Tape loop architect, professor of low end theory.
Category:
Fragments
Nautilus Of The Deep
I decided to leave with them. We set sail that very night. I was one of the crew. We called at unknown ports. For the first time, I heard the name of Kelisha, Rectis... On an island covered with tall, fragrant grasses, I met a young Greek who told me that in the years...
Encolpio, Fellini Satyricon
Tower Of Dub
Terranova, Terranova... doesn't that mean new land?, I heard a voice say.
Traffic sounds hang like hieroglyphs in the thick of the afternoon, air hot and humid and heavy, surroundings all swathed in blankets of compression. Bass pressure rises from within the monolith's core, the digital skank of The Sabres Of Paradise cresting with gilded guitars on the surf, echoes of Wilmoth Houdini & The Night Owls and distant decades scaling impartial into the past.
The Orb, a sun nestled into the horizon like a craft on the ocean waters. Loa, spirits and the Haunted Danceall all phase in before drifting out toward that familiar star's bronze vibrations on a lazy wave breaking back against the shore...
Excerpt from The Coqui Papers
Gwen Guthrie
Dubdisco diva: high priestess of the dancefloor.
David Axelrod
The Mental Traveler, moving orchestras on a dime.
The Deep
A creature lurks in the deep - fathoms deep beneath bass pressure and walls of inertia - submerged in an ocean of sound. Its shadow slides across plant life and outcroppings of stone... a silhouette rises to the surface, slowly. Pipe organ drifts through chasms of dub - invasion creeping in a frieze of fury - it all surges upward into the deep black night.
J.J. Cale
Sun-glazed beatbox troubadour.
The Black Hit Of Space
Been out all night, I needed a bite,
I thought I'd put a record on
I reached for the one with the ultra-modern label,
And wondered where the light had gone
It had a futuristic cover, lifted straight from Buck Rogers
The record was so black it had to be a con
The autochanger switched as I filled my sandwich,
And futuristic sounds warbled off and on
The black hit of space
It's the one without a face
It's the one that doesn't fit
You can only see the flip
The black hit of space
Sucking in the human race
How can it stay at the top
When it's swallowed all the shops
As the song climbed the charts, the others disappeared
Til there was nothing but it left to buy
It got to number one, then into minus figures
Though nobody could understand why
The black hit of space
It's the one without a face
It's the one that doesn't fit
You can only see the flip
The black hit of space
Sucking in the human race
How can it stay at the top
When it's swallowed all the shops
I couldn't stand this bland sound anymore so I walked towards my deck to turn it off
All I could see was the b-side of the disc
Which had assumed a doughnut shape with the label on the outside rim
I reached for the arm which was less than one micron long
But weighed more than Saturn and time stood still
I knew I had to escape but every time I tried to flee, the record was in front of me
The black hit of space
Get James Burke on the case
It's the hit that's never gone
Time stops when you put it...
The Human League (The Black Hit Of Space, Travelogue)
Journey Of The Dragons
Duppy Dunza
It was in that moment that she could see the connections, like a lattice of accord stretching over what once seemed like a tangle of happenstance. Red Money flowing through back channels, black plastic in Mass Production on factory floors; gravity's pull drawing notes ringing from the desert sands. Hada Raykoum and rhythm boxes coiling through sheets of synths, sun-glazed in the heat and slipping elemental toward Sahara skies (Moroccan Roll). Artifacts flown up from the Yucatán on biplane, over the gulf and into the Florida Keys. Stone sculpture submerged in the deep... rise against the tide, slowly.
Hector Lavoe and Willie Colón on tape with Augustus Pablo at the controls in El Yunque. Bass pressure rises from the deep, ghost drums and duppy dunza echoes haunting through Carolina streets. Transatlantic shadows drift from gold coast to gold coast and back again, from one summer to another. Cheikh Lô treads softly in 2006, one year later but none too soon. A snatch of graffiti cries out Lily Was Here and the saxophone breeze carries faintly on salty ocean air. Gulf stream laps at the beachhead, where sea turtles crawl to shore on black sodden sand and the promise of tomorrow.
Excerpt from The Coqui Papers