Released in 1996 on Perdition Plastics. Possibly the most "accessible" collection of songs he has released, meaning that the tracks are nominally in a pop style. Sort of. The CD comes with a small envelope (emblazoned "LOSE") containing scraps of loose paper that are the lyrics and an explanation of sorts.
Notes:
These 18 songs were recorded at home from 1992 to 1994 spanning three very unplanned (?) moves -- one of which had to do with my apartment building on Kenmore (right by Loyola University in Chicago) catching on fire and all the tenants being evacuated.
not produced and barely engineered
Besides Chicago, this was recorded in Palestine (earlier) and Schaumberg (later). Some of the writings and musical ideas originally occurred in Evanston and Streamward (so add two more moves to the list).
instrumentation:
(mainly) piano and voice
(but also) harmonium, trumpet, cymbal
(and) some foundstuff
Speaking of the writings -- when looking through an old journal, I noticed that the words to some of these songs were written all the way back in March of '88, which means the lyrics span an almost five-year period. This came as a bit of a surprise, because I think both the writing and the performance of this entire recording seem as if they could have been done in one sitting. There is a consistency (musically, emotionally, and in the defining characteristics of the recording) that circumvents time and space. Through all the changes of residence and years passing, I always returned to this one room.
presence and/or absence:
jane bouzek
kathleen crow
carolyn faber
ross feller
scott rutledge & Some of these songs simply had to be recorded. The emotional state that led to their existence was severe, otherwise unexpressed, and had nowhere to go but to tape. But why now (7/8/96 at 9:00 p.m.), so far "after the fact," do I feel the need for anyone to hear this? Of what value is it? Strange, I think, how something that was originally done completely out of necessity has now become a product to be sold. Subsequently, what was a part of my personal life has become part of my "career."
scott rutledge wrote the words (thank you) to 1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16, and 17
all music and the words to the other ones were written by thymme jones
Perhaps it is during the times in which we are the most desperate that we become capable of giving the things that are of the greatest value (the bottom line being that I believe that there is truly something to be shared here). Even though all of these songs were recorded in complete solitude (and sometimes accompanied by overwhelming loneliness), I always felt that a connection was being made to the outside world (or, to put it another way, the distinction between the "outside" and the "inside" became nonexistent). When I think back to the process of recording these songs, a question comes to mind: Why is it that when you're experiencing the most intense, situation-specific states you find yourself spewing these very broad, very general phrases? I do love you. This would seem to be so large and so cliched as to not mean anything (especially to someone you've never even met), and yet there is something that happens on a physical level in a song that reestablishes the possibility for a shared experience to occur. What was a generality becomes a commonality. There is an organic (and, therefore, relevant) relationship that is formed. Breathing is not a cliche. Anyway.... The only thing I can say for certain is that when I hear these songs I'm immediately transported back to that familiar room -- the one inhabited by nothing other than my voice, a piano, a sense of loss... and someone else. I thank you if that someone is you.
-- Thymme
Thanks to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari for their collaboration without which Production would not have been possible.
Tracks:
Production, Passion Fades, Dream Girl, Dissimulation, Life Connection, Self Exile, Blue, Nostalgia, I Do Love You, Jenny, The Accident, The Civilized War, Throwing Mirrors, Mise En Abyme, The Loss, Disjunct, Eclipse, Hurt (Final Meditation)
Lyrics:
beauty loves industry
theater curtains rise
and sell
metaphors
people love their jobs
cars move me from the road
to tears
movement down
off the line
numbers fall
between roses
random as smoke
open heart
surgery love
performed
beauty loves industry
alone
they conspire
her death was long ago
beauty was mortified
in love
on the stage
desire produces these
objects which enter our
lives producing
reality
our needs are derived from
desire's production of
a sense of lack
made real
we disappear in this
vacuum of desire which
sucks us in
passion fades the more we play
each day we play the more it fades the more
we fade away
nothing lasts at best it lingers
just long enough to reveal its name
weakened fingers grip the branches
no more leaves and no more chances
winter steals
winter's here
no more chances
so I've finally found you
but I have no eyes left to see you
and my ears are no good
no good to hear you
could I touch you just once
and try to remember
what you were like
when you were inside my head
years ago?
you were just a mirage, I know
a shallowness which is shallow
barely penetrates the surface
shadow games you play on the wall
the wall
provides
the screen
displays
silent motion
your proximity is remote
lift this veil as my voice echoes
in the labyrinth of your ear
your ear
coils 'round
entraps
my words
have lost their way
you were just a mirage, I know
the somnambulist in the dream
on the horizon of distance
distance
reveals
the truth
conceals
nature is veiled
my only connection to life right now
is the smell of my own sweat
don't know how things got so static
and oppressive and yet
i can see the green through the glass
and it looks almost real
they've even got the fans on
the simulate blowing wind
I keep twilight vigil
ever a sleeping world
outside of all dreams
my darkness fills the night
death without end
I need to reach the ground
wake from this sleeplessness
hallucination
my eyes peeled wide open
starting over again
I no longer know how to conduct myself, I scream
I fall into shadow
a battle field of sleep
furthest from my dreams
my scars destroy the night
ending over again
I cannot close my eyes to this nocturnal world dream
I need to hold this ground
between me and the world
alone with myself my weakness is profound
starting over again
I perservere to self destruction identity
I am my most experienced enemy
I am a strength which is not reconciled
I am one, two, many to get along with myself
think of blue -- blue before it was grey
remember the dreams -- before they went away
Will I be back? I'm so tired. My eyes and ears are
so strained from the false fluorescent lighting and
the false phosphorescent speech that surrounds me.
I can't get to know you well. Not today. Not tomorrow.
I haven't the time. Don't call. Don't stop by. Your
superficial beauty only serves to exploit the magnitude
of my emptiness. And don't tell me to believe you. I
can't believe you: You haven't said anything.
look back
to a time that secures all that we believe
we are
we feel
that the past is all that we
can know
finding that we can understand
these lies
we know
living with these things that we feel
we know
we are
we love
every cliche as it makes up who we know
we are
this time
only sentiment of then
is shown
we have embalmed these images
of us
we know
lost in a past which never was
long ago
gone
Jenny
was her name
to many
but no one knew her like I knew her
Jenny
all the pain
too many
of my days were spent just thinking of her eyes
oh, how I tried
to get inside
but I never got through the disguise
Jenny
such a shame
it ended
thought it never really started
Crazy
that's what she made me
but maybe
someday I will finally get to know her ways
know what to say
on another day
I might be sane
her face pressed into mine, and
here I lay motionless in bed
and it feels like
her life was who I am, and
I have become a memory
without
her to remember me, for
who we were face pressed into face
and it feels like
her life was who I am, the
present mythology of love
absent of any sign, this
distance becomes my compromise
for what feels like
nothing fills up the time, our
voices cling to my broken spine
in the
absence of any sign, this
desire envelops everything
to what feels like
nothing fills up the time, the
present mythology of a love - gone
marching
forward
on the
world scene
we make
chaos what it is not
in the
presence
of dogs
and grave
robbers
world bank monetary
forecast is not blinding enough
prepare
for war
absorbed in reflection
as chance
dictates
the end
after
the false
ending
I mistook your loneliness for friendship
I mistook your helplessness for loyalty
I mistook your boredom for curiosity and concern
but still
we all need to look somewhere, don't we?
throwing mirrors
searching for our reflections
this war
repetition world view
populates
unconscious center
we share
networks of illusion
three million points of light
per second
fill the screen
white man
sees black man approaching
looks away
avoids the danger
a line
forms a broken circle
striving for completion
we fear
these
black & white
photographs
of skin
becoming
sheer numbers of images
we'll work it out sometime
we'll work it out
we take
pictures of each other
recreate
our isolation
please smile
look directly at me
camera held between us
personified
I refuse to live
in a swimming pool
diving into
waterless and blue
the most
spacious
and empty life
I refuse to live
in a slaughterhouse
like a bad dream
colorless and red
as they
open
fire on the crowd
dive for
cover
and sleep
a cable laid
in the bottom
of a long slender
trench vagina
upturned earth
stretches
from between
my legs and
intersects
the horizon
this is an image
exposed
in the night of day
this is an image
of her
this agrarian myth
slips between
subdivisions
which rise up
into street lights
illuminate the ground
obliterate the night
the galaxies
and stars
this is an image
exposed
in the day of night
this is an image
of him
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