I imbue thee, my divinely favored brother, to ride eastward from the Gates of Alexandria, two moons on palfrey across an ancient sea of cracked earth, o’er a valley with two yellow rivers, ascending upward through the pass between the snowy spade and the rocky twin daggers. There, opens a vast plateau filled with white sand and black stallions, a kingdom without a king, where heretics and saints share prayers in pure faith. Sire, you know of my abstention from the mystical, my shrewdness to decipher the flesh of meat from the scents of hunger, yet I assure you, my worshipful master, that I have reached the Land of Cockaigne!
Sugary smoke and distant drumming waft through palm trees, drawing throngs of Wakoku warriors, Persian nymphs, and Daimo shamans around a trio of musicians. A Jacobite monk, cloaked in a hooded robe, kneels against the earth and blows into a gemshorn, inside which the tootle-too transforms into an herbal potion that flows into the mouths of naked pilgrims. A squirrelly jester donned in bright fabrics with motley patterns, pounds his feet against goat skins, while with strings tied to his fingers, pulls the wind to a standstill and holds back the sun itself from setting beyond the horizon. Sitting on a silk pillow, a swarthy alchemist, his neck wrapped by a sleeping snake, plucks sounds from metal strings that form streams of pink smoke, lifting into the sky and falling down as morsels of soft cheese.
I defy you to ask upon yourself, o faithful priest, whether our brotherhood is bound, not by the oaths we pledge to wars of the flesh, but rather to the communion we share while we await the eternal spirit beyond. Farewell, my all.
credits
released March 4, 2022
Recorded and Mixed by Jake Orrall
and Kunal Prakash at Earthbound Sound Studio
Oh how I long for this album in vinyl format! Such smoothness. Such warmth. Such execution. This music begs to be taken along and woven into memories. Everyone I’ve shared this album with has loved it. The music speaks far and wide. Shouting out to a fellow follower, Brian Lehmann, for his excellent taste in music. If not for him, I likely would have never stumbled upon this absolute gem! Plinchmo Larduktin
A whopping 56-track career-spanning compilation from the iconic actor and musician shows off all facets of his talent. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 15, 2024
My favourite of the lockdown era livestreams. The Lev Sessions and Red Rocks ones are great too, but Big Sur made "Mutilator Defeated At Last" click for me after I'd struggled with it for a while - those versions of 'Rogue Planet', 'Poor Queen' and 'Withered Hand' are so good, as is 'Gholü' and 'Gelatinous Cube'. The encore of Black Flag covers bang hard as shit too.
Also worth a mention are the bonus non-album Panther Rotate experiments at the start of the livestream; an interesting warm-up. Xtra Happy