SEDAYNE // From the Proverbs of Hell (Six Sonatas for Crwth & Proximal Continuo // 2002)
~ Notes & Images ~
i) In early childhood I assumed those graves adorned with the above symbolism to be those of pirates & by the age of ten realised that the association was inverted; that pirates hoisted the Jolly Roger to strike terror into their victims because of its funereal associations. What I didn't know was that such funereal associations were the result of a decree by the Vatican in the middle ages arising from a growing concern that so many graves were being despoiled & the contents scattered that peopled feared that the resulting skeletal incompleteness would be incompatible with full bodily resurrection at the second coming of Christ. The Vatican pragmatically responded by stating that the minimum skeletal requirement for full bodily resurrection was the skull and two thigh bones; thus the symbol of the skull & cross bones became used not as symbol of death, but of resurrection.
2) The above visage can be found as part of an early 18th century memorial plaque in the cloisters of Durham Cathedral & has fascinated me man & boy, not least for the presence of the bat-wings; on blistering sunny days bats flit widdershins around the cloister until at last they drop dead of exhaustion. One such I found only because of the Middle American Tourists who saw it first. 'Oh gee Hiram,' quoth the female, 'Let's take it home with us and encase it in perspex.' Loathe to see an English bat so shabbily dealt with, I intervened, telling them about strict regulations that prohibited the export of bat corpses owing to them being a protected species - adding that there also existed certain superstitions concerning the cathedral bats, indicating the wings on the memorial skull as I wrapped the wee beastie in tissue paper and placed it a compartment of my bag where it remained forgotten until travelling to London on the train a week or so later. Finding myself peckish, I searched the compartments of my bag for something to nibble on and, finding the tiny bundle, proceeded to tip its contents onto the table I shared with three others - none of whom were known to me. The animal was of course scarcely recognisable, heaving as it was with maggots and malodorous the extent that two of my travelling companions ran to the toilets, hands over their mouths. Remaining was an old woman who introduced herself as Hortense; declaring herself relieved that there was at least now enough room to stretch her legs whilst unflinchingly putting the decomposing pipistrelle into an antique glass specimen jar containing formaldehyde. 'My father was a naturalist,' she said in a prelude to her 78 year life story , 'I learned as a girl always to be prepared...'
3) I began work on the Sonatas at some point during the last few days of August (2002) after a walk along the upper reaches of the Deerness Valley (Co Durham, UK) wherein it was noted by the colours displayed by the rowans (Fraxinus (Pyrus) Aucuparia - variously known as Mountain Ash, Quickbeam (Tree of Life) & Quicken) that summer had turned & autumn beckoned & thus I began to think about the best way of dealing with this creatively.
4) The first thing I did was set about the construction of a series of Proximal Continuos using the virtual technology at my disposal; inputting midi keyboard & drum computer onto Sound Forge 5.0 & processing the results using Cubasis before returning them to Sound Forge for further corroboration - much as I'd done on DH7 back in January.
5) The next stage was to input the CRWTH directly into Cubasis using the pre-processed Proximal Continuo as a backing track, thus incorporating the immediate energy & corporeality of the crwth within a musical context which was, for all intents and purposes, entirely artificial.
6) Of course, once the Crwth parts were recorded, they themselves were just as artificial as the rest of the music so best put aside all notions of artificiality & concentrate instead on the process wherein these sounds are woven into the whole fabric.
7) Such a process is impossible to account for given the variables involved.
8) One thing I will say though, that unlike the continuo, the crwth parts occurred in real time & represent third or forth take improvisations on themes that emerged during the first & second takes. Composition arises out of creative action, each piece defining its own parameters and operating quite snugly within them. I might think of Purity or even Simplicity, but otherwise I can't really account for what I actually play on this instrument other than to say it's the result of almost twenty years of happily wandering a very particular sort of wilderness, often in other contexts, be it storytelling (see above: October 26th, Nanny Goat Island Co. Durham for the Woodland Trust) or music (see below: Ensemble Venereum Arvum (myself & Rachel McCarron featuring Clive Powell) live at The Cluny, Newcastle upon Tyne October 6th 2002).
9) We began the above gig with an improvisation on the theme of Drive Your Cart & Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, the original version of which features here as track three. The theme was originally touched upon during our gig at BALTIC back in July where it was noticed that several of the hideous white plastic benches therein bore, for whatever reason, verses from William Blake's Proverbs of Hell. Such cultural traumas aside (even anti-art is art etc.) it set me thinking about The Proverbs of Hell which I'd touched upon whilst recording HOMETIME back in 1996 - the working title for which was From the Proverbs of Hell.
10) Click on the above image for a rare piece of aural onomatopoeia - Harpo Marx actually saying 'honk honk'.
11) Whilst not being an admirer of Blake's art, poetry, or philosophy, over the past twenty-five years or so I've found a particular resonance in certain of the proverbs and some verses from A Song of Liberty (both from The Marriage of Heaven & Hell circa 1790). Such a resonance is immediate, entirely subjective & impossible to account for though in my heart there weaves a word or two, shining like stars in the blackness of the December sky as we trudge the dirty lanes home, there to kindle the fire and send the sheltering jackdaws scattering from the chimney.
12) All that remains is to wish you a very Merry Christmas & a Happy & Preposterous New Year. Let Nothing Ye Dismay. Sedayne // Sunday December 8th 2002 (which just happens to be the 77th anniversary of opening of The Four Marx Brothers in 'The Cocoanuts' on Broadway in 1925; the total running length of From the Proverbs of Hell is 77 minutes...)
