the music.

I was both excited and daunted to draw Kara Square as my secret mixter. Excited because I’ve already “collaborated “ with her before & love her work – daunted because I’d already mined her work and couldn’t find anything which I could add to, as so much of her work is already perfect and complete. More than a week went by and I’d turned up nothing. Then I started thinking about the idea of Fortune, Luck and Accident, remembered by poem and thought how it might interact with Kara’s 2011 spinning. Spinning had already been remixed many times by people with much more ability than me but my poem would take spinning in a whole new direction.
The more I pulled spinning apart, the more I realized what a masterpiece it was, so I decided to leave Kara’s production intact for the second half (and climax) of the song. The extended mix is still based on Kara’s instrumentation – the ominous organ and building percussion stretched out a little so it can be savored a little more.
In an ideal world I would have used pizzicato strings over Kara’s bass for the intro but the ukulele was all I had at hand! The rest was just my own words and a little shakuhachi in the slow build to Kara’s vocals. Kara’s words about our environmental inaction added to my ‘accident waiting to happen’ theme. I used a fair bit of panning to enhance the swirly sounds associated with the spinning theme and pared the end right back to the initial plucked uke to support Kara’s words ‘turn the end into the beginning.’
So after early frustration I’m pretty pleased with the result. I hope you approve, Kara!
(added 20/02/13): I’ve only just learnt that trivient & CSoul were responsible for the loops & samples which spinning was based on. Thanks to you guys too. I couldn’t find Dark Helical Circle on the Attributions page, CSoul.)







the text

This formed the first half of a longer sequence titled Original clichés which was originally published in Red River Review (US) last November.

An accident waiting to happen

purposeless and alienated, a coexisting anomie and ennui
a concatenation of the unrelated I lurk on street corners
planning the intersection of vehicles.

delayed by traffic light whim or
leaving home moments earlier you leave yourself
vulnerable to my coordinate points.

I am the haybale awaiting synchronicity
of temperature and humidity
to interrupt a firefighter’s dinner.

I am the thrown match which may peter out
or destroy the entire national park,
the oily rag in the shed.

I am the outdated nuclear reactor
behind the low seawall
waiting for the plates to move.

I am the occasional freight train,
the unsignalled crossing,
the sleepy motorist.

I am the barely submerged snag in the murky river,
the sharemarket software trigger
programmed to sell sell sell.

I am the scissors in the hand of the running child
the gun in the glovebox,
gathering ions in cumulo-nimbus
above the golfer on the fairway,
the jet engine’s invisible hairline fracture,
the tiny blood vessel in the brain under pressure

I am the one flake of snow
that begins the avalanche.

I am unstring theory.

I am tired of waiting,

so tired…

© rob walker, 2012