sumthin by KR Seward

Sleight Of Mind –

Old saw about “a word to the wise” seems to neglect how little the wise may even need a word, or how little good even a big string of carefully chosen ones may do anyone else. Liner notes (such as these) are meant more to distract the mind so the ears can listen. Thus more than one word.

Names and designations may hope to frame but never change things. Duchamp mentioned the observer “finishing” the work, which sounds okay but oddly utopian for a Dadaist. Or like yet another all too human conflation of objective observation with subjective perception.

Pareidolia is not just some fun Greek word.

One visual artist was showing works on paper created by process, burning gunpowder on white paper, IIRC. While far starker than what one might hear here, similar coolness of intent (cast a cold eye/on life, on death – William Butler Yeats) and process driven whatnot is hoped for. Someone at the gallery talk expressed a very personal, fixed and literal interpretation of the works, seeming to miss the point of process driven whatnot on paper, cool intent. But in advance of the broken paradigm, maybe the gallery viewer was doing as one does when viewing clouds, and Duchamp or whoever in his wake would humbly know viewers always have such stories and points of view to bring, everything however process driven and open ended was bound to be read like one reads clouds or constellations. So the simplest and humblest mark might yet become a dragon in another’s eye.

There’s interpretation and imagination, plus whatever a human need for narrative brings from each person attending.

My view is not to confuse pattern creation with pattern recognition. Hear what is with no mind as to what it may evoke.

Not that anyone’ll listen. The face of some luminary will likely show up anyway in
in these sonic tortillas. So be it. Just know that different folks from different times will see different faces. What others see (or hear) will be something of their own, and well outside the purview of these sounds, however gathered. So it is as the one perceiving is.

Maybe to be factual, and likely misleading (FYI, FWIW, YMMV, etc.), note that the “zut” sounds in “Zut” were originally recorded in situ in some echoey cube of the Groundworks art space in New Bedford, MA while visiting a show there. Not a particular thing, just something sonic that was close by -- mentioned only to show how “catch as catch can” some things are. Recorded with a cheapo smartphone on hand (no one else’s voice, no “sousveillance” at work here or now, nor ever) running whatever app to an MP3 to be reused later on, etc etc. Much like digital gunpowder burns.

An aggregate of noises, voices & notions since 1982. A whole mess of tunes written. More recently eschewing classic song form, looking to raise a ruckus.

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