Cities by Csolnit

VISUAL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a5AQ5FPhIs

"Cities" is a double album about experiencing urban space and life from a distance. “Distance” in terms of being both spatially far away and detached from reality into imagination. A listening perspective that I hope evokes a space with emotion, memory and urban activity.
…
One morning I impulsively biked up Mount Tabor. I had done this ride many times but never at four in the morning. It was cold and I could feel my body was still half asleep, it felt like it was already going to be unrewarding. During this period of my life I was in transition. I was confused and still getting used to my life away from Minneapolis. Bike rides were a way of familiarizing myself with Portland. However, when I reached the top of Tabor that morning, I experienced the city in a new unexpected way.

I felt high. I was calm and hypnotized for hours. The lights and buildings downtown were motionless but moving at the same time, like a mirage. As I glared downtown into the distance I could feel a presence in the city. A psychedelic overload. I sat there thinking about what could be happening downtown. There was what was immediately visible: Patterns of street lights, radio antenna towers blinking, glowing floors on buildings and towers. Then there were the things you didn’t see, but couldn’t help making up in your head: children still sleeping, the homeless under bridges, radios playing in cars, restaurants turning on their ovens. It was a single moment capturing many moments.

And it really did feel like so much was happening in no time at all. On pause but playing concurrently. This dark and early morning had created a dreamy state with various levels of reality. I wasn't just looking at the city from a distance, I was looking at a snapshot of the life in the city too. Emotions, stories and mechanic activities streamed into my imagination as I observed the downtown architecture.

I had to capture it! After all, this was one of the most amazing moments I had ever had. The only way I could elaborate this kind of beautiful ambiguity had to be through music. There had to be some sort of composition in that feeling of a moment being on pause and play at the same time. There was a spirit to cities where time was both static and dynamic.

Soon I was out of the trance and biked home. It was still very dark and I was more tired than ever. But I could already start to hear what I had seen in my head. I continued to hear it when I got back in bed.
---
Static: stat·​ic | \ ˈsta-tik \ : Of or relating to bodies at rest or forces in equilibrium, showing little change, characterized by a lack of movement, animation, or progression, producing an effect of repose or quiescence, noise produced in a radio or television receiver by atmospheric or various natural or man-made electrical disturbances, of, relating to, or caused by radio static from being far away.
---
This album is dedicated to Mark Hollis.

Pools of sound, space and cities.

karlmhahn.wixsite.com