Perfectly creating a great new work of art out of two contrasting sources. Your instincts were right Peter. Lovely work from you both.

Interesting mix that makes poetry even more universal. A test of what can be transmitted with good music

Not sure anyone does this much beter than you Peter and the duet with Debra is so fitting. So sweet. Durge

Great performance of the beautiful poem (great pro-sound-voice) visualizing Debras beautiful composition!!

a beautiful collaboration indeed, love the poem and Debbie's lovely piece...

what a beautiful combination Debbie and Peter , like a hand in a glove . JOhnny

(Not Quite A) Serenade

Interesting how things evolve sometimes.  This little piece was born a few months ago when Debbie listened to a radio programme about the passing of the Mexican singer Vincente Fernandez and was quite taken by his music.  Later that evening, at her piano, subliminal influence did its thing and the basis of (Not Quite A) Serenade emerged.  But what to do with it, where to take it?  As an aside to a separate discussion recently Debbie kindly shared the piece with me and I asked if I might have a think about some words to accompany it – having no immediate preconception of what they might be, or be about.

I could certainly hear “post war Paris” or so I thought, (wrong cultural influence…!) but more careful listening revealed a composition with many facets; now a wry nostalgic smile, now a sinister twist, its emotional sense I placed as somewhere slightly beyond "melancholy" – nearer "wistful sadness" perhaps, a little hint of unease a little trepidation and a sprinkling of regret. The clown with two faces.  This isn’t misery or depression by a long chalk, but the music seemed to suggest that things are not how they ought to have been, ideally, and in its world we’re not looking forward with much optimism.

My lyrical meanderings led me to “The Hollow Wood”, a short poem by Edward Thomas, an English “war poet” from WW1, but not of the visceral, harrowing nature of Sassoon or Owen.  Edward was a troubled man, a tragic figure, his portfolio of work (all of it written in just two years) is often laced with wistful reflections of the natural world of an England that was, or used to be, and the impending uncertain change brought by a world at war. The Hollow Wood, I think, attracts many of the adjectives that Debbie’s (Not Quite A) Serenade might; the poem is emotionally like-minded, it has sparkly uplifting passages, but then some odd, unearthly ones, contrasting moods, conflicting emotions, rumbling unease, two worlds, two faces, light, bright life meets the dark, dank dead.

The Hollow Wood is is one of Edward Thomas’ earlier poems written as they all were after the start of the war, (he was killed in action shortly after being posted to France a couple of years later) and carries deep within it the foreboding sense of gathering clouds portending the hell of extended war in Europe, and beyond .... a sense, an undercurrent, an atmosphere not unlike the present......

I’m honoured and delighted that Debbie granted me the privilege of trying to develop her wonderful music into another space.  You can find her SC channel here: https://soundcloud.com/debra_buesking
_______________________________________________________________
The Hollow Wood by Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

Out in the sun the goldfinch flits
Along the thistle-tops, flits and twits
Above the hollow wood
Where birds swim like fish -
Fish that laugh and shriek -
To and fro, far below
In the pale hollow wood.

Lichen, ivy, and moss
Keep evergreen the trees
That stand half-flayed and dying,
And the dead trees on their knees
In dog's-mercury and moss:
And the bright twit of the goldfinch drops
Down there as he flits on thistle-tops.

(Not Quite A) Serenade by Debra Buesking with a poem by Edward Thomas

Atmospheric track between floating sounds and sequenced passages. The raven samples were taken in the "Nationalpark Bayrischer Wald" in Germany.

Towards The North Star

Mezz Recipe - Rolling And
Weighty Tree - What Not

https://soundcloud.com/theweightytree/sets/the-mezz-recipe-sessions-1?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Keep On Rolling... - Mezz Recipe & The Weighty Tree

One for the SHARK

One for the SHARK (Instrumental)

Diamond: An original song by;

I will pretend to have a soul
On the days that I am wholly hollow
We'll slay everything your afraid of

Rust

Skaface    -   Rerelease

Off to Sleep w/the Basket Case (muterial's "Off the Rails" open collab)

muterial @muterial : instrumental track https://soundcloud.com/muterial/off-the-rails?si=b5b6e1b82def4e8ea1cd4053d6e5a9ae&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Delmar African Wine : vocals https://soundcloud.com/aap-scmusic?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
9Eleven : vocals https://soundcloud.com/aap-scmusic?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Arranged, recorded and mastered by Mahan² @ Pahlavi Sound Studios, Los Angeles, California, USA 01/13/2023

Off to Sleep w/the Basket Case ~ muterial | AAP/Delmar African Wine & AAP/9Eleven | Mahan²

Funk Februari

lyrics:

This is about the great molasses flood
occurred in the north-end neighbourhood 
of Boston.
On January 15, 1919
a large storage tank filled with tons of molasses
burst
and the resultant wave rushed through the streets
killing 21 and injuring 150.
The event entered the local folklore
and residents claimed for decades
afterwards
that the area still smelled 
of molasses
on hot summer days.

HEXOMINO

The Area Still Smelled Of Molasses

source: https://soundcloud.com/gaspardcanine/sugar-bear-slices

(Not Quite A) Serenade by Debra Buesking with a poem by Edward Thomas

1234567890

Recent comments

mark

Red＆Blue

No killie fish

Liz Dicker

Related tracks