Raw recording with just vox & keys.
A song about ideologies and religions, the absurdity of war's fought over them, while truth is always on the run.

Truth is a Refugee

Queens and Kings and Popes and Crusades,
does anything, anything ever change.
People killing people 'cause they kill people,
they're worshipping the wrong idols so we'll topple their steeples.
They're drawing the wrong conclusions
based on the wrong false delusions.

Racists, evangelists and Nation-States
Zealots praying for the final days.
People killing people 'cause they kill people,
they're worshipping the wrong idols so we'll topple their steeples.
They're glued to the wrong news station,
indoctrinated in the wrong interpretation.

Truth is such a fleeting thing,
you'll never catch it with your weapons,
you'll never catch it with your blind convictions.
It always evades those who
claim it as their own
it always evades those who
think they know it all
it always evades those whose desires are too grandiose.

Maneouvering, build-ups and power plays,
Armies engaging in mutual aid.
People killing people 'cause they kill people,
They're worshipping the wrong idols so we'll topple their steeples.
Sucking on the wrong tit,
strung out on the wrong string of bullshit.

Bronze, Gold, Oil whatever's the going rate,
Convince the fools to fight then we'll make it pay
People killing people 'cause they kill people,
They're worshipping the wrong idols so we'll topple their steeples,
Hooked to the wrong pray station,
Rooting for the wrong myth of creation.

Truth is such a fleeting thing,
you'll never catch it with your weapons,
you'll never catch it with your blind convictions.
It always evades those who
claim it as their own
it always evades those who
think they know it all
it always evades those whose desires are too grandiose.

Truth is just a refugee
on the run from both armies,
she's long gone by the time the war is won.

Truth is a Refugee - (skeleton draft)

'Alligators' is, more or less, a direct transciption of a dream I had after my dear bro took his life. He'd love it. He was at the bottom of a big black lake. I had to dive to the bottom to get him back. There were Alligators. I freaked out.
And so it goes...

There's another verse in the wings, but this is enough for now.

-----

ALLIGATORS

There’s a lake in the wilds
and it comes and it goes,
and when it will appear
only Grief knows.

Wandering the dark forest
in sorrow and grief
I came upon it
so dark and so deep.

	So still and so silent,
	nothing lives there,
	but lying on the bottom
	in their deathly dark lair.

		Alligators…
		Alligators…
		Alligators…
		Alligators…


Here’s where the souls go
of those murdered by horror,
so down in its depths
lies the soul of my brother.

I stand at the edge
of the pitch black lake
and sensing my presence      
the beasts awake.

	Rising from the bottom
	they are blind, but they seek,
	their sensitive snouts
	smelling fear’s dank reek.

		Alligators…
		Alligators…
		Alligators…

Do I dare to dive
into their slippery black lair,
they all in their armour
and me all raw and bare?

Into the black
I plunge down and down
I sense that their coming
though they make no sound.

	The whoosh of a tail
	The scrape of scales
	The brush of claws
	The breath of a maw.

		Alligators…
		Alligators…
		Alligators…

Panic, terror,
utter despair,
I lunge for the surface,
gasping for air.

		Alligators…
		Alligators…
		Alligators…

Alligators - Rough demo

Electric guitar, Broken Wurlitzer, Ableton

DromeTomes

I read a fragment of the poem Enantiodromia over an accidental funk improv featuring Greg Hopen on saxophone, Jordan Wallace on bass, Dave Kimpden on drums and myself on guitar. It was recorded live off the floor in Dave Kimpden's drum studio by a boombox around 1997. I added the voiceover a couple of months later.

---

Enantiodromia through the wall that is the inside of an egg.
Primal instinct in integration with x-ray vision.
A bow of hope pulled to the tightest taut,
bent to the quivering razor edge of rent,
knocked with an arrow that was blackest coal
but through fear's anguished energy
was crushed, fused and crystallised
into a piercing pointed diamond
of sharpest compassion.

---

Enantiodromia (full poem)

Climbing without ascent
running without advance
were you thinking about dying?
or are you dying to be reborn?

Between the straight line of evolution
and the circle of revolution,
in a held tension,
is a gyre.

In tension, creation,
In tension creation,
In tension, creation.

Snake advances by vacillation along the ground,
gyrfalcon's wings beating up and down.
In the greatest tension, the greatest creation,
and the greatest creation is the gravest danger,
and destruction is tension held taut beyond limitation.
Taut 'till broke,
bent 'till rent,
the acrobatic art
splits apart,
and the acrobat
falls.

The fearsome fire white hot burning up,
white knuckled clenched fist gripped tight,
the teeth that grind in the night.
The parched string screaming taut,
bow pulled,
quivering,
arched,
shivering back,
bent to point of rent,
releases
the piercing pointed
arrow of light,
seams bursting,
splitting
apart.

FLAME OF CHANGE
WELDERS FLAME
FLAMES TO BURN THE PAST AWAY

Enantiodromia through the wall that is the inside of an egg.
Primal instinct in integration with x-ray vision.
A bow of hope pulled to the tightest taut,
bent to the quivering razor edge of rent,
knocked with an arrow that was blackest coal
but through fear's anguished energy
was crushed, fused and crystallised
into a piercing pointed diamond
of sharpest compassion.

Enantiodromia

In Suspense

In suspense.
Tethered taut
as a present possibility
between past and future,
between puppet and angel.
Gathered into the torn tension
of momentum and calling.
Mortal in eternity,
our cracked fragility,
endures the stress, straining.

What longing-calling,
voice of eternity,
could dare us,
and bring us to dare,
the crossing?

Eternity’s pure whole notes –
somehow heard –
disclose our infirmity.
Restless, unfinished, incomplete,
despair tears us
from our security.

With such poised patient passion we must proceed across –
balancing an unscored ballet,
an improvised dance –
with a terrible glance to the precipice,
still we venture forth.

Over the crevasse,
quivering,
the dangling suspension bridge:
the crying chords arch across,
trembling,
the slatted planks,
in the wind swaying,
and far below,
far, far below,
in the darkness gnashing,
the froth is rushing.

-----

The poem was inspired by a hike in Pukaskwa Park in North Ontario where there was a formidable suspension bridge, combined with, among other things, a quote from Nietzsche, “Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the superhuman — a rope above an abyss.”, and Heinrich Von Kleist’s essay ‘On the Marionette Theatre’.

I used this poem as a premise for a workshop at Berlin Change Days 2020 whose theme was ‘Building Bridges’. Here is my Medium article — Unknowing, the Other, and Suspense— reflecting on the workshop.

In Suspense

Opening section of the premiere of my solo set for micro-venues on April 16, 2016.
Hosted by Michael Armstrong at the Christian Peacemaker Team household in Parkdale, Toronto.
Section includes 'Not in Kansas', 'Dorothy goes to Gettysburgh' and 'Meanderlingual'.

Live Solo. Parkdale, Toronto 16-04-16. NotInKansas/DorothyGoesGettysburgh/Meanderlingual

The Window

There's a window
out at the edge of everything,
where the soul's go
out and in.
And this is all just a bauble, a bubble, a puddle,
which we fight wars over again and again.

There's a window
at either end of everything.
I've seen them go out and come in
and here we are wondering
thinking that
this is all that there is.

For some I know,
after all was said and done,
it seemed the only way,
through the wall,
after all,
this world's a wall.

There's a window…
O dear brothers departed,
I see you all gazing in
wondering why we become so defiant of love
again and again.

--

There's a window,
out at the edge of everything:
like lightning
or like the tide coming in…
We all fall down down
down to the ground, ground, ground...

There's a window
out at the edge of everything.
In every room,
down every hall,
It’s down every corridor,
through every wall.

	burst of bright birds from our finished bodies
	through the window
	to go home again, to go home again....

Window (draft)

MouthFeel (1998): 
Nik Beeson - spoken word, percussion 
Alan Davis - kit, loops, synths 
Neil Gardiner - percussion 
Greg Hopen - percussion
Charly Roby - bass guitar

Ramadan at Sunset poem by Nik Beeson

Ramadan at Sunset

Primal, cathartic electroacoustic... an cacophonic emergency of distorting synths and guitar feedback, eventually wears itself out, dropping into a deep, warm peacefulness, with a question mark at the end

Undertow

An acoustic guitar composition with some licks thrown in by Juno award winning guitarist Ken Hamm (https://www.kenhamm.com/).

Possibly my earliest 'multitrack' recording, on a Fostex-26 4-track recorder (which I now periodically use as a distortion pedal!) - 1994-ish.  Apologies for the monstrous tape hiss!

Leaping Loopholes

I use SoundCloud for drafts and experiments.
Hope you enjoy!!
For completed works check BandCamp or Spotify.
Gracias!

---

Multi-genre composer & songwriter:
acoustic folk grunge, ambient electroacoustic, music for contemporary dance, video installation, sonic theatre, paradigmalogos.

Nik Beeson

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