Nyctalops

from Die Alone by Silence and Secrecy

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about

I read a lot of Ligotti in my formative years. "His Shadow Shall Rise to a Higher House" and the squalid urban environs of the middle stories in Grimscribe are likely to blame here. (Not so much the intro, which is just something I wrote in free association mode, likely while deprived of sleep, but it shares themes.)

The last contribution here from the boo—I didn't plan it that way, I swear—includes that insane fists-on-a-coffin-lid kick drum sound, which while not at all what I expected was entirely appropriate. The tone cluster cuts on this thing are up there with some of the stuff on "Overlooking a Small Town" and "Rose Crown" in the Obscenely Complicated Time Sink department. Also featured: Cutup coyote noises; doomy dulcimer playing; glockenspiel processed beyond all recognition; me, whimpering down a cardboard tube.

lyrics

a black light shines between a thousand miles of broken branches; a grey glow coats the tattered leaves that cling to the sides of the trees—o yellow word, o yellow world, o burnt yellow world of soft cold rains: take these strangers words from my hollow mouth and fill it with cool hard earth, moistened at the edges with frost and the foul wetness of bared teeth and breath

soon there will be warmth and the sound of bells—i have nothing more to say—except that i have everything to say

Fill my glass again,
I'm going into the dark;
I need to cut out my eyes to see.
I'm going into the hole;
no-one will follow me.

Night transfigures.

My body rots from the inside out.
You will see me soon:
you will see me in the house of pain.
They won't see me coming,
another hollow face.

Night transfigured, night transfigures:
Light disfigures; night transfigures.

In the body on the bed,
in the mouth of the earth:
I can't see anymore but I strive;
you can't move anymore but you struggle.
They cannot see me now—

Look at me now.

(Night transfigured night transfigures night…)

credits

from Die Alone, released May 7, 2016

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about

Silence and Secrecy Pennsylvania

Purveyor of fine musical curios, grotesques and arabesques since 1 January 2014. Mostly just one weirdo in a literal attic.

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