horsemouth's care package has arrived

featuring the angry brigade and utopia (books of poetry) and on the cusp (a guitar CD by robert john lawson). there was some concern about whether it would all arrive or not (it was miss post-coded) plus horsemouth has an ongoing paranoia about the postal service having it in for him. try E* was the helpful suggestion from some postie somewhere (and it worked).

horsemouth has a cough and so any time not spent working is being spent in bed sniveling (ok there’s the time spent coughing and spluttering on public transport). fortunately he hasn’t had to work much this week and then he’s into this is not the last week, ok this is the last week.

horsemouth has high standards in the poetry lark having been raised by ranting (ok, ok, ‘performance’) poet and king of the turn-around mr. social control. these poems do not disappoint - neither utopia ‘rain-swimming with my brother in the former west germany’ nor the angry brigade ‘a bomb in the boutique, a pox on those distractions’ - look at the castlist; anne sexton, anna mendelssohn, sabate, godzilla (‘giant radioactive lizard/ film star mostly tokyo based’).

as you know from recent posts, these are both very horsemouth topics. a friend pronounced himself heartily sick of utopia (after a year of art students rocking up with utopia conversation platforms and alike) - but for horsemouth the moment before the certainty came down, the moment when a better world became thinkable (and not just innevitable) is the interesting one.

cusp too - guitar instrumentals, some dialogue (sounds like kids at breakfast, some traffic noise, the wind, at one point a woman’s voice ‘I hear you’ causes the track to become self-conscious and quieten itself down) perhaps some hand drumming following the tap delays (very 90ies digital delays and reverbs here). is that poor boys... horsemouth hears in there? it cuts out suddenly.

(you’ll remember howard has gone in for some of this - on the last musicians of bremen album)

recorded on a ranch in the utah desert sometime in 1999 - 100 copies made and still a few left - kind of a late-fahey vibe edging towards that pre-loop pedal thing , of allowing the delay to support you and guide you forward (steve hillage style), a wyndham hill/ ecm texture. certainly as good as much of the stuff on dying for bad music (probably it’s natural home) - horsemouth will try it from howard.

'but is it an EGG or a TURD?'  asks the letter - it is of course eggs - but don’t knock turds, full of seeds they are, good sites for spore growth - all that we throw away as dirt could be golden for it all becomes soil with the help of the worms (here horsemouth is having a neal-style wonders of nature moment - aww bless). your egg is immediate. your turd a gift with a timer and a do not disturb notice.

sean was up visiting - now it’s irish pirates.

horsemouth will have to respond with some gifts.