BANDCAMP

PERFORMANCE

MARTIN HALL
CD
OCTOBER 1997
LIDOCAINE (LIDOCD10)

Performance is a live recording featuring Martin Hall’s concert with the Danish string quartet Den Danske Kvartet (The Danish Quartet) in the old concert hall of the National Danish Radio on the 8th of April 1995.

The album was the first live recording ever released with Hall.

1. Like the Touch of Rain (Performance) (5:11)
2. An Attempt of Interruption (7:45)
3. Cradlemoon (4:47)
4. Worlds Apart (7:38)
5. Pleasantly Surprised (Another Heart Laid Bare) (5:07)
6. Another Chapter (8:07)
7. Curtain Fall (8:43)
8. Synthesis (6:59)

LIKE THE TOUCH OF RAIN (PERFORMANCE)

Fields of living fire
You’ll see me reaching into the air
The shadow of a survivor
I turn around but there’s no one there

I’ve been looking for reason
Some poisons taste like the sweetest wine
But all I ever believed in
Was all the things that I couldn’t find

But I believe the silence holds the answers
And I believe that nothing ever stays the same
I’m gonna keep on taking any chances
‘Cause I believe that love is like the touch of rain

Hear the cries and the whispers
The touch-and-go of another night
The afterglow of desire
Shines with the flame of a lesser light

A line of nameless faces
Fading away in a sea of time
A heart of empty spaces
Is far too often what’s left behind

Still I believe that silence holds the answers
And I believe that nothing ever stays the same
I never wanted any second chances
‘Cause I believe that love is like the touch of rain

Like a circle never ends
There’s a fire in my blood
And no matter what I do
Seems like it’s never going to stop

AN ATTEMPT OF INTERRUPTION

The nurseling and the tendon
The naked responsibility
Unexisting possibilities

Like long-gone friends
Infectious ideas
I kept your sins
Sincere to the end

And I concentrate on remembering your face, your eyes
But the noise from the second day’s party wipes it out
Sentimental warfare

Days of life, seconds of love
Hours of sin, this could be as heart-known
Lust-dead in deed, vulgar to feed
Holding me down, you could be forgiven

‘Cause I’ll lie for you
I’ll die for you
I’ll do anything
You could be forgiven

‘Cause I’ll lie for you
I’ll die for you
I’ll do anything
To be forgiven

CRADLEMOON

The fire and the water keep mixing in my blood
The sons and the daughters seemed to give it all up
They got too tired of believing
Too tired to believe
In the promises that nobody keeps
I’ve seen a generation coming
I’ve seen a generation go
And the more I see, the less I know

I want to go to sleep
I want to drown in the deep of the cradlemoon
I want to touch the sky
I want to lie down and die in the cradlemoon of the night

So I followed the shadows by the trail of the waste
And it led me into the heart to the heart of these days
I never wanted to remember
I never wanted to believe
But you don’t ask why when the thunderheart beats
All I wanted was a reason
What I got was so much more
Felt my heart would burst by the things that I saw

I want to go to sleep
I want to drown in the deep of the cradlemoon
I want to touch the sky
I want to lie down and die in the cradlemoon of the night

In a world full of stories, they will never explain
Why the cry of my heart and my soul stays the same

WORLDS APART

Somebody told me that love never dies
It grows silent
But once every often
It takes on the form of indifference

Child of northern light
You’re lost at winter stations
You always cried for change
Now you keep the same locations
Year after year
In a world of cards you kept looking for a future
But all you ever found was your isolated nature
Reflected in dreams

The fire and the gold
All the stories that you told
Never seem to set you free
The innocence is gone but the shadow hunt goes on
In a night without end
In a heart that pretends to believe

In worlds apart
In worlds divided
You breathe the air
I breathe the silence

The moon is turning gold as the stars are shining silver
I can’t recall this room but it feels like I have been here
So long ago
A season without end
It cuts the sky wide open
Another line of thoughts run into the distant ocean
Of sheltering blue

We used to never part
Guard the secrets of our hearts
Underneath a nightless dream
But stories always end
And they don’t begin again
When the eyes go to sleep
Disappear in a world out of reach

In worlds apart
In worlds divided
You breathe the air
I breathe the silence

The darkness drowns the light
Spitting shadows in our faces
It’s making you forget
It’s erasing all the traces
Except in my heart
The night is turning red
As it’s running through your fingers
You’re bleeding heart and soul as you give up
As you surrender
The last breath of life

Breathe the light
Breathe the light

PLEASANTLY SURPRISED (ANOTHER HEART LAID BARE)

Another heart laid bare on the doorstep to my exile
The salt and pantomime of any world
I see the bended heads
Always humble in the daylight
Playing the servant’s role to never see

Of all the souvenirs that you left for my keeping
The one I like the most is the world outside
I never thought I would but the distance seems so perfect
I can’t deny the fact that I’m pleasantly surprised

Another victim cries
Points his finger at the heavens
But when the sun goes down he counts his coins
The traces on my skin
They keep shining in the nighttime
A fingerprint on every memory

ANOTHER CHAPTER

Ashes to ashes
And dust to dust
A fantasy world of omni-science
Heavens and ambitions in showrooms of the mind
In another chapter of forgotten time

Faces disappearing in memory and mind
But you, you know it all in your identity-design
So 20th century
Things are what they are, no matter what we feel
Endeavour is the key, not the mastermind ideal
And if you don’t agree
Well then you don’t agree

So come on little playtime Hitler
Forget your intellectual parades
There are no final solutions, only final denials
No need for vain display
I’ve seen your religion and I’ve seen your inner borders
And my spit is more sacred than all your holy water
‘Cause it’s of flesh and blood
It’s of flesh and blood

My flesh and blood

CURTAIN FALL

The moon upon the sky
It’s bleeding light on gardens made of stone
Under the jealous clouds
The shadows break and leave the world alone
All on its own

The strangest of beliefs
Is to be found within the empty eye
All beauty looks so weak
You move your hand towards it and it hides
It hides and dies

Oh my love
Your flesh and your blood is all I need
Everything I know

And I’ll count every tear
Every tear that you’ve cried
And I’ll melt every wave on the oceans of ice
From the stars in the night there’ll be shining a light
Dirt and dust is the earth that we try to hide

Oh my love
You shine like a summer dream
The sky high above
It fades like a dying scream
Oh my love
Will you think of me?
My love
Will you set me free?

Immaculate as need
Immaculate perfection on your skin
It slowly blows away
A scent within the air is all that stays
Upon the stage

The play is at its end
Your face, it seems so pale within the light
A secret most supreme
We’ll meet again in someone else’s dream
In time you’ll see

And I’ll count every tear
Every tear that you’ve cried
And I’ll melt every wave on the oceans of ice
From the stars in the night there’ll be shining a light
Dirt and dust is the earth that we try to hide

Oh my love
You shine like a summer dream
The sky high above
It fades like a dying scream
Oh my love
Will you think of me
My love
Will you set me free?

My love
You will live deep inside me
At the curtain fall

SYNTHESIS

To my love
Wherever you may be
I’m with you
United in spirit
My life lies in your hands

All power ever been
All power yet to come
Is here now
This instant
Around us
Inside us

Arne Balk-Møller: Second violin
Gert-Inge Andersson: Viola
Henrik Brendstrup: Cello
Leif Lind: Horns
Martin Hall: Vocals
Michal Stadnicki: Double bass
Per Jacobsen: Horns
Tim Frederiksen: First violin

Design: Jens Kruse
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg

All songs were arranged by Hans-Erik Philip. Martin Hall and Den Danske Kvartet also appeared at the Roskilde Festival 1995.

The material on the record stretches from the early Ballet Mecanique period (“An Attempt of Interruption”) to several sketches for the later Random Hold album.