Month: May 1990
IMPERFECT
IMPERFECT
MARTIN HALL
LP/CD
MAY 1990
VIRGIN RECORDS (260798)
To some degree Imperfect was a continuation of the conceptual ideas behind The Hall of Mirrors music cassette released in 1989, in the sense that Martin Hall continued to work with other singers and use sound environments as much as regular melodies to create the flow of the album.
With recitations and theatrical sound effects the record successfully blended promo-single tracks such as “Prime Material” and “Between the Two” with audio scenes read by the Dutch scholar Stephen Muires.
1. Introduction (0:37)
2. System (3:55)
3. Interval 1 (0:29)
4. Prime Material (3:24)
5. Interval 2 (0:54)
6. Between the Two (3:47)
7. Another Chapter (3:52)
8. Red Room (4:14)
9. Masquerade (6:12)
10. Dies Irae (9:01)
11. Nocturne in Blue (3:46)
12. Segment (4:21)
INTRODUCTION
“Imperfect” is a Mind and Media recording originally entitled “Imperfect Music for an Imperfect World”. It is a soundtrack for 20th century reality and constitutes a theatre of reflection wherein each may enact their own part.
SYSTEM
City blood
The desires and the needs
Never last
‘Cause I’ll bite the hands that feeds
Pressure burns
Like a fire of demand
Dust to dust
In a now-here of command
I need a system
In the satori of the night
I need a system
In the exposure of the light
Rhythm beats
In my brain and in my blood
Tears of dust
But the pressures never stop
Fever burns
In the mania of the night
Turning point
In the circles of the light
I need a system
In the satori of the night
I need a system
In the exposure of the light
I can’t predict the future
I can’t forget the past
But at the point of no return
Only the either-or will last
PRIME MATERIAL
The alchemy of our time lies in the term “making things matter”. In a world where most people know the price of everything, but the value of nothing, this wisdom remains priceless – priceless, because it cannot be bought for money, but at the same time doesn’t cost anything. The “Prime Material” is possibility.
Modern life
So-called welfare
It lives inside you like a dream in the night
A sophisticated nightmare
It’s gonna blind you with its sweetest delight
Stimulus governs
Stimulus rules
It governs the trials
It governs the views
Prime material
Transformation of waste
Age of ice
Age of fire
And it’s been later than you think for a while
Living myth
The survivors
An inner freedom’s gonna start with denial
The self-pity ends where reason begins
The theatre stage is rice paper thin
Prime material
Transformation of waste
You’ll know yourself by the resistance
It either breaks you or it makes you stronger
BETWEEN THE TWO
Nothing rests, everything moves. Movement is symmetry, rhythm is void – that is, vacant in itself, beyond the elements which compose it. This is different to emptiness – this is plasma.
The serpent fire keeps burning in my blood
The driving forces, my defiance and my love
The river of time has washed my heart and soul
The inner fires are under my control
But it’s taken time
It’s taken so long
Love is a reason
Changing as it burns
Love is a moment
A now of no return
Beyond emotion
Closer all the time
A true surrender
In my heart and in my mind
All we see and touch is a scenery to pass
Within it all, we’re the first and we’re the last
Between the two
A changing reason
Between the two
The never ceasing
ANOTHER CHAPTER
Understanding is taking the consequence; not knowing all about it.
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
Things are what they are, no matter what you 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 border
And my spit is more sacred than all your holy water
‘Cause it’s of flesh and blood
RED ROOM
Id-entity condensed, fix-fix-fix and a 3-numbered rhyme. Ignorance is no excuse. Ignorance is a self-chosen attitude.
Thing
Door
Free Power
Dog’s blood rising
MASQUERADE
Drama or Dharma, the dis-play continues. At the end of the line the only measure is reason.
As a witness to the shadows
Fingers search for time
While these patterns of deception
Guide our hearts and minds
I guess it’s all rite
I guess it’s ritual
But you pervert it with your lies
A modern symphony of end results is what’s looking through your eyes
The tragicomic shifts from person A to B
While you pomp and circumstance it with identity
Give us some erasure baby
Show us what you’re really like
In between the pressures rising from the crushed delight
So come on baby
I can’t wait for your yes and your no
Almost there
But semi-sensuals never touch
Almost there
Where far too much is not enough
So pick a word and sing a song
But do it now, because it won’t be long
Before we have to say goodbye
In this scenario of passing thoughts
You sing your self-reflection blues
But malfunction Malkuth baby
I know the tune
So give us drama baby
Give us all you never were
While you crawl around in mud
Begging for a choice
A bit of but will soothe the pain
A bit of something else
Although it’s much too late to ask
You can always try
So come on baby
I can’t wait
I want to rip you inside out
So welcome to the circus of hate
And welcome to the mind masquerade
Where semi-sensuals never touch
Where far too much is not enough
In the masquerade
Where lovers die by lovers’ touch
In the mind parade
Where far too much is not enough
NOCTURNE IN BLUE
”Nocturne in Blue” is written in the shadow of “Stardust”, a Reader’s Digest album release from 1963. The song has been recorded through a radio monitor to imitate the sound of this recording.
And as the stardust falls
Nocturnally yours
A moonlight serenade
Burning in blue
Wildfires burning on the hills not far away
Angels and devils on their yesterdays
Imagination or the kingdom of the fool
It’s all moving closer under blind men’s rule
But as the stardust falls …
SEGMENT
As one side is shown
The other is hidden
As one thing is known
Another is veiled
My love
All things are passing
In this world of moments in time
My love
I don’t know you
All I know is what I believe
Aud Wilken: Vocals
Henrik Möll: Vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, keyboards, guitar
Stephen Muires: Narrator
Design: Birgitte Wester
Photo: Henrik Möll
The album also contains an excerpt from Hall’s Requiem, “Dies Irae”, a piece of music written for organ and performed live at a church in Copenhagen in December 1989. The title was dedicated to at the time recently deceased Presence co-producer Flemming Nygaard.
Imperfect was unanimously praised by the press but didn’t – obviously (in the light of its contents) – reach the same popularity as its predecessor, the chart album Presence. The promotion single “Prime Material” nevertheless received a fair degree of airplay.
In the same period of time Virgin Records also released the Audio-Visual videocassette, a collection of recent Martin Hall music videos (“Beat of the Drum” and “Real Thing”) as well as a series of coherent, more abstract visual works entitled The Point of No Return.
