SLOW TRAUMA by Bill Mallonee (March/2016)

NOTE: THE CD VERSION OF THIS ALBUM IS AVAILABLE AT: http://www.billmalloneemusic.com


SLOW TRAUMA~ A brief preface by Bill Mallonee
"Of Inspiration/Birth & Grieving"
Muriah & I have lived out here in the rural, high desert of New Mexico for the last 6 years. With a home studio that I feel increasingly comfortable in, I've hit a creative output that's unlike anything I've ever done previously. It's been a journey lyrically & musically.
I saw David Bowie in the Elephant Man. And a line he delivered will always move me to tears: "There are so many ideas in my head that sometimes I feel like it will explode."

There are 4 "high desert" albums, to my ears, standout, each with a particular view, role and "destination" in my life. Those albums are "Dolorosa,"Winnowing," "Lands & Peoples."
And now "Slow Trauma.
All have been born in the last 3 years. The "family" is growing! ;-)
(As a side: I consider Amber Waves & The Power & The Glory" to be Vigilantes of Love albums).

What to say? With each release there's grieving. I grieve mostly because each of the albums is a rending of the spirit to write, record and deliver. And yes, there's a lot of "sweat equity" in them as well.

Me? I hate and abhor the self-promo thing that artists have to do these days. It all feels hollow, insincere and stupid. "Let the Art speak and get out of the way," I say.
I have no idea how to move these musical "statements" into higher profile. Not being able to afford the price tags of PR entities and not willing to do the "shuck & jive" required to whore one's wares to Nashville, I tend to write, record, release them...and then make a certain uneasy peace with low numbers.

I need your word of mouth to make the records get up and walk, to find a new audience and to breathe their spirit in a bigger world;
SO: If you feel inclined to "share" a few songs with friends, talk it up and promote it a bit?
Well, I'm much obliged.
Grace & Courage,
~ Bill Mallonee
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Liner Notes to Slow Trauma

“Oh, Death!”
In the “old days,” there were called liner notes; You know: Those written extrapolations an artist would offer about his or her new album.
Usually part of an LP's back cover or inner sleeve, they formed a major feature in an album's art work.

As a kid, drums were my first instrument. They were learned in a dusty basement with a stack of old LPs, my first real school-room;
And liner notes? (the ones complete with the who played what?)
I thought they were the coolest thing on earth.
I still do.

Many of you know, I like writing about what’s “behind the work;”
A peering through the cracked window into the collection of songs;
You know, the inspiration, the etcetera, etcetera…

I suppose in a day and age, where fewer and fewer people read, it’s all just a vain exercise now. Selfish perhaps.
For me? Maybe, it’s just my little way of scrawling out: “Kilroy was here.”
(A fascinating historical sidebar: Kilroy was presumably an American soldier in WWII, who inscribed his presence here and there across Europe on things like Church steeples or walls, as the Allies liberated Nazi held territories. Get this: No one knows where it originated or who he (or she) was.

C’est la Vie & so be it…

“Slow Trauma” is the name of the new one. It drops/releases on 3.15.16.
It’s getting close to something like album #80 for me…
Kilroy has been here a few times

Sure, it’s an Americana record. And an “honest-to-God” Rock & Roll record, too.
That’s what I do.
That’s the “genre” where I feel most comfortable in my “musical skin.”

It’s also, very much a record about Death.
Let me explain…

I always felt the world was “off axis.” Not “the thing it should be.”
I knew early on “I” was part of the problem, as well.
And of course, good people, friends, loved ones “leave the party too soon…”
Mortality.
(“How’s that again?”)

For me anyway, doctrines like “The Fall of Man” mattered a lot. I gravitated there in an effort to make sense of it all…
In a very existential way they mattered.
It matters not whether such concepts be rooted in ancient history or deeply accurate mythology; Such doctrines are our attempt to explain how “modern man” has gotten “from A to B;” You know: How we arrived (in our oh-so-enlightened modernity) at this point on the timeline.

Arrived. Arrived here. Arrived in the “now.”
Arrived confused, beleaguered & deviled;
Our spirits permeated with a kind of numbness, wrapped in a kind of spiritual lethargy, stunted; Arrived cold & weary.
Arrived as a race of people given to fear, greed, cruelty. Garnished with a lust for violence and domination.
Its been going on forever…For. Ever.
No, we’re not so very modern after all, really.

Death. Cessation.
A component of my interior world.
I feel like I’ve been staring it down in one form or another all of my life.
I’ve been “institutional material” once or twice.
It has certainly shaped my melancholy temperament and driven my art in noticeable ways.

I know some movements across the spectrum of human history have glorified it, romanticized it, even reveled in it…
Death. What’s to revel in?
Me? I don’t see it that way. At all.
I think it’s more like an aberration.
A blasphemy.
God, damn it. (That’s a prayer. Not an expletive.)

The idea of the cessation of life has haunted me ever since I was oh, 7 or 8 years old.
Too young to feel or sense guilt about anything, as far as I remember.
Later on, I did heavy-duty “homework” on the Christian Faith.
And yes. I converted. It was a few moments, days of indescribable joy & confidence…
And then it all vanished in the shame of failures. Maybe it was my complete unfamiliarity and naivete of what the spiritual life was all about.
One’s prayers feel like they hit the ceiling and fall to the floor.
Guilt makes one alone and silent.
A babe lost in the woods…

I studied the Life of Jesus, the Lord, the Savior; I still do.
Learned about the Church’s history, it’s beauty, it’s heinous failures, it’s claims, and promises.

For me, the question was: How does one reconcile that tension/fear of death with it’s visceral dynamic with the hope of Christ’s Resurrection and it’s promise of our own?
I don’t know.

But, this is all too esoteric, isn’t it…?
I’ll play my hand.
I was always “weighed & found wanting.”
The unequivocal mood of my interior life? Feelings of damnation.
Like some dark beast crouching in the corner of my consciousness, it was almost always “there.” Watching, waiting, unrelenting.
I spent years struggling with the deeper aspects of Mercy & Forgiveness, mostly because, from day one, I felt so unworthy of any of it…and because my own “holiness” has always been crap anyway. I struggle to “see myself” as even remotely redeemable.
No “gussying-up” any of this.
(Recently, I’m wondering if it’s the “raw data” of good songs…
Well, at least the kind of songs I like write.)

The state of my soul has always been one of disarray and doubt;
Grievous sin and inconsistency.
And, I mention this, because the state of one’s soul has always been irrevocably linked to death and the hereafter.
The solution, in Christianity, has always been the Cross of Christ and the defeat of Death itself in his Resurrection.
That’s the Creed’s declaration, you know?
My ability to grasp these beautiful truths by faith, to see oneself as a forgiven child of God, has always felt elusive.
Perhaps, i was/am still trying to “earn it.”

Still, the visible Church (it seems to me) often spends much of her time putting boundaries on just how far and to whom the Cross of Christ reaches; boundaries on just how far His Mercy reaches and how efficacious His Grace is.
No wonder eyes roll and hearts despair.

I must tell the whole truth, however:
On my “better days,” I have no doubts.
Well, fewer.
Love Wins,
Grace Triumphs
And that we’re all made Whole.
And I do mean “ALL.”
Everyone.
Every. One.
"He Is Risen," goes the Easter liturgy.
And you & I, the stumbling, wayward congregation of the spiritually poor, blind, sin-sick and lame respond:
"He Is Risen, Indeed!"
I'm there.

So: All of this interior turmoil & wrangling?
What of it?
Well, it’s the stuff of songs, I think.
It’s been just under the skin, or right out in the open of almost every song I’ve ever written; some 1500 in all, I think…
Cheap therapy, I say…

Slow Trauma. No, not all gloom & darkness…
I promise.
Sonically, i went for the elegant; layered guitars and rock & roll;
And yes, I think there are a few transcendent moments.

At some point (in the face of the all the “absurdity” that manifest in this thing we call Life) I think one has to say with Julian of Norwich, that great mystic who was so not a part of her century: “All shall be well and all manner of things shall be most well.”

Slow Trauma
Hope & Joy do come up in the “plus column.”
But, that’s AFTER the wrestling & wrangling.
Wrestling and wrangling. Through the feelings of hopelessness & damnation.
“That’s what faith is all about, Charlie Brown.” ~ St. Linus

There is so very much I have to rejoice in; so much to be thankful for.
The gift of writing songs, playing instruments is, making records is perhaps, my favorite.
And yes, I see all of it coming very much “from the hands of the Lord.”
He knew I needed this. And that is His Mercy, as well.

You make certain peace with the fact of your own mortality; and your own sad, stumbling, “lacking-in-courage-humanity” at some point.
(Why was I the last to know about my own “Judas skin” that I’m so comfortably living in?)
At some point, you’re not surprised at yourself anymore.

But, really now?
An album that explores some of that?
I dunno how you ‘sell” that, but that’s what it is.
Then again, I hardly sell any records anymore anyway.

Jesus,
I can bring You nothing. Never have, mostly likely never will.
But, sometimes, sometimes I have these “better angels of our nature” days…
I’m Yours, Jesus, if You’ll have me.

Slow Trauma.
Life beckons. You only get the day, one day at a time…
And the world? It is starving and hurting.
Best get about doing one’s part to lessen the grief.
Do your part, in your corner and among your friends, to kick at the darkness and at death itself.

That’s some of what this album is about…
“Kilroy was here.”

bill mallonee
Lent 2016

Bill Mallonee is an Americana artist w/ 85 plus albums over a 30 year career.

Voted by Paste Music Magazine #65 in their "Top 100 Living Songwriters" poll. He was the
founding member of Athens, Ga. Vigilantes of Love. He has worked with Jim Scott, Mark Heard, Buddy Miller, & Emmylou Harris.
2024 recordings include the double volume Glimmer I & ll. Hard copy LPs & Cd are at: www.BillMallonee.com

billmalloneemusic.com