He kinetically arrived
with 1973.
Night is the longest day,
here come the warm jets,
served on a cold plate.
Play it back at half-speed
and you've got auditory wallpaper,
it must be as ignorable
as it is interesting.
His own world spins within a device:
cacophony of sound
mixed in a blender
and xeroxed;
a little snake guitar,
a little Leslie piano
— music to resign you
to the possibility of death.
Then came 1983
and beyond just him.
Tamper tantrum hotline,
amplifiers on the balcony,
secretly taping Edge
and Adam Clayton
on a 4th of July.
The numbered streets
and desert rain
add soul to this heartland,
it's the gospel truth
he wiped the deck clean.
(sort of and maybe).
His device spins within its own world:
manageable hums,
danceable drones,
welded into night;
daytime variations
held together
no better (and no worse)
than a cloud.
Then there's sfumato:
music without lines or borders,
in the manner of smoke
— theatrical fog
— a different kind of blue.
Densely layered,
so impossible to track,
this being lost in
the magnetic hush
of airports and
other strange kiosks,
it all falls into a creative lull.
Guess it's time for
Oblique Strategies...
