and bones

And if we find ourselves in time
We’ll abandon hope. We’re never getting home.

Sound warnings defeat her
It notes everything and remembers

I found you where I found myself
I found you where we last exhaled
At least she’ll know I died trying

I found you where I found my -

I found you where I found myself
I found you where we last exhaled
I found you where we’re drowning
At least she’ll know I died fighting

Out of my mind (nothing changes me)

Recorded at Traxler Studios (2016)

Out of My Mind

Out Of My Mind (04)

Echo Artifact is Al Cerulo and Jude Traxler; multi-instrumentalists live-looping original songs within a narrative structure.