I wouldn’t kick you outta bed/
For having a horse’s head/
Under the duvet cover/
She get's it from your mother/
Aspire to mansa musa/
I really didn’t but I used ta/
Point in the wrong direction/
Invisible reflection/
I love the fucking pressure/
Arriving on a stretcher/
Leaving on a gurney
You’ll hear from my attorney/
You solved for Pi/
And that takes the cake/
I’m waiting on a new improved mistake/
about
"夜より深く Part2" - Les Rallizes Dénudés
"My new life’s work is to make half numbers as important as whole numbers. “1.5” shouldn’t have to have its identity defined by a past of “1”and an assumed (rounding up) future of “2”. It should have its own name, mathematical taxonomy, and nested nomenclature. The name is pronounced the same way you would pronounce the space between whole numbers when counting aloud. “__”. Effectively this is silence, but since the numerical hegemony will become such that any and all thinking of half numbers will be as discreet unique entities; anyone who is counting aloud, or hears counting (even in their mind,) will “hear” the half number (non)pronounced in the accent of their local dialect." - Oui Ennui
It was the year of our lord 20 and 23. It was the summer. It was hot. The sea was angry that day. My buddy Cameron shot me an email asking if I'd like to play in a tribute show, organized by my fam Empty Bottle Presents and the record label Temporal Drift, for Les Rallizes Dénudés, the Japanese experimental noise rock band formed in 1967. It was to be part of the excellent “Beyond The Gate” series at Bohemian National Cemetery here in Chicago. I immediately said yes, but as with any situation in which I am required to cover or interpret someone else's music, I was also instantaneously paralyzed with an acute case of imposter syndrome. I mean after all, I'd be sharing a bill with guitar gods John Dwyer and Cindy Lee, indie mainstay Steve Gunn with jack of all master of most Alianna Kalaba, local legends Cafe Racer, Who Is The Witness which is/was a supergroup of sorts...and then me?!
A weirdo self taught cat with wonky technique, way too many records, and a penchant for saying the wrong thing at the right time.
What was *i* doing there? 🧐
•THIS•THAT•IS•NOT•
The mission was simple enough: Perform a cover of an LRD song, or perform an original piece inspired by the band. Obviously I chose the latter as my guitar chops are middling at best. Famously, LRD rejected the studio and *exclusively* played live shows. Taking that nugget as my inspiration, I built a bespoke noise synthesizer i dubbed "System Silver", and set up some basic cv routing. With no rehearsal and no soundcheck, I found out day of that I was on first. Serendipitously I met (the now defunct) Cafe Racer's drummer, Alex A•R about an hour before my set, and he agreed to improvise some slaps.. I wrote the lyrics right before going on stage, and promptly forgot them. They are included above for reference, but I sang about 1/9th of them that day. The result was
"I Wake Up Tide Because My Dreeems Arr e(X)hausting. (Mansa Musa)" -
An experiment in three parts. First an ad-hoc/ersatz quasi-treatise on the 2011 Fukushima Disaster from the perspective of ionizing radiation being detected by a Geiger Counter, followed by a hallucinatory fever-dream-psych-freak-out about decapitated horses and the wealthiest man ever, before devolving as the unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay into the infinite noise of the Pacific Ocean. Or something like that. Inspired by the legendary Les Rallizes Dénudés. You should buy all their albums, because they didn't GAF about anything, and freedom is good to listen to.
Les Rallizes Dénudés were photographed extensively by legendary photographer Takehiko Nakafuji. Amazingly he was on hand for the show, and took some photos I will treasure always. The cover art for this release was made from a photo he took that day and graciously shared later.
As always, be kind to yourself, be gentle to others. 😘
-oui
credits
released April 5, 2024
System Silver, drum machines, pedals, no-input mixer, guitar, vox - Oui Ennui
Drums - Alex A•R
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