A muse and space-rock – Living as art
So I saw the New York City band White Hills live in 2014, space-fucking-rock. I got totally sucked in with various visions and sounds and home-grown aesthetics filling in the void. A transport, my mind took over with an unconscious escape move like a 1965 chic Edie Sedgwick conquering a room full of admirers, delicate and strong. Both band and muse show lively efforts reading the future coming of a blackened true death, so burn free short life open minds. Be one with the falcon that has landed.
The seemingly endless intros as a White Hills improv jam like the endless first impressions from going to all the parties Edie. Be careful with street-smart lifestyle as art and rock ‘n’ roll spirit cause you might not come back – reporting back from the edges of extreme life like saint atheist gonzoid Hunter S. Thompson – a ship of non-fools not forgotten.
What was lacking live on stage was seven fog machines and some colored lights, maybe some strobes, something for a muse to dance with like 1965. I had to work hard for some visions in the trance the band put on me like when listening at home, or when I’m moving in a vehicle especially at night alone, maybe with a lighter, or an imaginary wizard friend. I thought of Heavy Metal the movie, the original one, 1970 something, the sloppy animation back then. Expressive as if already gone to all tomorrow’s parties, or that crackling album sound through an antique radio or a.m. stations from far away. Seeing some knee-high red shiny boots bass player and a trippy floral print long-sleeve guitar player shirt on a clear stage didn’t cut it. And I was missing the weird Crispin Glover performance for this waiting for the master or the devil or as both to pop out of the floor………..yes and with a smile, whiskey sours, Marlboros, the upper Midwest snowheads, journals of the psychotic worrying about saying something that will end conversations with strangers, or yourself.
Constant upbeat live sounds gone “Edie meth,” driving, hammering, a needle, traveling, easy on the guru vocals. A soundtrack for reversing time……….time is an illusion……Edie always listened on the ledges of meditation stopping “time,” searing others’ eyes, brains, using the whole mind-body form and function. A utopian muse rule via fine architecture.
Please don’t ask why hallucinating asemic lines created by some guitar effects pedals, op-art phosphenes floating dancing whirling, new styles by Edie the innovator, the it girl. The not-exact lines of connecting energies like watching you die now in the tunnel of white chaos that preceded the separation of heaven and earth don’t ask.
You’re the only one left, go home, let it go, put on a White Hills record and let it go on the turntable daily dead-a-little-bit-inside, the medium is not necessarily the message. Like a shaman no-mind creation, a light that’s never on. Thought no matter. Have patience my friend the music is listening to you, with empathy and atmosphere erasing boundaries, peace.
White Hills’ recorded material is less aggressive, ascetic mellow meandering, shine on you crazy mood-ring wearing loner. Being low at times I’m not sure if it’s best to plan on listening to a White Hills record. Seems more of a spontaneous thing for full effect in the moment, or by chance, Zen life. I think it was a druggy William Burroughs that said there’s no such thing as an accident, or maybe it was psychiatrist Carl Jung and his synchronicity bullshit. You will never know and it doesn’t want you to. But you can create the situation where a listening session might be ideal. Find it, it’s different for everybody. You can’t lose your own experience. Nobody cares though not even Jung, he just listened, and fuck Freud.
Muse crying pure and bold for stability, a contrast to the music, can see it in those healthy, monolithic eyes of a young Edie, those curved eye-lines of warmth and compassion hold my hand please. Themes of beauty as tragedy because it ends. The big show ends. Ends. Life is tragic. Ten thousand angels and hell might be the answer to that overflowing energy. Powerlessness in the face of nature, outer space, addiction, reading rorschachs lying on a couch with computer generated color and technology. Sometimes against it but embracing it when needed to keep up the middle way Buddha-style going to great lengths for inspiration. Smell the excess my dear deep destroyers and do not be indulgent.
The timely Sedgwickian beauty of it cannot be repeated.
If it’s beautiful simplify the context.
– Robert savela