david sylvian: secrets of the behive (favourite album)

 

i wrote extensively about david sylvian in my teens. now that i am 44 years of age, i wish i didn't burnt or lose them papers and poems. i discovered david sylvian music in the beginning of the 80's, like most of us that we follow his creations. the band was japan, but for me it was the lyrics and the arrangements of the songs that captivated me. above all, the rusky voice. nowadays david sylvian is not only a reputed singer but an artiste. his creations are 'experiences', not only songs or films or graphic design and documentaries, collaborations or solo, books and performances or instalations (like in naoshima). his body of work, as a solo artist, is colossal in quality and excellence and it is becoming the archive and inheritance of a true artist without boundaries and limitations.

graphic design by v23my favourite album is by david sylvian, of course. secrets of the behive from 1987 (after the two essential solo work albums, brillant trees and gone to earth.)

secrets of the behive was, for me, the beginning of the referred experience of/about/by david sylvian. the use of silence and extraordinary arrangements just not only enhanced the poems and the excelsis voice, but complemented and enriched the music and poetry, creating for me, for the first time, the unique iexperience that sylvian is until today.

the timbres and tones of the songs seem to be nostalgic and sad, but actually the album as a whole grows stronger and stronger with each listening. the structure of the songs do not follow the verse chorus verse chorus schemata of traditional pop music, because it is on this album that sylvian transcends the pop singer stigmata attached to him since he was considered the 'most beautiful man in pop'. choose any song from the album and you enter a different world of stories, moments in time captured by the eyes and pen of a true poet that happens to be a musician possessed with an extraordinary voice and talent. he surrounds his songs with prepared pianos with solo parts, flughelhorns, violins and strings, piano, accoustic guitars to produce an ensemble without frontiers and borders, being at the same time uniquely david sylvian. the organ in let the happiness in, together with the sombre and triste percussion, tells a wave of a working man by the port watching the waves coming to shore, just to let the happiness him.

i can't listen to the album without crying. it is much like lady in satin by billie holiday. it doesn't remind me of people but alas of a time that is not necessary the time when i discovered the album - but the immense time, still, frozen time that the sounds and words and voice transmit and suggest, a photograph of things i would like to feel and think. it is not often i can say and write and feel these, like you cannot say the same about many other things. because this feeling of timeless time is the stuff dreams are made of, as the bard well said. it is a treasure surrounded by orchards, the sound of the sea coming in echoing swirls bringing tears, yes, but peace and tenderness.

eerohz ressurection

cover for the compilation peripatetic archives volume 1

cover for index de spleens et nostalgies

to speak of eerohz is to speak of two people called benjamin. one portuguese, the other english. but then eerohz now (august 2010) is not the two of them, but just the portuguese one, living in england.

benjamin silva-pereira always thought he would be one day in a rock or pop band, on his teen years. growing up in a small town in the north of portugal, near porto, recluse most of the time, he couldn’t play or learn how to play an instrument. so he decided to learn how to play the radio through the night. it was during this learning experience that he realised he couldn’t be a pop star.

gay, depressed, petite, with inferiority complexes, musically analphabet…

instead he learnt the names of exotic people and places coming on the wireless, maria joao mauperrin and jorge lima barreto were/are his musical taste parents. they taught him all he likes now: experimental, improvisional and above all, electronic music.

he learn how to write and read with fernando pessoa and company of heteronims, sophia de mello breyner anderson, al berto, eugenio de andrade. for benjamin silva-pereira poetry and literature is as important as music and painting and photography are, at the same level.

never excelling at absolutely nothing, he decided to keep all that he never shown to anyone. i know this because i am very close to him.

benjamin silva-pereira is the son of a castrator and a dressmaker, a combinaion of misery and being raised in the hard line of the vatican catholicism. he studied in public schools, growing up to like the portuguese writers, and then when he started growing pubic hair he turned himself into a pseudo communist and he read the great russian and soviet writers. then he discovered william s. burroughs, after duran duran and indochine. he wrote poems in sebentas, old paper notebooks that he lost.

he started painting but didn’t have any talent.

he worked in cork production factories, automobile electrical wire manufacturing and in a stroke of luck he founded a pirate radio. he made the inaugural speech and thought it was important. by this time he knew how to play the radio. laurie anderson and telectu were marvellous surprises as the solo work by david sylvian.

he started writing for local newspapers and working as an announcer and radio programme producer and all went well until he refused to play kilye minogue…

he moved to the united kingdom in 1995 and the story goes that he collapsed into himself, as usual, and didn’t do much. then he bought a laptop and the universe kind of opened. sony xmc music maker program is his best friend since ever.

meanwhile he wrote novels that people can’t read and tracks no one finds pleasant to listen to…

in 2006 he found benjamin croaxford, a much younger man with similar tastes and life and they formed eerohz, supposed to be the new pet shop boys, but that didn’t happen. their first demo and video was called ‘a white film’ and had 296 views on youtube.

in 2009 an old idea assaulted benjamin silva-pereira, the so-called catalogue of wonders. eerohz was just an excuse to re-start the project (born in 1985.) if you want to know more please go to catalogueofwonders.eu and take a look.

the second coming:

a codex of nostalgy and spleens in the shape of one/two un-non-existent people/band! strange? we’ve seen worst! this is a tiny little article about two men called benjamin that formed a band called eerohz, that split once and then the non-story of that one eerohz with one benjamin that never existed too, well, that’s the way or one way to say it. if at the end of this scribblings you understood something about it, please write back and explain it to us. avanti! eerohz was an amalgam of inventions, pseudo-artistic inventions ¬ fodder for onanism ¬ l’entretiens des fous ¬ a clown, two clowns that happened to share the same christian name - benjamin (s) b-square ¬ eerohz was an amalgam of inventions, pseudo-artistic inventions ¬ fodder for onanism ¬ l’entretiens des fous ¬ a clown, two clowns that happened to share the same christian name - benjamin (s) b-square ¬

considering themselves ugly ducklings they didn’t show themselves ¬ they used images of porno actors for their demos ¬ it didn’t work ¬ once they thought they would fall in love with each other ¬ that didn’t happen ¬ as eerohz didn’t happened ¬

les memoires des jours dans la plage, le soleil et la nudite ¬ masks and behind the masks more masks ¬ they thought they could produce techno tracks (they didn’t) ¬ they tried to be human league mixed with fad gadget (they were crap) ¬ the english and the mad dog ¬ the portuguese and the tears ¬ in the end only the tears survived ¬ french tears ¬ benjamin is portuguese ¬ benjamin is english ¬ they are not anymore eerohz ¬ croaxford went to have babies ¬ silva-pereira persists in giving tears away (an old habit) ¬ eerohz, what is that? ¬ heroes ¬ ‘heroes’ ¬ eros ¬ herois ¬ heras ¬ eerohz ¬ r.i.p. ¬ vanita vanitas ¬ eerohz was an amalgam of inventions, artistic inventions ¬ blue athletic boys for pictures ¬ visual masturbations ¬ entertainment for the fool, the foul ¬ hera ¬ era ¬ oz ¬ nasty feedback, noise out of colected manure ¬ but then eerohz became for a little while, eerohz ¬ hero ¬ odd ¬ eerohz, a pastiche, a vanglorious little dream, a surface rippling in acid tears ¬ then it was silence ¬ there is silence ¬ now ¬ silence ¬ it will be silence ¬ there will be silence ¬

                                          eerohz and bipolarbeats

les poetes son morts, la pluie chant ¬ d’amour sur la ville ¬ a feather of a pigeon, an open book, an empty book of memories ¬ a stain of coffee on the page ¬ swirl the piano ¬ echoes and the songs of the moon never written ¬ the dreams on the lunatic asylum ¬ images and of images the sound of silence or the silence of sound ¬ abort ¬ abortion ¬ nadomorto ¬ born dead ¬ the full moon is the faithfullest of companions ¬ ripples ¬ the pregnant noon ¬ eerohz, here, reflected by non-sense and emptyness and very bad recordings ¬ no moon, no melodies, no siren, no remembrance ¬

if you go to myspace and look up for eerohz, yes, they are there with some plinky plonky very forgettable musiques ¬ b. Croaxford never wanted to be photographed and he choose to be the blue boy looking at the stars soviet kind of propaganda macho, enigmatic, there and distant at the same time (that’s why one night b. Silva-pereira wrote a song/verses about blues boys riding horses! The text must be lost or somewhere – linda, would you search for ‘blue boys’ on the tera computer? Thank you darling!) after linda found them we realised the blue boys thingy was/is absolutely stupid and very badly written – but as this is about someone and something that came to be – oops, hehey! – here they are (blue was the choice of colour for their nasty horrible promo cd’s) ¬ / BLUE DANCE KIDS PIERCING VIOLETS CRAZILY ON A DREAM like house luminous blue dance kids, unclothed smiles and nothing but a palimpsest of joy violet dance kids remembering cunningham’s silence or a cage interlude violet dance ephebes pulling branches riding glittering horses on spring moon dance boys of gold pubescent genitalia adoring Bacchus and phallus – parenthesis: burroughs on a street of london through the invisible lens of the snake jarman’s hold, shattered glass blood shit cut-up reality, medusa’s head, ivy dipping dope, slit wrists, scrying sages on a black alley, the screeching of homey and rum on some sailor’s crotch, oh, oh, vidal smiles and smokes a cigarette (around 1948 in paris), almada’s nakedness on a pedestal rising pederast narcissus of egypt and wooed by imbeciles, reflexes on the river’s muddy waters balancing dreams and forgotten flames [enters orpheus crying for a lost Clepsydra:]

/ the end of a story wandering (or wondering?) immortal flesh proud in sorrow praises of liars twilight of desires, flesh immeasurable HEAVENS… / gold dance men kissing cocteau’s mirrors on a bright garden of silence golden dancing satyr fornicating ariel’s oak quietly startled. / black nubian dance man erecting genitalia ejaculating stars, black egyptian god dancing around a fire of flying poems: I salute the foolish man and woman, ashes of ashes! / obliterating the angels oh, what a strange ADAGIO depending on laughter and a queue of symbols forced upon one, what a strange oblivion, TRANSFORMATION (absolutely naff, obsolete and meaningless, don’t you think?)

¬ 53 seconds left ¬

don’t forget to save ¬

what?

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¬¬¬ dub echoing 53 ¬¬

the queen is dead ¬ on the right hand side you can see the only authorised photograph of benjamin croaxford old of a few years ago, so it is very possible that he grew up, doesn’t smoke anymore and is not a hoody anymore. yes the top says ‘vans’ or ‘swans’, we are not sure at all. above you can peruse through some of the graphic work that mister croaxford produced along the years of eerohz first incarnation (2001-2009) - yes, he is supposed to be the blue imposing boy on that sleeve on the left hand side (but we can not recall the photo shoot, even if we have a very nice copy framed on the corridor at home.) the orange/red portraits is the other benjamin, the silva-pereira, that one early morning wondered naked around the flat and produced those images for his first film called ‘the wordS’ (that you can have a sneak view (naked and all, wow!) on his facebook page, and other more un-naked bits on youtube (yeap, eerohz.) so, are you getting any of this? did they exist or not? we presume they did, but we are not sure. the fact is that eerohz collaborated with bipolarbeats in two songs, ‘lithium’ and? can not even remember, oh, ‘luciano berio’s chair’. but then that was after b. croaxford left the duo immersed in disappointment and unglorious frustrations. no surprise there.

the second incarnation of eerohz, the non existent band, was very short indeed, very vey short. apart for the aforementioned two songs with biploarbeats (little snapshot on the right) nothing worth of note was composed or produced. that saying, on last wintry december mister silva-pereira went to his coccon back to portugal, found his very old revox and came up with four ambientish and very poorly recorded and worthless four tracks based on his readings of french poets. they are part of a little data dvd that he, sometimes plays alone in the living room while reading even more french poetry. so, eerohz are and were not any kind of valuable contribution for the wondrous world of music and arts, just a little accident that could well be mistaken with a bad piece of fiction. alas, could have been worth. there are not many facts about the two benjamins and we are glad this is over. AH! if you wish to have a copy… bah, forget it.

sleeve cover for the demo cd plop*isms ~ photo from the film the words

the wave v.6 directed by benjamin silva-pereira & wassily blossfeldt 2009

next : the revenge of the sentient machines (eerohz ressurection part 2)

first voices

there’s no better excuse or motivation to start these things but to randomly and carelessly jot some disparate words about the voice of god. not the voice of a god that tyranises us and creates havoc inside and outside ourselves / oneself, but a different god, consequently an utter diverse voice. La voce humana – vox humana – human voice, our voice desingaged from superstitions and faiths but that is my, or our, real voice. one voice that can be mad, but ours, a lyric (ununderstandable, nevertheless!) with poems and odes, sounds and emergencies. there are different kind of voices, and i am not allowed to comment on them, for lack of academic education, and on them, varied and determined by our own taste, i found several that accompany me throughout my brief existence. the voice of mother amelia singing lullabies in the orchard or while washing clothes in winter in a tank of almost frozen water. the voice of my father rapping while playing the cavaquinho (original portuguese ukelele) with his own improvised rhymes in real time, and in competition with one or various other men, and always with a smelly rolled cigarette on the corner of his lips. the eternal voice of a true goddess bathed in melancholy and destiny, tears made of the salt of the portuguese sea, the voice of amalia coming from scratchy vynil 7 inches or hissing old analogue tapes through the mornings of winter mist, a greyness and joy in her voice that echoes until today, amalia rodrigues, the soul of the portuguese heart. the plangent singing voices of women harvesting in the green fields, challenging each other, answering each other with traditional songs of ancient memories. all voices of my god, my heritage, my culture. voices i could dedicate to a god, if there was one around. because the idea of a designer god is utterly irrational, so like our ancestors, i invented one god: the human voice, my first poetry.

voice and poetry are not explainable, and i think i even not there going there. they have, though, many things in common and complement each other. like me, many people become writers and in poetry they find a genuine teacher. they aspire to a certain kind of enlightenment. such determination has continued throughout the centuries because the unreceptive truth writing is. The majority of writers do not, ever, perceive that if they cease thought and forget cognition, poetry will spontaneously appear. that behaviour of rationalise doesn’t exist in the many voices i admire, because they do not need analysing or dissecation. think of diamanda galas with her apparent diabolical tirades and demonic rants, listen to meredith monk and her ability to transform the human voice in something more than an instrument to become a fierce telluric gesture like greek oracles.

being i a self-aware peasant, i found solace and peace in all kinds of music, investigating on my own and without much money, ears glued to the wireless listening to fantastic sounds and voices. maria joão mauperrin, antónio sérgio, jorge lima barreto et al, through the night teaching me how to not think. through them i embarqued on an adventure that is still going on: dead can dance (lisa gerrard), cocteau twins (elisabeth fraser), laurie anderson with her old fashion storytelling of united states I-IV imbued with irony and immerse in contemporary invented instruments and electronica, né ladeiras (alhures), manuela moura guedes, the utter beauty of the bulgarian voices...

the oldest memory of this god of mine, from my grey and depressed teen years, is the delicate and oniric voice of elizabeth fraser from the supremo independent label 4AD and her band, cocteau twins. memory revived by her first interview to the london ‘the guardian’ since 1998. cocteau twins were (and are) still very important because the mystery still remains. because of the guitars and strange and astonishing melodies, but above all because of elizabeth fraser’s voice. when i heard them for the first time i was writing poems and inventing neologisms and strange words, i was deeply interested in hyerogliphs and arcaic forms of writing and trying to invent a language of my own. obviously when i told this to people they told me i was mad (they were not wrong, let’s say it!) so, alone in my bed in the long hours, came these melodies and this voice uttering an uncomprehensible language (i thought it was celtic or gaelic!) and, due to my fervent imagination and curiosity, i had to buy their music and, you guessed it, i was singing with miss fraser (in our own language, indeed.) we were living in our own heads, separate universes colliding. so, yesterday, i read her words: i live here (in my head), and it is difficult. i drift with every sensation. at times i’m ok, and at other times i’m such a rubout. my mind just whirrs or stops. there’s no middle ground. when you need things measured and it’s not happening, it can make you quite mad. (...) periodically, my mind is blown, and i’m swamped in feelings i can’t deny. [the guardian, 27th november 2009]

i make her words, once again, mine. feel like sharing this little thoughts; a voice that is not your voice comes through. the words are not your words. these are maps of psychic areas, that is to say they have a definite position. the artist is a map maker and his work is valid in so far as his maps are accurate. poetry is a place. [william s. burroughs]

then why search out
false systems of false philosophies,
religions, sects (voice of the thinkers)
if error is the condition of our life.
the only certainty of existence?

                                                              fernando pessoa, faust

first voices: strategies against gravity: dreams of reason produce monsters, they so often say, cliché, common place. dreams of solitude creates raw material, risible and indestructible logic, bric-a-brac of illusions and certainties. just like a diary or biographies, both kind of dreams [or nightmares as it may happen to be as well] are easy, false and fake. as louis kabarrett de nerval often said, too many facts in one’s life is a lie, inventions to camouflage one’s emptiness, a devil’s scissors cut-up. true or false, the above is the product of a blank dream, it’s morning, the fog’s a fog as it happens too often in london, a rock’s a rock, a dream’s a dream, a morning’s a morning and i do invent the fable of this. the morning, the dream i can’t remember, an easy biography, kind of ruin, a sea, again…