12. Ukraine, "Infinity," and a Dark Planet 

(or, "What is the truth of you and I?")

Well, and so, 2022 continues...

Russia invaded Ukraine two days before my 49th birthday. I was in my room, already planning that evening to record a lengthy ambient improvisation for keys and acoustic. I switched on the news via YouTube as I was setting up my instruments and arranging my recording equipment, listened in terror as the invasion was announced and confirmed in various ways, and this became the theme for that evening's improv, which I finally decided to entitle, after recording it, "Nobody Wins: Pray For Ukraine" (later shortening it to simply "Pray for Ukraine"). It is a 30-minute, rather nightmarish soundtrack to a war that had just begun, and which continues to this very day, affecting all of us, everywhere in the world (to put things mildly). I also did a video for it, which one of my acquaintances afterwards said to me, quite bluntly, "It rubbed me the wrong way," apparently because I myself appear in the video alongside images of the victims, rather than due to its raw violence and terrifying imagery. I hired some professional writers to do short reviews online for me (in English, and one in French), both of the track and for its video as well, as I wanted to try promoting it a bit online this time around, and all of the reviewers commented on the fact that it was an uncomfortable listen (and, in the case of the video review, a "difficult viewing experience" as well). At any rate, this composition is to me a rather important chapter in my "book of compositions," however short or minor a chapter it may seem to some. This year (2023), in fact, I revisited the 30 minute-long composition in various ways, some more obvious, some less so... I will come around to this again later.

In 2022, I followed "The Way Out Is In" and the Ukraine EP with two LPs. These were:

1. "Infinity for Beginners," which featured the new "classical guitar" recording of "One Touch," some things I'd recorded in the rehearsal studio, including a raw, improvised drum solo and a new, heavily-strummed all-acoustic version of "Want," with vocals later recorded and effectorized at home, and...

2. "Dark Planet," the latter dealing, yet again, with my mental/psychological/spiritual recovery from the breakup/move of early summer 2020. Even after "The Way Out Is In," the memories of the past were still poking me over and over, reminding me that I was still under a dark spell that had been cast some years prior; I hadn't yet made a complete recovery, hadn't yet made peace with myself, hadn't yet escaped the demons I was fighting internally, the battle I had waged with myself, and so I decided that this LP would be my definitive "final statement" on the subject. I badly wanted to distance myself from the past, but the emotions were still partially alive within me, refused to be ignored, and so, I felt, I had no choice but to release/relinquish them via song/sound. This, in any case, was my intention and decision at the time, the deal I had made with myself, and thus "Dark Planet" came into being.

Music as therapy, music as transformation, music as exorcistic ritual: out with the old, in with the new

(Because music is my mistress...)

or in with "good luck," out with the "demons," as Japanese mothers chant with their kids during the Setsubun holiday 

(Because music is my bride...)

whilst throwing handfuls of dried beans at Dad, who wears a demon mask and endures the hard pellets for the love of his family 

(Well, I love her more than life...)

for at least a minute or two before unmasking himself and joining them at the dining table for a nice meal Mom has worked hard to prepare (or purchased at the supermarket) for them all

(She touches me so deep inside)

My approach to this LP ("Dark Planet") was, rather than writing sappy or depressing or angry songs about relationships and whatnot, instead to fill the collection not only with my originals, some of which were alternative mixes/versions of things from albums I had done in the recent past (i.e. the year before), reframed and recontextualized for the then-present moment and concept of the then-new album, but also with my versions of songs by other artists. In this case, the first was a song originally by Jeff Buckley called "You and I," the version included on "My Sweetheart, the Drunk" (there is another song/demo he had also entitled "You and I" included on other compilations, one that is more melodic, played on the guitar, and with completely different lyrics, so I mention the specific version so as not to confuse the reader). The "Sweetheart" demo version was rather minimal, sans guitar, Buckley's voice soaring over a dark drone; he'd never had the chance to release or, presumably, complete the arrangement during his brief time on this earth, but it was included on the 2x LP of demos for his planned second LP that his mother had posthumously overseen the release of, approximately one year after her son Jeffrey tragically died in a drowning accident on May 29, 2017. (This posthumous release, as an aside, had its 25th anniversary very recently.) The cover version I included on the "Dark Planet" LP had actually been recorded (by me) the year prior, and I had originally considered including it on the second part/LP of my 2021 Tetralogy, "The Sun Is Coming," but I'd ultimately decided to leave it off, due to potential copyright issues and also because I ultimately preferred to have another new original song on the LP instead (which ended up being the track "Inner States [of Mind]," by the bye). 

The other covers I included on the Dark Planet LP alongside my own originals/remixes were both pieces that had been written and performed by the artist IAMX, a moniker used by singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/electronica wizard Christopher (Chris) Corner, whose music I had discovered in 2021 and had quickly grown very fond of. (My piano arrangement of"Wildest Wind," the original version appearing as the final track of the excellent "Metanoia" LP by IAMX, can also be found on the third part of my Tetralogy, and, as mentioned earlier, my version of "Tears Cried," arranged as a dark piano ballad, appeared on "The Way Out Is In" as well.) 

In the case of the first song I covered, "North Star," one of my favorite electronic-style IAMX songs, I didn't change the lyrics very much at all, though I did tweak them in some subtle ways; however, I did completely redo the arrangement for acoustic guitar, using mainly arpeggios. The original IAMX version, of which there are a number of different mixes, is a cool, rather beat-heavy electro-industrial dance track, but my version is quiet, with understated, mostly softly-intoned vocals ("Northstar, I want you to...guide me home..."). In the first mix I included on the LP, I added some electronic ambience/quiet noise in the background, and, during the bridge, I also added a few minimal electronic beats, while the second version I created, coming at the end of the album, is presented "as-is," with nothing added to the raw guitar/vocals. Both audio files were actually taken from the "soundtrack" to a video a frequent collaborator at the time, a photographer and videographer by profession who also happened to live in my neighborhood, had shot of me performing the song after having just arranged it for guitar, so the guitar/vocals weren't recorded with proper separation in LOGIC, making it more difficult to mix properly. However, I liked the live, spontaneous feel of this version, and so decided to use the audio for both mixes, despite the flaws inherent in the original sound file.

There is one thing I must explain a bit before moving to a discussion of the second cover I did for this LP. To be frank, though I love the music of IAMX, I am not always crazy about Corner's at-times rather narcissistic, over-the-top/over-sexed lyrics. I can easily accept the makeup and the costumes and so on -- as a longtime fan of glam-days David Bowie, etc., this is not only totally fine by me, as a part of persona and performance, it is also not in the least shocking or objectionable -- and the S&M stuff is all right, too... I mean, each to his/her own; LGBT, all of it, is OK with me, though I myself have never been involved in that world, nor do I have any aspirations to become involved in it. (I have had more than enough trouble dealing with hetero, monogamous, non-S&M-style relationships as it is, thank you!). However, in the case of Corner's lyrics, I admittedly do sometimes grow rather fatigued by the sexual "master-and-servant" type stuff over and over again. (I imagine that even Depeche Mode has moved on from this sort of lyric by now? Their latest LP is entitled "Memento Mori," after all, though I beat them to that title by at least seven years with my song of the same title, written in early 2016.) Yes, sex and sexuality are important parts of life, to be certain, but I am no longer a teen, and so I no longer think about it 24/7, nor would I care to write or sing song lyrics that are obsessed with physical pleasure and/or the psychological turmoil that so often comes with it. (Corner is around the same age as I, by the bye, having been born in 1974, only one year later than me; he is a Halloween Jack, I "a lad insane"...)

Anyway, the second IAMX cover I included on the "Dark Planet" album was my rerecorded version of Corner's somewhat lyrically-sleazy ballad "Mercy." By rerecorded, I mean that I had previously done a "live take" version on my Ibanez acoustic, performed outdoors seated on a bench on a sunny, and also somewhat windy, day, filmed it with my iPhone on a portable stand, and put the tweaked audio version of it on an LP entitled "Live Acoustic." The version for the "Dark Planet" LP, however, was recorded "properly" via LOGIC, in my room, with guitar and voice done separately, though my voice had been, for whatever reason, a bit hoarse at the time; this hoarseness had stubbornly lasted for a few weeks, as I recall, though I could not figure out why, as I hadn't abused my voice or throat in the least, nor had I been battling a cold or Covid or any such either. In any case, my way of singing it was a bit different from the previously-recorded "live" version, where my voice had been a bit stronger and clearer. Perhaps the slight huskiness fit the song's theme, my head voice appropriately "cracked" and "broken"...

Corner had released two versions of "Mercy" over the years on official IAMX LPs: one electronic with beats (the "original" version, from an early LP), and another version (some years later) on an acoustic-centric LP that was, of course, performed acoustically, but still rather rhythmical in nature. My arrangement takes its cue from the latter version -- at the time I'd preferred an acoustic arrangement over a purely electronic one, thought the latter would have been easy enough for me to do in LOGIC with synth and drum programming/loops/samples, etc. This, however, was not what I wanted; rather, I needed "Mercy" to be raw and emotional, and so I started by first adapting the chords on the guitar... I made my recording of the song even more intensely rhythmical than the acoustic IAMX versions I'd heard were, both studio and live, not only by tapping on the body of the guitar, as Corner initially does in his versions to create a rhythmical "loop," but also by striking the neck and frets to create shimmering harmonics, a style I had begun developing and experimenting with a lot around this time, and which has by now become my default style of playing the acoustic. That is: rhythmically, whilst utilizing harmonics, neck/body tapping, and all "sans pick."

In any case, where my two versions of "Mercy" (two = "outdoor live" and "home studio" versions) perhaps diverge most radically from Corner's versions is, even more than in the arrangement itself, the rewrite I did of his S&M-style "confessional" lyrics. There was just no way I was going to be able to sing them as-is with any sort of true (to myself) emotion, or without feeling extremely awkward and unnatural about it, for that matter. I simply could not relate to the words Corner sang in the original, as much as I loved the song itself.

In the IAMX version, Corner sings about how (a/his) woman/girlfriend/mistress is his plaything, a "toybox," and he a slave to her sexy wonderfulness; about how she is his "lifeline" and he a mere "idiot" to her so-called "poetry," and so on. (Mercy, indeed...) In my less romanticized rendition/interpretation, there is a lot more hurt and anger and sadness and betrayal behind the wall of obsession and sexual enslavement that is at the center of the original's confessional lyrics, and, well...although I definitely didn't feel right singing Corner's lyrics whilst performing this song, even if only once or twice for a recording, and though I'd felt a strong urge, nay, a need to change them to fit the theme/s of my own work at the time, upon listening again to the rather bitter words I had myself rewritten for my version, a mutilation of the original "dripping-with-sex and lust" Master-Slave lyrics, I admittedly did not feel so wonderful about my lyrical mutation either. Perhaps this is why I have never been able to successfully perform this song live.

Well, enough said about this song, and about the IAMX covers on the LP.

Moving on... The "Dark Planet" LP also includes a number of longer originals, though all are variations of things I had released in other forms previously. Two are remixes of tracks from the second album in Tetralogy, another is an older electronic instrumental/spoken word piece I remixed from the original LOGIC file I had recently rediscovered and liked, entitled "Temporal States of Being" (I also created a rather surreal video for it, and the track was accepted for a COIL tribute anthology on which it eventually was also included); the last is a mostly-instrumental version of what had originally been my cover of the IAMX "Tear Garden," re-entitled "Tears Cried" in a rather stripped-down, lyric-less form. In the video I created for "Tears Cried," I decided to use open-source footage of rainstorms (in color), juxtaposed with some of the newsreel footage I had saved from the "Ukraine" project earlier in the year (the Ukraine shots were all converted to stark black and white), showing people crying at funerals for their friends and family members and so forth, casualties of the war... 

Indeed, the war dragging on and on, people suffering, dying, starving, and me, not wanting this album to be merely about my own "wounds," those petty little, rather selfishly-insignificant wounds, realizing finally, perhaps, at the deepest level of my being, that the wounds of the world were and would always be far larger and more vast than any personal problems or worries or emotional tics I would ever experience could hold or bear. 

Indeed.

Thinking about it now, and in hindsight, perhaps it was during this time, then, at which such realizations began to dawn on me full-on, to hammer even harder at my consciousness than previously (though I cannot say when or whether there was any single "instant" at which this significant realization hit me, at least not one that I can now pinpoint, nothing like the dramatic enlightenment the legendary Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Ch'an, or Zen, Buddhism in China is said to have had after nine long years of staring at a wall, or like when the diligent Brahmacharya who has meditated daily for years beside the great Ganga River intuits, in a sudden flash of realization, that the entire universe exists in each of the single grains of sand supporting him OmNamahShivaya). 

Yes...perhaps this was when my work and way of thinking about all the problems of the world finally began paving the way for my real realization (better late than never!), which is that the suffering I was causing myself over a failed relationship and an embellished, emotionally-driven/likely distorted backstory I had created to protect myself/my ego, a story that emphasized (in my mind) how badly I had been treated, how I had been lied to and deceived (whether or not intentional deception was involved, and, even if so, to what extent I had been deceived and/or "lied to" I will never know, nor was/is it relevant ultimately...), was really no more than a fleck of mental lint I had given too much attention to, and had thereby prolonged my own misery. I realized, to return to the "lint" metaphor, that I could simply brush it off of my shoulder (or neck, or whatever...) anytime I was ready to do so. In other words, it no longer mattered, since it was all in the past now, and didn't reflect the reality of my present moment in any way.

"The past is never past." (Faulkner)

"Present moment, wonderful moment." (Thich Nhat Hahn)

And so, eventually, when I was ready...

Video: Marc Lowe Discusses "Dark Planet" (May 2022)