Peter Green Day, Amber Nightmare

A strangely lost yesterday. This year has been a diversion to music, video, and programming largely due to Covid, but I feel at something of an end; perhaps there was something more direct or cathartic in visual art, and of course programming is an emotionless distraction which has pros and cons. My plan for 2020 was to release one new thing each month. It's unlikely I'll release more than The Intangible Man now; this was always the case. Music takes time to prepare and I have no more written work.

Yesterday I watched a documentary about Peter Green, and played some guitar afterwards to the first half of the Renaissance live album, perhaps my only happy moment of the day.

I awoke from a nightmare at 4am.

A pretty young woman with auburn hair had a powerful, domineering and jealous husband. He asked his best friend, a small and meek artist, to protect her, as he suspected that she was having an affair. The artist and the woman were having an affair, and she wanted to escape her husband but was afraid of him. The artist gave her a ring of a strange design, it had a gold band but a large ceramic top, blue and white porcelain in a sloping-ring shape, like a lower segment of a 45 degree cone. Amber was set into the sides, at first one oval stone, flat like an almond, and some other gems. The woman was away from both men and she died, drowned in a pond in an unexpected accident. Two amber stones were now in her ring, on opposite sides. It was as though the presence of the stones were part of her personality. I thought in the dream that perhaps these represented the artist and her husband.

I paint with amber. Perhaps the dream is a reference to a need for more art, but there are many levels.

I slept again and dreamt of a couple, a older man and young woman. The man was a some sort of new-age guru of meditation, a cult figure, and the woman was his adoring disciple. He spoke to me in a white room of a trendy Bauhaus-style house, where the walls were painted with words in black curling script, each a sort of spell, a type of meditation. He told me that he can practice lots of types of meditation but that Death Meditation (I clearly remember the D) was to be avoided. I thought that the only meditation that matters to me is a basic peace meditation, the first in the room, something like 'a basic Omm' but I don't know if I said this out loud. There was some sex videos that the man had made with the woman and his teenage son; these were on YouTube, the pair said that there were all fake to bypass the censors. I found them disturbing.

There was a small kitten in this dream too, about the size of a bee, carrying a wooden lance, like a 20cm long cocktail stick, near the ground. I followed it and tried to help it but when I touched the lance the kitten had turned into a spider which jumped at my face and, hideously, terrifyingly, into me, beneath my skin. This happened twice in a row - two spiders. I tried to wash my face to cleanse away the spiders. Kittens in my psyche represent appeased or acknowledged fears, and spiders general fear.

Today, monthly backups, a day early due to house rennovations tomorrow.

David Lynch Dream and a Devil Pact Nightmare

An awful night of stomach pain and nightmares.

First I dreamt of David Lynch, who was visiting Crewe with a small group of friends, he was relaxing in a shop front, about where Snakey Jake's used to be on Edleston Road. I said hello and we walked together up town. He commented on the different architectural styles of the road, and I mentioned that I did that too. We arrived at a furniture shop on a street corner and we went in, he sat in a luxurious leather office chair. I said he should buy it, he said he'd like to but commented that it would cost him a huge $10,000. I asked him if he'd read any Dali books and he said no, I offered, or was going to offer, to lend him my copies of 50 Secrets or the Dali autobiography, but remembered that I had lent these out.

In a later part of this dream there were some sex parts in a pretty morning-light bedroom with white silk sheets. The woman in question at first seemed interested but kept talking about other things, ignoring my actions and moving around the room. I slept there and had a lucid dream within this dream, a completely different scene. This scene was simple and of a woman on a grass common and some distant houses at night. Another woman was there, larger and closer to me. The effect was something like a computer game or animation, the figures almost being like flat cut-outs. Using my lucid dream telekinetic powers I picked up the distant woman and tried to throw her into the distant sky but couldn't throw her high enough and she crashed into the house roofs. The effect was something like an animation. I awoke from this into the bedroom dream again and discussed it with the people at the breakfast there, which I think included David Lynch. I talked about the lack of ability to fly or throw objects to high heights in dreams. I wondered if gravity was greater in dreams, that the dream universe was a unique and shared dimension with its own physical laws and I asked about their lucid dreams in case they too had similar experiences.

A later dream was more disturbing. I was part of an American military unit on patrol in a dark and desolate wasteland. I was some sort of civilian expert and looked down on by the soldiers. One soldier had to climb onto an object of who brick walls about 2 or 3 metres tall, and over a ladder which was lying horizontally but precariously. It fell and the soldier fell onto his back causing an injury, but he seemed to be okay. There seemed to be traps and danger around. We returned to some sort of indoor base, which was well lit, white walls, perhaps echoing the looks of the film Aliens. Suddenly we were attacked by a rogue officer or perhaps a new enemy. He was wearing normal clothes, and with a machine gun started to kill everyone in a gory manner. I managed to hide under a table.

I survived and the man offered me my life if I, and Deb who was suddenly here, signed my soul to to devil. He showed me an old book and said that Lord Byron was the last one to do this. I opened the book and was keen to read Byron's script, but Deb just wanted to sign, which she did in pen. I only had a pencil and asked for a pen, but was given another pencil, being told that, traditionally, the signature should be made in pencil. I signed 'Mark k', in a strange sigil-like shape. I said that I started to write 'Mark x' instinctively, but thought that adding a kiss was inappropriate. The book was closed but then the man (who now looked like a friend) said that he would now kill us anyway; we were betrayed. He, with a shotgun, and a jackal or other animals, pursued us. I tried to run up some old stairs; I seemed to be in a crumbling and disgusting building, mouldy and rotten, perhaps like the Liverpool asylum or the old Print Mill in Macclesfield. At the top of the stairs was an demonic woman with black snake-like hair and black eyes. The stairs and walls were black with what looked like poppy seeds, thick mould. I knew that it would be fatal to go up there, so after a few steps turned to run elsewhere.

I've slept late as a result of this, missing almost all of the morning and I have no energy for work yet. Perhaps elements of this dream are about my lack of visual art this year. I'm working constantly but my output always feels inadequate, I feel filled with ideas, as ever, an everlasting tumble of white water. I need to invent a day with more than 24-hours.

The Dusty Mirror Launch Day

Launch day of The Dusty Mirror today. I reminded myself that this is my 5th music release of the year. Animalia had some slight balancing changes and new artwork, and Synaesthesia was a new recording of most of the tracks. War is Over and Burn of God were both new releases. I have five tentative works in progress but which will see the light of day, if any, will remain to be seen because I like the idea of unity and a central idea, so I'm splitting various fragments and tracks to fit these specific themes. I'm seeing albums like grand cinema, as I like to see all artworks.

On the cards for certain is the second Fall in Green album which contains our Apocalypse of Clowns work. I have 9 or 10 tracks complete, but the total length is only about 25 minutes, so I need more. I think any next release will be a few months away, so these five will spread over 2021.

I painted one small underpainting this year, my lowest painting output since I started painting and my tentative life as an artist in 2004. I still love oil painting, but the current situation prevents exhibitions or competitions or sales, and online is a terrible and poor place to show paintings - I dislike the very thought of it. Moreover I've started to embrace music and video to a much greater degree and feel more confident of my performance skills with each passing song, and I can see the clear progress I am making. I'm sure I will paint again, and images are the very root of my music, but I can't imagine when.

I've posted some online messages about The Dusty Mirror today, and sent out an email newsletter. I've also registered the music with Musicbrainz and other places, this is the bare essentials of what is necessary for a release. Ideally I'd have more videos for the songs, but even Burn of God only has the one recent video. I'm more excited with creation of new work than promoting these existing works. I create to push myself and to learn, and when I feel I'm doing this the urge to exercise is too powerful to avoid.

Yesterday I finished one of the Fall in Green tracks; Beetle Circus, and sketched out a second for the Dark Hyperborea project.

Today I've worked on the production of Burnout, a very electronic and very flat and crude digital dance tune, one of my tunes from the 90s. There are lots from that era that I've not produced to a good standard or released, and this one, different that it is from my other music, will suit the electronica album. The hard part here is adding some sort of emotion despite the instruments sounding very fake and the tempo necessarily very regular. Perhaps I merely need to listen to other 90s trance music and content myself that fake-ness is part of the genre itself. The Burnout theme is a nice enough tune, as good as anything that one of those 90s bands like Sash or Robert Miles created.

I need clones so that some of me can work on videos or other things. Onward!

More Music Work

I'm feeling low on energy mentally and physically. The only things of note done yesterday were recording the guitar solo part for Conan, and submitting a story and subscribing to a newly discovered magazine, Neon, which specialises in dark work with a surrealist twist, exactly my sort of work. The cost of a subscription is only about what many competitions charge for entry.

More music work today, on a new but large and complex power-ballad called Rusty Playground. My key aim is to use images and descriptions rather that merely express a feeling or narrative, but perhaps I need to take a break. I dreamed of going supermarket shopping with 80s era Daley Thompson and he told me off for constantly working and said that I should slow down and take more breaks.

Dark Hyperborea

Working on music for the past two days. I want to unify a few tracks I have in different stages and have recorded new guitar parts for the new Conan song yesterday but I'm frustrated at my playing - how long was it before I could easily sit at a piano and improvise freely? Perhaps I'm underestimating the effect of years of casual keyboard playing. I must remember that I've only been playing guitar since the start of July.

Apart from the guitar solo parts and vocals (which I always save for last), Conan is complete, and Take This Rose. I've also recorded a new song entirely called Dark Hyperborea, which began as an image and a mood. I had the image of a desolate urban landscape, a swinging rusty gate, concrete and dirt, a cold wind, something inspired by the Covid-19 lockdown times. There are elements of Bowie's Diamond Dogs perhaps, in images, not at all the music. This sound is more like contemporary opera, something atonal and dark in every way.

That song is complete. I need a next one now. I've spent today practising guitar, playing to Renaissance. I've also ordered a Renaissance album that I didn't have. I have the five from the classic era, but not a sixth, Novella. I had A Song For All Seasons at some point but didn't really like it - there was only on tune on there that I liked, The Day of the Dreamer, for it's uncharacteristically power-pop chorus. It turns out that Novella is expensive and largely unavailable like so much music I have or want; I had to pay £20 I think for the David Lynch album, £35 for The Ocellus Suite (easily worth it!), and would ideally like Pola X by Scott Walker but that too is at least £30. Anyway, a new remastered 3-CD version of Novella was issued last year, so I thought I'd order that.

Fear is Nowhere, and the End of Twin Peaks

A much easier day today, I took a deliberate choice to rest after two very busy programming days. I've toyed with the 'Fear is Everywhere' song... it's is very catchy but also a bit silly, and I'm not sure if it is good enough to ever use. There are slightly amusing aspects in some of my songs, The Cat Phone Song, The Arm... this is usually in contrast to a darker theme. I think of these as serious despite the comic mood... but this is the hardest of balances. Of course, art is about emotions, yet, laughter tends to dissipate and weaken. Laughter works at its most powerful in constrast - the laugh of the jester being bullied in The Seventh Seal, or the laughter of the villains in Blue Velvet as they torment Jeffrey Beaumont. Perhaps the key is that contrast, perhaps I need the fear song to be juxtaposed with something.

Anyway, the time for programming is done I think. I'll work on something artistic this week.

I'm working through the features on my Twin Peaks DVD. The opinions there match my own, that it really fell apart to boring nonsense in the second series, particularly after the revelation of the killer. I admit that I didn't think of much of the first series either, but perhaps my opinions were tainted because that is merely 8 episodes (of 29), and I moved through all of the episodes systematically and relatively quickly.

I had always assumed (not knowing anything about it) that the killer was never discovered and never would be. It seems that everyone - David Lynch, Mark Frost, all of the cast and everyone involved, knew that revealing the killer would kill the series, yet they did it - WHY! I'm completely mystified why. Everyone seemed to know it would be the bad idea that it proved to be. The series was only gripping because of unanswered questions - that is the key to dramatic dialogue. The audience form their own opinions when questions are unanswered (this, for me, is why Star Wars was a success; this is also why all prequels are failures, including the Fire Walk With Me film, despite David Lynch being at the top of his game - nobody can battle answered questions and win). The murder quesion was the key to Twin Peaks. I have no interest in watching the third series. David Lynch directed it, so it is probably better than the other episodes - all of the episodes he directed were twice as good as the rest - but then, Inland Empire is also terrible despite general acclaim. I hope though that he will, one day, revisit and repair Dune and restore it to the 4 or 5-hour film it needs to be.

I've wasted too many hours working out how I would have handled Twin Peaks series 2. I had ideas of Leyland Palmer wearing a white suit (to match his white hair) on the day of his 'confession' only to then have a dark haired and dark suited Leyland stagger from the woods, the 'series one' Leyland. The white Leyland, now glowing with light, would paint the room white with his presence. Then fourth body, with the same M.O. would be found - a new victim. Well, to sum up, there were so many options. Maybe I need to create my own series.

Argus v1.01

Two massively busy day working on Argus. I wanted to make the major changes I outlined in my previous post. Things are much simpler and more efficient now. Generally Actors are now like 'instruments' in a music sequencer and these can be objects, lights, or (now) even the camera. You can create several camera objects because different movement modulators might be attached to different ones - you might want to insert a wobbly camera at a certain point.

It's all made simpler by the freedom - you can now create as many tracks as you like and put any object on any track at any point. If you put two cameras at once, well, the latter one will take over, and the same for lights, though now you can explicitly assign a light (0, 1 or 2) for each light actor (a scene can have up to three). The only sequencer events are to place an object, kill it (send an actor off) or start music. I've also added geometry frames, so now objects can potentially be animated by geometry rather than just texture.

These changes have been massive. I worked until 8pm yesterday and only slept for two hours, from 5am to 7am; my restless body burning with anxiety, the nervous energy of the programming process. I'm almost allergic to programming - I really can't cope with it these days, I push myself to do more and more until every cell is involved, yet now the changes are complete. Despite being awake since 7am and working all day on these huge changes, I feel more elated, and a little shivery, than tired.

I'm other news, I sent off a brief bio to circl8 radio about The Dusty Mirror.

The next few days will be about Argus testing and, if I'm luckly, little aspects of music.

Plastic Music, 21st Century China, Argus Changes

Back to music this week. I have a few ideas in progress, not the least the second Fall in Green album, The Apocalypse of Clowns, which I paused in February, having completed 6 or 7 tracks.

I also want to make something for Plastic Superman and have outlined a few electronic sounding songs and ideas and other fragments. I must aim for new things and remind myself of the pointlessness of doing the same of stuff... things must push me in some way, always.

I've also had a second thought about Argus. Having made two films with it now, it seems silly to link Actors and Tracks so closely... at first I thought of Costumes as 'instruments' and aimed to be simple, but actually, I sometimes need one Actor to play over several tracks, and it's not efficient to use and edit several clones. The answer seems to be to create separate tracks... Actors are instruments, Costumes are more like samples; data used by Actors. A change like this is a lot of work, all sequencer events are now stored in the Actor structures. The Modulator pointers would be part of the Tracks, and it would mean the removal of the ability to change modulators via a command (or change costume) but that can be done simply by using a different actor anyway.

The changes would be so radical as to invalidate the file format. For only two films (thus far) it's more efficient to simply save a copy of the v1.00 exe file, in case I ever need to tweak or re-render those, rather than program a complicated importer.

Changes like this are perhaps inevitable. Only by using this experimental software do I know what parts work and how it all should work. It was the same with NoiseStation which became radically different in its second incarnation.

In other news, the Chinese translation of 21st Century Surrealism is now live, on sale as an eBook on Smashwords, a good site which happens to look rather old-fashioned and child-like.

Also, today, Since You Kicked Me Out had a world premiere on Chester community radio station, Circl8 Radio. The Dusty Mirror will be released in 8-days on the 28th. I've made lyric videos for the whole album, shared this 'single' and posted a few lyric fragments on social media; this is the limit of my promotion. If it takes of, it will take off, my main concern is new work, as always. The Dusty Mirror had many goals and purposes, most of which have been attained. I'm full of energy and ideas for more audio creations.

In guitar, I've been playing to the albums by Renaissance (still one of my all-time favourite bands) and the results sound amazing, perhaps because I know the music so well? So far I've played to almost all of the E.L.O. albums, about 20 David Bowie albums, one Roxy Music, one Queen, about two Beatles albums, and Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. Maybe I need to go back and re-cycle this secret concert series.