INFODEMENTIA
INFODEMENTIA
MARTIN HALL
ESSAYS
MARCH 2008
LINDHARDT OG RINGHOF (ISBN 978-87-11-31377-8)
Infodementia is a collection of essays, articles and reviews written throughout 2007. As a columnist for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (Denmark’s biggest daily newspaper) as well as another paper, Dato, Martin Hall comments upon events such as The MTV Awards Copenhagen and the capitol’s yearly fashion week. The book also features extensive essays written for The Royal Danish Theatre and leading Danish rock magazine Gaffa.
Genre: Essays and articles
Pages: 227 (illustrated)
Design: Kenneth Schultz
Photo: Territorium
"Consider me one of those Parisians Walter Benjamin writes about in the opening of “Records and Materials” in The Arcades Project – a man who, surprised by a sudden shower, seeks refuge in one of the city's passages, these glass-covered, marble-adorned corridors full of beautiful shops and windows, abounding of goods and merchants."
As additional value to the selected articles Infodementia also contains a series of otherwise unpublished writings such as two extensive features written during the filming of a major motion picture in Prague and a stay in Buenos Aires.
The release of Infodementia coincided with Martin Hall’s 25th anniversary as an author. Likewise his debut book from 1983 Infodementia features a line of the author’s graphical works and illustrations.
CATALOGUE (MARTIN HALL 1980-2007)
CATALOGUE (1980-2007)
MARTIN HALL
5–CD/DVD
NOVEMBER 2007
PANOPTIKON (OPTIK 10)
On November 5th 2007 Martin Hall released his so far most extensive record project ever, the box set Catalogue (Martin Hall 1980–2007). The release consists of five audio-cd’s and one dvd, all in all 81 music tracks and 15 visual features, covering Hall’s musical career from 1980 to 2007.
The cd’s are divided into five categories: The first disc is subtitled Airplay and contains singles and airplay tracks, the second is Hallmark featuring the singer’s signature songs (the heavier and more theatrical titles in his repertoire) and the third is Soundtracks which consists entirely of instrumental works (soundtracks from various art installations, theatre projects and films). The fourth cd in the box selection is Remakes which primarily includes new remixes of various Martin Hall songs made by other artists, and finally cd five, entitled Encore, features a selection of newly recorded works with orchestras or classical ensembles.
The dvd, Visuals, furthermore features 15 tracks – film clips, videos and live performances such as a 27-minute footage filmed at his highly appraised concert at the Glyptotek in October 2006 receiving 6 out of 6 stars in leading Danish music magazine Gaffa.
CD 1 (AIRPLAY):
1. Avenues of Oblivion (3:45)
2. An Attempt of Interruption (3:03)
3. Free-Force Structure (Edit) (6:11)
4. Eyes and Hands (5:11)
5. Treatment (Edit) (5:25)
6. Warfare (Edit) (4:09)
7. Showdown (Edit) (4:08)
8. Crush (Edit) (3:43)
9. Beat of the Drum (4:54)
10. Surreal Thing (4:45)
11. Prime Material (3:25)
12. Rhythm of the Rota (Edit) (4:26)
13. Pleasurama (3:43)
14. Catching The Dust (5:46)
15. Burning Sugar (Edit) (3:22)
16. The Stranger in Your Voice (1:30)
17. Roseland (4:32)
18. Brainwash (3:15)
19. World on a String (3:29)
CD 2 (HALLMARK):
20. Soil (1:20)
21. Leathern (5:03)
22. A Spastic Appeal (4:35)
23. Imagine Focus (5:12)
24. Resonance (5:55)
25. Synthesis (8:28)
26. Song for Someone (3:13)
27. Masquerade (6:12)
28. Cradlemoon (5:44)
29. Another Heart Laid Bare (4:34)
30. To Be Continued (5:33)
31. Images in Water (8:03)
32. Plaza Flesh (2:31)
33. Pantomime (2:29)
34. Torn Envelope (8:03)
CD 3 (SOUNDTRACKS):
35. Evocative Inelegance (2:08)
36. Ritual (Edit) (5:58)
37. Point within Circle (4:00)
38. Dome (1:30)
39. 8 (6:26)
40. Erosion (4:33)
41. Theme from Night and Day (2:55)
42. Interim (1:47)
43. Elia (Edit) (14:15)
44. Replicator (2:44)
45. Theme from Camille (3:51)
46. Face Map (1:51)
47. Red Star Trademark (9:51)
48. Kopfkino Theme (3:25)
49. Kvadrat (2:35)
50. String Quartet Playing in a Refugee Camp (2:53)
51. April 4 (2:00)
52. Racing Cars (Edit) (5:28)
53. Das Ding an Sich (0:57)
CD 4 (REMAKES):
54. Love in Vein (4:15)
55. Cool Breeze of Discontent (4:51)
56. Rooms Badly Lit (4:31)
57. Tu Es Mon Image (7:01)
58. Swimming Pool Eyes (6:44)
59. Ritualized (4:02)
60. Vacuum (4:40)
61. Split (1:58)
62. St. Petersburg Notes (4:00)
63. Chance Encounter (4:31)
64. Metastatic (2:32)
65. An Even More Vulgar Display (1:53)
66. Extended Frame (10:10)
67. Crowded Saturdays (2:57)
68. Parading the Frozen (9:13)
69. Illustration (3:34)
CD 5 (ENCORE):
70. Poem (10:30)
71. Verschwendung (4:09)
72. Process Interrupted (7:06)
73. Shift Lock Immunity (3:46)
74. Contemporary Ideals (5:41)
75. Circuits of Loss (6:27)
76. Diary #3 (6:38)
77. Trail of Waste (4:25)
78. Room Without a View (7:15)
79. Pantheon (4:11)
80. Questionnaire (9:07)
81. Tout le Monde (1:36)
DVD (VISUALS):
82. Untitled (Video) (3:57)
83. Theme Remains Theme (Video) (2:46)
84. Cradlemoon (Video) (4:28)
85. Another Heart Laid Bare (Video) (4:33)
86. Neglect (Video) (2:40)
87. A.S.A.P. (Video) (2:04)
88. Other Rooms (Video) (2:44)
89. Poem (Video) (7:12)
90. Pantomime (Video) (3:25)
91. Song for Someone (Video) (3:34)
92. An Attempt of Interruption (Video) (7:53)
93. Ash and Lemon Water (Video) (3:54)
94. Verschwendung (Video) (4:19)
95. Brainwash (Video) (4:02)
96. Tout le Monde (Video) (1:26)
AVENUES OF OBLIVION
Electric music is ripping the air / Streets lit up by electricity / Coins of death call through the haze / Disparating conditions of minds / The avenues of oblivion touch your mind / Its sick fingers seek your energy / Shades of submission printed in the air / The corps of the silent army slowly move / Arms of death crawl the highs / Dancers of destruction scream / The preludes of tomorrow / Another rebellious transmission / The avenues of oblivion / The dancers of destruction
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
FREE-FORCE STRUCTURE
Forever hidden in the profile / The either-or behind the both-and / Transcend and ascend in the moment that frees / All loving fucked up in tension / Without shadow and without motion / A word like heart / A word like fire / I believe with my body / Believe with my soul / Believe in the eyes before me / Approach and regain / Life repressed to myth / Changing once again / Words sealed with a kiss / Cancel all the pain / In these fantasies / Of realities / Let the fragments shine / Feel me deep within / Let the nearness bind / Feel me skin to skin / Let your flesh and mind / Fuse to the same thing / Rising from decline / Get up / Reach out / Confront / Break through / Reset reality / Programme your love / All must pass / But presence remains / The basic concepts / The further lies / Of the rituals built on your ism of truth / In this chain reaction set-out / We’re born alone / But still I need you / So please don’t hide in self-hate and / Compromises between a desire to be free / And passion made of confinement
EYES AND HANDS
As I am / Changing in these filters of light / Without difference between the symbol / And the force which is symbolized / Just like you / Scanning the shadow / I see you through nothing but eyes / Depending on eyes / As the sphere of wound strengthens the love / Earthbound to heaven / But trapped in the mirrors / If self-made conditions rule perfectly blindly / So selfish bourgeois / So vulgar-pretentious / In your attempted martyrdom / From sacrifice to power release / The strain keeps the balance of love / While it shines like a diamond / So dustless and unseen / Beyond tension and form / Feel it / Skinless / Take it in / In whirls of love / Through eyes and hands / A voice surrounds me / A touch reminds me / Equalizing every change / Again I lie down to die in your arms / Surrounded by the rings in the water / Beyond dividing life into senses / In intellectual self-mutilation / In every circle knowing the centre / In every touch a signal so tender / All on the outside / All on the inside / Without distinction / From request to request / Hiding in the mirrors / In these laws of pain / In the identity of the pain / Drawing the lines between love and hatred / Based on code and revenge / Where’s your respect for love / Where’s your respect for life / Acting out neurotic non-appearance / Stimulating some denied desire / By simulating a heart on fire / In worlds on location / In wordless betrayal / In the illusion of security / But there will be no restrictions / Nor any limits / For body and spirit / When love transcends / In both sense and symbol / Beyond good and evil / Beyond you and me / Cover me with your eyes
TREATMENT
Treat me hard / Treat me with heart / Show me no mercy / Show me no sign of weakness / Retreat me right / Remain in light / Through every night and day / So cruelly / I know you’ll be / My destiny / In all / Surrender completely / Fade into me / I need you this close / I want you to be / The purpose itself / To every extent / In method and need / Beginning and end / Treat me right / Treat me with right / Show me no mercy / Show me no sign of weakness / In cover of / All of your love / I’ll make this dream come true / In every trace / Of every face / I feel a stream of you / So tender we treat each other with fear / The root of our need will constantly tear / Our fiction apart / Revealing the bone / Behind walls of love / We’re still all alone / Be my Judas / Be my destiny / I’ll forgive you / In eternity / Be my Jesus / Be my sacrifice / I’ll betray you / With a kiss of ice
WARFARE
In this media of mental translation / In this handicap of alienation / I need more than your model of motion / Than aesthetics of broken hearts / Here we are again / Feeling just the same / In these separate hells / Every word’s been said / Every lie’s been fed / To define ourselves / While your balance is kept intellectual / You’re emotionally ineffectual / A hysteria so perfectly tragic / So unreachable near / I’ve just had enough / Of neurotic love / Of this culturecide / I don’t need your shit / It just makes me sick / Look into my eyes / ‘Cause this is the face / This is the race
SHOWDOWN
As everything changes me / Exploding in start on start / It shines on so hard through you / A crystal of flesh and blood / In your face / In your eyes / In the savagery of / How we love / How we die / A fever is burning / Releasing my spirit / In these European schemes / Imprisoned in mind of stone / A system so centralized / Conceptual humanity / Through obsession and love / Through the days and the years / And still burning inside / There’s no turning back now / The circle is broken / Feel the showdown
CRUSH
As you fill me again / I have no further questions / Condemned to be free / As I reach out for you again / Nothing is new / But something has grown / Bigger than both of us / Stronger than memory / And much stronger than defeat / I’m gonna crush / The worlds we used to know / A seed is sown / I’m gonna let it grow / I’m quite aware / What I’ll be going through / There’s no way back / It all depends on you / My destiny / I’ve seen it in your eyes / A love so deep / A stream that purifies / And in your arms / The nature of all death / Is nothing but / A touch of timelessness / I’m gonna crush / I’m gonna crush you with my love / I’m gonna crush / I’m gonna be crushed up in love
BEAT OF THE DRUM
Now one day I woke up to some rules of life / That a serious heart needs a light mind to survive / That if you only hope you won’t get very far / ‘Cause dreams call for action / No matter what you want the way is to begin / ‘Cause knowing all about it is not the living thing / And those who sit and ask for great things all the time / Well I hope they’ve sorted out the many small things on the line / A focus inside out / The still of the centre / You must live by demand / But also surrender / As the beat of the drum / Beats the ghosts on the run / So the beat of my heart keeps me wondering / Now it’s been said this world is a stage / Well then if that is true it’s an unwritten play / That makes being a becoming / It’s so easy seen when it’s someone else / But are you any better when you’re by yourself / ‘Cause in this hall of mirrors you’re in a counterpoint / Where it takes one to recognize one / Now there are those who say that life is hard and then you die / Well petty leads to pity if they do not wonder why / ‘Cause the way to solve a problem is to get a bigger one / So to those who cry for freedom / Well there’s working to be done
SURREAL THING
River deep / Mountain high / Out of the blue / As pure as the real thing / The state and the feeling / It leaves me no doubt of what needs to be done / A thunder’s been raging / A choice has been taken / To never look back / To be one of the few / While all things must pass / A fire will burn / Purify / Never change / It’s seen in the sky / As there’s so much more to this than meets the eye / It’s something within / The longing inside is the drive that allows / The work to be done / River deep / Mountain high / A shadow inside / In the light of a greatness from which none can hide / Out of the blue / Into the fire / And I’m stronger than ever in my one surrender / A red storm arising / Now I know what I want / And I know how to get it / It’s calling within and without / As pure as the real thing / The state and the feeling / It leaves me no doubt of what needs to be done / A thunder’s been raging / A choice has been taken / To never look back / To be one of the few / I know it / ‘Cause I feel it / I don’t need no further proof to believe it / There’s a guiding light / Burning inside out / As pure as the real thing / I return / In the light of the sun / A shadow is cast of a moment in time / Like turns of the tide / In the still of the night it begins / What is is to be
PRIME MATERIAL
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 reasons 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
RHYTHM OF THE ROTA
So I got this little stigma / A little stigma in my mind / I’ve been looking for perfection / But it seems so hard to find / What’s going up / Is coming down / What’s going in / Will come around / Second coming / Second going / Getting older by the day / In the final (ab)solution / Seems there’s nothing left to say / What’s going up / Is coming down / What’s going in / Will come around / And the rota never stops / And it cuts me like a knife / But the time is running out / Like a river running dry / I heard a whisper in the wasteland / That I’d gone the line divine / But when it all comes down to pieces / You’ve got to read between the lines / I got a taste for more than reason / I got a need to understand / I’ve got to trace the line of changes / Before it’s getting out of hand / The rhythm of the rota never stops / We’re such stuff as dreams are made of
PLEASURAMA
The sweetest words / They always fall from lovers’ lips / Make you believe everything that you’ve heard / The whole wide world / It seems like it’s hanging from the sky / Still you turn your blindest eye / See you robbing every mirror / For the images you see / I thought you knew my pleasurama / I thought you knew my everything / Nocturnal moods / The melodramas / Pulling all your cheap nostalgia / Out of anything you see / A frame of mind / Can turn the world all upside down / Make you believe everything that you’ve heard / Of all of my heart / I wish I could wish you all the best / But my tolerance’s too sore / Got a little something for you / It’s a good and better bye (buy)
CATCHING THE DUST
The eyes on the ceiling / The eyes on the walls / There’s always a riddle unsolved / A question to store / Candles burning in the night / To remind you / That no matter where you’re hiding / It will find you / Get inside of you / All of this time / Watching the lines / Slowly run out into the blue / Catching the dust / Staying untouched / Hiding the world within your hand / All of this time / Just catching the dust / Hiding the world / The longest of stories / The thinnest of air / The something you always wanted / Untouchable near
BURNING SUGAR
The memory lines / That run down the sky / Running like streams of reason / The story is told / In silver and gold / Words never tell the tale / I believe / In all that I see / In all that I know / In all that I feel inside me / I know / That dreams will come true / If they’re burning / Burning sugar / Burns inside me / Burning sugar / Burning so sweet / The things that I’ve seen / The places I’ve been / Secrets that stay unbroken / The look in your eyes / It’s high as a kite / Cooling my every need
THE STRANGER IN YOUR VOICE
I always wait / For the light / For the day / When love has gone / All of the time / All of the lies / Turn inside of me / The stranger in your voice / Comes and goes / Never shows / I’m on my own / Feeling amused / Feeling accused / I’m a thousand miles away / Every tragic love affair will end itself / Always founded on a tragic lack of taste / No sweet applause / Not even a word / From the stranger in my heart
ROSELAND
29 believers / In the room next door / Guess the myth didn’t equal the score / While they’re praising the legend / They can’t wait for his fall / Never was enough room for us all / Not enough air to breathe / Or time to leave / Trading in make-believe / For the time being / Meet me at Roseland / Meet me at summer’s end / No one will notice / Anywhere that we meet / Promise you’ll be there / Don’t leave me waiting / You’re all I’ve ever known / All I’ll ever know / All the painted faces / Every painted smile / So allergic to all that they hide / Guess I needed the feeling / Every scandalous high / Got accustomed to life on the line / I saw all the stories end / Begin again / But only a single face / Stayed the same / Meet me at Roseland / Meet me at summer’s end / No one will notice / Anywhere that we meet / Promise you’ll be there / Don’t leave me waiting / You’re all I’ve ever known / All I’ll ever know / Wherever you go / Wherever you’ll show / I’ll be waiting for you
BRAINWASH
I can’t help this feeling / I don’t think it’s mine / I think I need cleaning / Of brain and of mind / Brainwash / Wash it all clean now / Brainwash / Take it away / Brainwash / The ease and the dis-ease / Some like it hot / And some not / Not at all / And I don’t need no doctor / I just need myself / The melodramatic / Is going to hell
WORLD ON A STRING
Got the world on a string high above me / Looking down at the clouds under my feet / Signing off with a sigh / Kiss and tell them goodbye if it’s needed / Got a feeling inside / The most natural kind / Spending night after night / Counting every star / Within the dark / Guess I needed to see / That it’s all make-believe / Little animal heart / Tear the heavens apart now / High and dry / I’m still walking on air / Couldn’t care less / If the world that you’ve known seems to change / To me it’s the same / Got the world on a string high above me / Looking down at the clouds under my feet / Signing off with a sigh / Kiss and tell them goodbye if it’s needed / Riding high on these random desires / Dressing up in the light of the fires / Got the world on a string / It doesn’t mean anything more than maybe / Always loved your belief / Such a wonderful need / All the things that I lost / Shining in your eyes / Light up the sky / Feeling too good to die / Well at least for a while / See the Saturday girls / Hear the cry of world now / High and dry and I’m out of the rain / I’ll leave you the taste / Never knew anyone by their name / It’s always the same / Got the world on a string high above me / Looking down at the clouds under my feet / Signing off with a sigh / Kiss and tell them goodbye if it’s needed / Riding high on these random desires / Dressing up in the light of the fires / Got the world on a string / It doesn’t mean anything more than maybe / Its’ the same refrain
SOIL
Continue the delight / Without fear or abbreviation / Once I had trust in this struggle / Believed that will could disappear / To see the days pass by / With acknowledgement / To face my soil / And I wish I could waste / Meaning and emotion / In some wisdom / How could I in any way tolerate / The way they treated you
LEATHERN
Edges of speaking / Outlived of hatred / Could I forgive at all / Or could sigh be further / Than I reached always / Light died / -ly pregnant / Up / Killed in your words / Sheet-minded loving was / Respect as given thought / Of hairy swinelike / Hours of nameless / Of this penetration / Could I still cry for sad / Tell friend and leech apart / The fall of the fallen / Unnamed or misused / Lethal hate given / Word castles built in vain / Salute nugacity / Could I feel guilty / The leathern tenderness / Did you cry lustful / I can now nevermore / Give what I wanted to / To feel so leathern / Cry of the stone tears / Kiss of the unsaid / Without these arms to stretch (died in this early grave) / Like passion for unseen (buried before dying) / I seek the guiltful / To feel so leathern / Emotional / Leprous
A SPASTIC APPEAL
Unheard, unheard / You will fall with the masculine delusion / Tasteless you / Traceless you / Beyond the bloodless necessities / Somewhere lies the feel of splendour / How to fight the denial of feel / How to fight this denial of feel / Among bloodless / Will I fall / A spastic appeal for unknown ideals / Frailty / Your name is strength / Useless wise in all their lies / It lead into this
IMAGINE FOCUS
Just a touch of lost / Burning as always / As it was / As it is / And eventually / Just in trust / Nothing more / So suddenly / From beginning to end / While this centreless present reflects itself / In inverted moves of an obsessional stage / In a stream of light from unreachable marks / Something long ago in everlasting terms / In a crossfade of untitled reasons / What it turned out to be / And occasionally / Everything in my hands / So totally / In the heat of the touch / Like the way we were / Beyond love under will / Suddenly away / In these only words / By mistakes again / Into changing links / In this compromise of dependence then / Stage by stage / In exposure / Still so timeless / In this life release / Nearness hidden in casual moves / Watch the changes and recall / Touch through another focus / Mark perfection twice / With or without purpose / Still tons against tons / Carefully mistaken / In retrospective fear / Restrain it all while I imagine focus
RESONANCE
Weakening over weakening / A fire that burns so brightly / Only a shadow / Cast by yourself / So soft and fading / Wind over body / Shaking each nerve / In curves of freedom / In the hardest care / A baptism in desire / And in merciless grace / And in this fusion / Sister shadows compressed to the core / Difference on difference / In every framing I make / In display on display / And again / Afterwards / In the beauty of all death / An ultimate reality / Double-lined from phase to phase / From the mother wound to the scabelon / From one to zero in a circle of ten / Burning cities melt into sunset / The blue light / The white beds / The roaring shapes of love / From stone to skin / Forcing all life / Trapped in this outline / For you alone / This time for all we know / Like a shadow / I feel you near / In all these nights without you / Flickering / From dust to contour / Always there / From the centre to the line / Hermetically closed inside me / For you alone / This time for all we know / Shining through time / Sacred but still so raw / And all the love / Moving so motionless / And even now / As it always will be / In each overload / Affection running tenderly wild / Losing shadow in every move I make / In a flow of warmth / Like blood spreading in water / All alone / Surrounded by time / From displacement to displacement / And in the shadowplay of memory / Closing my eyes / And into the abyss of your love / Trapped inside the heavens of your touch / Felt like this a hundred times before / Still I only need it more and more / I will drink the salt stains from your skin / Kiss you clean from all the violence / Drugs / Repression / Fantasy and fear / All I need is just to feel you near / Feel you near
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
SONG FOR SOMEONE
So your cynicism is your new religion / Where your doubt allows you no devotion / It makes you feel secure / ‘Cause they can’t say you’re wrong / And that’s right / ‘Cause you’re close to nothing at all / So while you’re fighting blinded in your mirror-land / You run against the size of your own little box / In a two-mask nightmare theatre / You live what you call your life / I call you slave of guilt / I call you sick sick six / You know my name / But you don’t know me / In the stupidity of mass-identity / Your self-fixation won’t set you free / Now anal-ysis is very easy to offer / Help is a quite different feature / I wish you’d come down to the basics / I wish you’d begin to surrender
MASQUERADE
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
CRADLEMOON/TRAIL OF WASTE
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 the waiting / 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 lead me into the heart / To the heart of these days / I Never wanted to remember / 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 mor e / Couldn’t turn my back on 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 / There’s a time in the night / When the sky seems to break by the blink of the eye
ANOTHER HEART LAID BARE/PARADING THE FROZEN
Another heart laid bare / On the doorstep to my exile / Another pantomime to disbelieve / I see your bended head / Always humble in the daylight / Playing the servant’s role to never see / Of all the images / 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 / Pointing fingers at the heavens / Declaring me the crime of centuries / The traces on my skin / They keep shining in the night time / A fingerprint on every memory
TO BE CONTINUED
My my / Here’s a drummer / All melodramatic / I wonder who invited him in / But I’m amused as always / By the glamorous stupidity / It’s the puff and the posh of the way that you are / Sugarcoating every word / When it all begins to hurt / A little too Babylonian / Now you’re breaking into tears / Though you know I can’t be near / Such an effortless act / It’s shining through you skin / A skin so paper thin / A living memory / It’s just a breath away / All drawn in pale and grey / So tense and self-aware / I can’t breathe in the absence of beauty / Come sustain my arrogance / With a sight that never ends / A little falling from the sky / Ain’t gonna make the day worthwhile / Not exactly unpredictable / I love the feeling / The nervous shivering / A skin show of dreams / Olympian ideals undefeated
IMAGES IN WATER
The sound of the room / The sound of your breathing / See the night rain that falls / Hear it run down the walls / There’s a scent in the air / There’s a trace in the water / And you’re stretched like the sky / On these carnival nights / That you carry inside / And the image you see / Such a weight on your eyelids / It never dried on your eyes / Never silenced the cries / Like a needle you find / That injects light inside you / See the ribbons of rain / Draw the lines of a face / The thinnest of air / Was all that you needed / Now the glittering stars / Shine a light far too hard / On the tip of your tongue / There’s a word never spoken / Like a vanishing gaze / Choreography games / That you try to rename / And the image you see / Such a weight on your eyelids / It never dried on your eyes / Never silenced the cries / Like a needle you find / That injects light inside you / See the ribbons of rain / Draw the lines of a face / The scenes of a night cut in marble / The sound of the rain’s getting harder / A hand mirror line turning flesh for a while / You’re so tired now
PLAZA FLESH
Show me your true desires / Show me your plaza flesh / Pictures of people dying / Seem to have no effect no more / I don’t really give as much as a toss anymore / I just want to hide away / Never beg anymore / I don’t really count the days or the hours anymore / ‘Cause she’s gone / Come now / Inject the daylight / Come here / Each little girl / At first / Just want to kiss you / But then I want it all / I want exces s / Your plaza flesh
PANTOMIME
Feeling like Berlin 1929 / So many feelings / All caught up inside / Falling like cities / Seen through lovers’ eyes / Shaking with fever / As they say goodbye / Each time you look / Somebody hides / All of the world / Up in the clouds / Feeling so stupid / In this pantomime / All that I need is / A pair of starry eyes
TORN ENVELOPE
With lips bleeding red / A flicker of skin / Her one silk caress / It’s a breath just about to begin / She believes / What she feels / The white of her eyes / A glow in the dark / Wherever she is / She’s a silence that shelters my heart / She believes / What she is / And I wish she could see / What she’s doing to me / In spite of the past / In spite of the present / She’s the air I breathe / She’s the trail of the days / My guide and my trace / The world never sleeps / It feeds on her dreaming / As I close my eyes / A taste in my mouth / Of sugary sand / The world seems so small / As it glitters in her open hand / She believes / What she needs / And I wish she could see / What she’s doing to me / In spite of the past / In spite of the present / She’s the air I breathe / She’s the trail of the days / My guide and my trace / The world never sleeps / It feeds on her dreaming / As I close my eyes / In the still of the night / The dim desires / In the faint afterglow of heated cries / On the moon-flooded roofs and in her eyes / It all comes alive / It all seems to hide / And the words seem to fall like whispers that drip / Her voice’s like a fog on her moist soft lips / Like a torn envelope that’s sealed with a kiss / How it all seems to break / All seems to shake / In a single embrace
LOVE IN VEIN
Heavy as lead in a medicine secret / Turning the sights on a narrow-go-round / Limited mind never looking for answers / Vanishing light never hitting the ground / And the beauty blinds you / And it cools the strain / And it hides inside you / Like a love in vein / Silhouette tear on a pillow of sorrow / Look-alike pain as a ticket to go / Cities of light for a memory season / Dressing your mind for millennium low
COOL BREEZE OF DISCONTENT (MY ARGENTINE ROSE)
She’s a cool breeze of discontent / She’s like a story that never ends / See the twenties within her eyes / Eternal stardust that never dies / She’s my Argentine rose / She’s such a delicate rose
ROOMS BADLY LIT (YOU KNOW WHY THEY HATE ME)
You know why they hate me / Don’t you / It’s just a matter of time / So they say / They won’t forgive any traitors / Whenever they say I’m ungrateful / Just remember the price that I’ve paid / I got so tired parading in rooms badly lit / In the stardom / Of my boredom / My British manners never failed / How they hated / My behaviour / But you / You shine like the glamour sky / You ride on the turning tide / At least for a while / And me / I’ll wipe off banalities / Whenever they’re thrown at me / I do it so well / You know why they hate me / Don’t you / There’s not a lot to be said / I didn’t need invitations / Just don’t let your manners escape you / Although it’s tempting / There’s nothing to prove / I made my choice / Now it’s all up to you / You’re high as a falling star / Just don’t let it go too far / You’ve seen where it ends / The game / At best it’s acceptable / At worst it’s despicable / I’ll leave it to you
TU ES MON IMAGE
Les rails de la nuit noire / Ils brillent comme lumière / Le monde ne dort jamais / Nourrit nos rêves / Mon image de toi / Est tombée du ciel / Les rêves paraissent continuer / Les chants intérieurs / Murmure des mots inouïs / Tu es mon image / Enfourche la lumière comme une vague / Les yeux d’océan / D’amant ne mentent jamais / Détournons-nous comme des étrangers / Tout ce que je veux / C’est tout / Tout ce que je veux / C’est toi / Tu es mon image / C’est toi / Les rails de la nuit noire / Ils brillent comme lumière / Le monde ne dort jamais / Nourrit nos rêves / Mon image de toi / Est tombée du ciel / Tombée du ciel / Tu es mon image / Plus bleus que toute raison / Timides comme tout mensonge / Des yeux d’amants jamais secs / Tu es mon image
SWIMMING POOL EYES (DAMAGE CONTROL)
She’s got a heart full of crazy people / She’s clearly not amused / Catching colds and missing trains / Is all she seems to do / The tragic bravados / The bourgeois staccato / Wonder why she bothers at all / They’re all talking in headlines but dress out of style / “Get a life and then give me a call” / Every ghetto gladiator / Every little Pierrot / Looking like a drag magician in another wasted show / There’s a beggar on each corner / A stench in the air / Life’s a song that’s dedicated to the lovers at Tiananmen Square / Confetti-covered / All animated / Party eyes that never close / A wave of raving faces with sparkling smiles / They look the same wherever she goes / The white shirts and big lips / All drowning in honey / Smacking tongues while they’re shaking their heads / Little socialites with portable roots / In her eyes they’d be better off dead / But the shops and the markets / The wild consumer craze / Seem to bind it all together and somehow make their day / All these harlequin girls with swimming pool eyes / If nothing else matters / They really took advantage of their time / So shit in your hat and place your head on a chair / This journey’s clearly not going anywhere / Turn on the tv / The lie of the land / A string quartet playing in a refugee camp / Start with a kiss and soon you’ll need vaseline / The damage control of any tangerine dream / Play hard to get / You’ll end on the run / ‘Cause everyone’s bored with all this soft-porn
VACUUM/ST. PETERSBURG NOTES/CIRCUITS OF LOSS (OTHER ROOMS)
The cigarette smoke in the air / The smouldering waves everywhere / Full of eyes / Prune-coloured eyes / In Moscow and St. Petersburg / The places turn into a blur / In your mind / A violent sigh / The salt water traces that burn on your skin / The words that you hid in letters never sent / Your heartbeat’s a rage never tamed / Never shown / Wherever you go / You’re never alone / The alcohol glows for a while / It’s shining like gold in the light / Like a trace / Of halcyon days / Like ghosts in their circuits of loss / You carry your own little cross / As a shield / Against any need / Wherever you go / You leave something behind / The parts of yourself you’ve been trying to find / The smell of the night seems to stick to your skin / All locked in a cage / The journey begins
METASTATIC/CONTEMPORARY IDEALS (A.S.A.P.)
She’s turning away to lie still for a while / Just watching the clouds drifting by on the night sky / The skin of a girl and the face of a child / She touches my hand and suggests that we go out / She’s checking her face in the mirror / Adjusting her hair endlessly / The hard light of the elevator / Follows her out in the street / It’s too hot to sleep
AN EVEN MORE VULGAR DISPLAY (A VULGAR DISPLAY)
I don’t know where to start / Never ever seen such a vulgar display / Losing mind / Losing heart / Never ever want to fall in love again / No new sights to be seen / Sailing on the ocean of arrogant dreams / Chasing nightmares away / Trading any reason for lost yesterdays / Don’t spread your stars / Around this perfect moon / Don’t spread these stars / Around this perfect moon
CROWDED SATURDAYS (MINOR FRAME)
Crowded Saturdays / Guest among ghosts / A girl made of shivers / Girls on their own / Rolled down shades / Sweet harsh sweat / It’s the choked laughter / The unmade bed / All the things you might remember / Things you might forget / Looking young and old / In the same glance / Nervous tenderness / But steady at hand / Curly hair / And vinyl sounds / Guess it’s carved within the faces / Carved and painted down / A cigarette that’s burning / Along the line / I guess that she’s the one you won’t forget
ILLUSTRATION (FINALE)
Stronger than thousand suns / Zero equals one / Two reveals unity / As all things to be
POEM
The homeless anger has cried so sweet / Does it rise from the blood-stained sheets / Will / Dearly bought with the blood / Will torn emotions be the sky of above / The genesis of illness lies in your blood / Hate is to be purity / Hate is of truth / I will not tolerate the inbred indulgence / Die in your blood-beds / This could be love
VERSCHWENDUNG
Verschwendung ist der Name des Spiels / Eine Tugend / Eine Ehrensache / Meine Seele ist ein Hotel / Meine Liebe eine Einrichtung / Meine Liebe / Ich bin ein Matador / Ein Toreador / Ein mutiger Kujon / Ein alter Hund / Eine Wiederkunft aus meiner Kindheit / Ein Schauspieler in einer unfreiwilligen Erinnerung / Keiner stellt die Frage / Keiner weckt mich zu leben / Zu leben
PROCESS INTERRUPTED (AN ATTEMPT OF INTERRUPTION)
‘Cause I’ll lie for you / I’ll die for you / I’ll do anything / To be forgiven
SHIFT LOCK IMMUNITY (ASH AND LEMON WATER)
Ash and lemon water / Shining on your lips / Whatever you do / Don’t try to resist / It’s the kind of understanding / That makes you feel uncomfortable / It’s the kind of circumstances / That make you feel so old / You’re all immune / To crowded rooms / Your heart’s made of air / It’s easy to share / You’re sliding down / The open sky / A handle that breaks / Excitement’s a rage
DIARY #3 (ANOTHER HEART LAID BARE)
Eine Straße im Sommer, mit frisch verliebten jungen Leuten und schreienden Kindern überstreut / Ein Saal voller glänzender lackierter Stühle / Ein dunkles, unbefriedigtes Herz / Seine Stimme hörte sich atemlos an, als bemühte er sich, seine Wut zu beherrschen, und seine herablassenden Gedanken über mich waren genau so deutlich wie eine Serie anatomischer Zeichnungen / Seine rhythmischen Schritte klangen wie eine gigantische Uhr / Vor dem Gemälde hielt er inne, starrte mich mit einem unergründlichen, schwelenden Blick an und fragte mich dann, was ich meinte / Als ob ihn das interessierte / Das Gespräch schien in einem überfüllten Zimmer statt zu finden / Jedes Mal, wenn ich etwas zu sagen versuchte, klang es, als probierte ich ein neues Wort aus dem Fremdwörterbuch zum ersten Mal aus / Schließlich war ich ganz gefühllos – als wäre ich nicht länger anwesend im Raum / Mit beinahe traumhafter Normalität nahm er sein Selbstgespräch wieder auf, sprach von den höheren Regionen des Geistes und dem Greifvermögen der Seele und darüber, wie wenig das eine ohne das andere wert sei
ROOM WITHOUT A VIEW (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 / Now 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 / 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 / Another time and place is / The last belief of performing mind / The fires burn / Erasing all the traces / And I spread the ashes all across the sky / Watching it fall like rain through empty spaces / To the darkest corners of my heart and mind / In a room without a view / There’s a story without end / Every time an answer show s / Then another hides away
PANTHEON (NEGLECT)
Habits that I just couldn’t break / Caught within the frame of my ways / Living with the stories and tales / That surrounded my every move / Turning living into a game / Changes made it all stay the same / Paranoid delusions remained / Such an elegant way to run free / But no eye shall absorb any tear that it cries / And no heart ever drown in its beat / Guess I needed to see just how pointless it is / To be right when it’s not what you feel / Shaken by words never meant to be said / Breaking the silence of lost innocence / I just couldn’t see / How you carried the weight of it all / Starving desires / Extravagant needs / Caught in the dark of my fading belief s / I just couldn’t see / How you shielded my every mov e / I just couldn’t see
QUESTIONNAIRE (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 centur y / 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
TOUT LE MONDE
April 4 turning 9.25 / Writing words in the air / Lovers left with a cool rainy day / Places no longer there / Cardboard letters and manners that fail / Paris Odéon girls / Doors are closing / Lights still glowing / With a weak innocence
“Impressive box set capturing 27 years of uncompromising work … a must for fans and strongly recommendable for beginners.”
( * * * * * )
Gaffa (Denmark’s biggest music magazine)
”An impressive introduction to one of the country’s most important and most productive songwriters … it’s difficult to point to any other Danish colleague who can put together 81 tracks without putting a foot wrong one single time.”
( * * * * * )
Jyllands-Posten (Denmark’s biggest daily newspaper)
”The eccentric dandy exposed from A to Z … a piece of Danish music history that no connoisseur should miss. A true ear-opener.”
( * * * * )
Citadel (the Danish equivalent to i-D Magazine)
Only feature artists listed
Acustic: Remix
Ballet Mécanique: Instruments
Candy’s Room: Remix
Christian Skeel: Remix
Dub Tractor: Remix
Efterklang: Remix
Else Marie Pade: Remix
Erik Levander: Remix
Front and Fantasy: Instruments
Hess Is More: Remix
Johnny Stage: Remix
Marcel de Sade: Piano
Palle Mikkelborg: Trumpet
Pellarin: Remix
Pellarin & Lenler: Remix
Prinz Ezo: Remix
The Danish Chamber Players: Orchestra
Trauma: Remix
Under For: Instruments
Winterhill: Remix
Wäldchengarten: Remix
‘Catalogue’ contains a line of recordings made in the period 1980–2007. For specific information concerning the individual song titles we need to direct you to the discography section and the original releases.
Design: Kenneth Schultz
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg
Since the musicians involved in the recordings featured on the box set add up to hundreds of people, we have to direct you to our discography section and the original releases as far individual tracks are concerned. However, of the newly recorded material for the release we have to highlight the following two guest visits in particular:
On the track “Finale” Martin Hall collaborates with Danish musical legend Else Marie Pade, a Danish pre-electronica pioneer (student of Karlheinz Stockhausen) who at the age of 82 made her first remix ever. This contribution ends off disc four, Remakes.
The second somewhat surprising appearance on the Catalogue box is that of yet another Danish myth, the herostratically famous Marquis Marcel de Sade who by his spectacular and flamboyant lifestyle turned Denmark upside down in the 50’s and start-60’s. Very appropriate for an artist of Hall’s stature, the final song on the box set, ”Tout le Monde”, is performed with the latter accompanying him on the piano.
Apart from Hall’s own liner notes Catalogue also contains an introduction written by Panoptikon from which the following explanatory excerpt is taken:
”Although Martin Hall’s complete discography consists of more than one hundred releases, the artist himself is fully content with focusing solely on available titles such as Camille, Metropolitan Suite, Das Mechanische Klavier, Inskription and Facsimile, his highly praised latest album. Together with the recent jubilee version of Ballet Mécanique’s The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation and current plans of re-releasing Random Hold next year, the key elements of his musical framework thereby seem in place. However, continual requests for many of his older releases have been hard to ignore for a long time.
Therefore Panoptikon has decided to release the Catalogue box – as a summary of Hall’s recordings as both singer and instrumentalist. This process has obviously not been easy: The diversity of his working methods add up to a problem as far as the selection of material is concerned. In the words of the internationally acclaimed Danish ensemble Efterklang, Martin Hall embodies “a fascinating schizophrenic versatility” that transcends any common category. Whether you like his music or not, it is only fair to say that he has become a brand of his own in contemporary Danish music.”
On the remix part of the box (CD 4) the following artists have contributed:
1. Love in Vein (Trauma)
2. Cool Breeze of Discontent (Candy’s Room remix of “My Argentine Rose”)
3. Rooms Badly Lit (Hess Is More remix of “You Know Why They Hate Me”)
4. Tu Es Mon Image (Efterklang)
5. Swimming Pool Eyes (Winterhill remix of “Damage Control”)
6. Ritualized (Dub Tractor remix of “Ritual”)
7. Vacuum (Pellarin remix of “Other Rooms”)
8. Split (Acustic remix of “Feet on Glass”)
9. St. Petersburg Notes (Christian Skeel remix of “Other Rooms”)
10. Chance Encounter (Erik Levander remix of “Mimic”)
11. Metastatic (Hall & Skeel remix of “A.S.A.P.”)
12. An Even More Vulgar Display (Wäldchengarten remix of “A Vulgar Display”)
13. Extended Frame (Pellarin & Lenler remix of “Minor Frame”)
14. Crowded Saturdays (Johnny Stage remix of “Minor Frame”)
15. Parading the Frozen (Prinz Ezo remix of “Another Heart Laid Bare”)
16. Illustration (Else Marie Pade remix of “Finale”)
The DVD contains two selections from the film Totem made by Claus Bohm and Ole John Film (1/2), two Random Hold videos made by Robin Skjoldborg (3/4), two Facsimile videos made by hansen-hansen.com (5/6), ”Other Rooms” in an unplugged version from the television programme TV2-Lorry (7), The Danish National Radio’s extensive coverage of Hall’s appearance at both The Glyptotek and Trax Galla 2006 (8–14) as well as a unique footage of Martin Hall and Marcel de Sade during the recording of the song ”Tout le Monde” (15) made by hansen-hansen.com.
“Impressive box set capturing 27 years of uncompromising work … a must for fans and strongly recommendable for beginners.”
( * * * * * )
Gaffa (Denmark’s biggest music magazine)”An impressive introduction to one of the country’s most important and most productive songwriters … it’s difficult to point to any other Danish colleague who can put together 81 tracks without putting a foot wrong one single time.”
( * * * * * )
Jyllands-Posten (Denmark’s biggest daily newspaper)”The eccentric dandy exposed from A to Z … a piece of Danish music history that no connoisseur should miss. A true ear-opener.”
( * * * * )
Citadel (the Danish equivalent to i-D Magazine)
NO FUTURE REVISITED
NO FUTURE REVISITED
MAGAZINE
SEPTEMBER 2007
GAFFA (ISSN 1901-2624)
In relation to the 30th anniversary for Sex Pistols’ classic rock album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, Gaffa – Denmark’s biggest music magazine – asked Martin Hall to write their monthly Klub Gaffa feature for the October edition of the magazine 2007.
Hall’s writing is an extensive essay focusing as much on 1977 and on the background of the group as on the recording of the album itself. Furthermore the article contains a line of local references to the original Danish punk scene.
You can find a pdf version of the article here:
DIE SCHÖNSTEN WEIHNACHTSGESCHICHTEN AUS SKANDINAVIEN
DIE SCHÖNSTEN WEIHNACHTSGESCHICHTEN AUS SKANDINAVIEN
ANTHOLOGY
SEPTEMBER 2007
LIST (ISBN 978-3471795484)
In September 2007 Martin Hall made his literary debut in Germany with a contribution to the anthology Die schönsten Weihnachtsgeschichten aus Skandinavien – “the most wonderful christmas stories from Scandinavia”. The publishing company List had succeeded in getting the immensely popular Danish singer and entertainer Gitte Haenning to gather some of her favourite Christmas stories as well as writing the foreword in the book, thus introducing the readers to her appreciation of the Scandinavian Christmas traditions.
Martin Hall’s contribution to the book, however, is anything but a traditional Christmas story. His story is called “Nine Cigarettes” and is a barren, alienated tale of a man’s homecoming to his family at Christmas time. The entire narrative is enacted in the room where this character used to live as a boy, in the hours before he has to join his family at the dinner table. The novel originally appeared in the Danish publishing agency Lindhardt og Ringhof’s anthology Christmas Stories released in 1998.
Among the others contributors to Die schönsten Weihnachtsgeschichten aus Skandinavien you’ll find authors such as August Strindberg, Herman Bang and H.C. Andersen.
OBLIVION MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
OBLIVION MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
Martin Hall interview made by Michael Kuhlen on April 10th 2007
‘Facsimile’ is being defined as the reproduction or a copy of something very precious and sometimes very expensive. Therefore I wonder where’s the relation to your latest album, its title and the single songs of the album?
– To me all art is a reproduction of ideas and impulses, thoughts and feelings, so the notion of a facsimile is this – that the album is a reproduction of an emotional state. All art operates through this kind of displacement, a delay from the time of its origin to the time of its reception; both music and literature is a statement after the fact, and the statement is never identical with the artist.
– The cover photo also indicates this notion: You see a closed door, an entrance, a portal. You can’t be observing and experiencing at the same time – you need to enter the next room to allow yourself the experience. You need to leave something behind to acquire something else. There’s almost a notion of fatality about it.
Is it some kind of concept album?
– Not as such. I don’t particularly like concept albums. Once you’ve defined the subject matter, you’re tied down. On the other hand, most albums unwillingly are concept albums – that is, something fixed and defined by the artist performing. You can’t escape your own nature.
Would you agree that looking at the beauty of your songs and the intimate atmospheres they all reveal, even back to the ‘Random Hold’ album, the music is overwhelming with all of your passion, heart and soul you’re putting into?
– At heart, I am a romantic. A romantic in the classic sense: someone who seeks to secure his art through dedication. The romantic strives towards beauty, beauty at all costs, which often has fatal consequences.
– To me, music has always been about longings: I don’t think there is a better media than music to express human longing, whether it’s hope, alienation or elevation. Music has an overwhelming ability to cross borders, languages and ages – to provide you with glimpses beyond your experience. Music provides you with a sense of being able to express what can’t be put in words. Music is in a continual state of becoming so to speak. I’m sorry if I sound a bit over the top, but I can’t help quoting the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze when he talks about of becoming as a state opposed to being – that being is a question of becoming.
– Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that music, to me, has always been about elevation, about motion, about being able to change – to be moved by it or to move others through it. It’s the e-motion, the way to cut through all intellectual layers and create a room in which the receiver can act freely – a sanctuary so to speak. Music is compelling.
What kind of character are you? The music gives the impression of a very quiet character, someone who’s more of a thinking man, an introvert person rather than an extrovert person. Do you tend to think in such categories, even more as there were scientific studies saying that extroverted people have a much easier life, whereas the potential of introverted people often lies much deeper and can not display if not having the chance to unfold.
– I think it’s easier for other people to define your character. As a person, you live your life and go through different phases to then, in time, arrive at some kind of recognizable being or behaviour. In many ways the sum total is to be found in your character – what kind of person you are morally, how you behave under pressure etc. I love the English phrase defining true elegance: “Grace under pressure”, the ability to stay focussed during hardship. Most people think they know themselves, but experience tells another story. You’ll get to know yourself via the resistance, not by daily life routines or some kind of general easy going.
– I’ve gone though a lot of changes. In my early years, although I was seen as a fairly “intellectual” character”, I was pretty wild, did a lot of drug-taking and so on, but then an huge amount of people around me died which obviously makes you reflect upon your way of life. The death rate among the generation I grew up with in the 1980’s was very high. It did stir a certain seriousness. I think the lifestyle of this period, the “no compromise”-attitude and artistic ramifications of the post-punk movement, was a great quality.
– But to return to you question: In terms of my present appearance, yes, I guess I have to be defined as a fairly introvert person. I very seldom attend receptions, and I go to a few concerts and events as possible. Actually I find it quite exhausting to be with other people for too long. But then again, I think you need to consider this kind of behaviour in relation to my general output: I’m a fairly productive person in terms of my artistic endeavours. I had a complete breakdown in 1999, due to both psychological reasons and an extreme work schedule, after which I changed my way of living. I don’t have the energy to put up with nonsense anymore, particularly not the kind of nonsense you have to put up with in the music industry. Writing has become more and more important to me.
Except Nick Cave maybe I hardly know any other artist than you who’s so intense in his artistical musical work, therefore I wonder how you experience your own music? Do you feel the same or do you have some kind of distance to it when listening to the album? How much of stripping your soul do you experience when listening to your songs?
– I once read an interview with John Malkovich where he proclaimed that he never saw his own films. Once he’d done them, that was it. I think the same goes with Jeremy Irons. To some extent I feel the same way: Not that I never listen to my own music, but when I do, it’s always for some kind of reason. I don’t find any pleasure in listening to my own music. It’s like looking in the mirror – it’s not necessarily a wonderful experience.
– What I enjoy most seems to be the instrumental works such as the soundtrack Camille or other works where my own voice doesn’t appear. I get far too self-reflective when I hear my own voice. I never regarded my self as a singer as such, I’ve always viewed myself as an artist working with words and music rather than a singer, which might also explain the slightly introverted aspect of my works we talked about before.
– When I recorded Facsimile, I had to record all vocals at home. As soon as I got into the studio, I couldn’t perform. I hated the sound of my own voice. It had been like that for years. That’s why I basically recorded no albums with myself as vocalist from 1999 up until Facsimile. However, having finished the book The Last Romantic which I had written on during this period – from 1999 to 2005 – I suddenly felt free to act again. After years of difficulties with writing songs for myself (actually being completely unable to do so), Facsimile really appeared out of nowhere, so I rush-recorded most of the vocals. Three takes, that was the maximum amount I could perform on each song. After that I would feel “phony”, like some one imitating himself. It had to be clean, I had to focus on the connection to the song rather than the performance. I’m such a perfectionist that my career experience almost killed my natural instinct for making music. Facsimile was a great healing. I’m very pleased with this record. I think it’s the kind of album where you’re finally able to hear who Martin Hall is. It’s a fairly fragile album.
When writing in such an intimate and autobiographical style as you do and really laying your heart to bare, don’t you also see the danger of being hurt, of being vulnerable? Is this something you don’t care about? In that sense, do you consider writing lyrics and music of being some kind of therapy, of maybe getting rid of some of the problems you might have?
– In many ways you’re much more vulnerable all the time you’re trying to play a role … since you might get “caught in the act” so to speak. In the Danish media, I’ve always received a huge amount of attention due to my fairly obscure personality, this hybrid being caught in between the underground and an almost Liberace-like appearance in the mainstream media. This lack of definition has been a great advantage to me – a cover in many ways, since people never knew what to expect from me.
– When writing my music and lyrics, there isn’t any option though, there isn’t any in-between state. The only source to draw upon is yourself, and to me this is the only way to go ahead – to explore the results of the processes you’re going through and to accept the identities surrounding you, the results of the interactions between you and your surroundings. As I said before, I tend to get very self-reflective, so to me sincerity has always provided a shield – in the sense that the song or the lyrics express an endeavour or a longing, something archetypical, something beyond the sheer personal aspects of “this is how I feel and that is why you have to listen to me”. I know it might sound awfully pretentious, but by this token music becomes a matter of listening to a soul breathing, a matter of natural process. I relate to other people’s music by the same reason, not by wild gesticulations.
Lyrically speaking ‘Facsimile’ seems to be an album where loss, the loss of love, seems to play an important role. All the feelings that go along with it, the broken hearts, the shattered illusions and dreams. Is this the best source for emotional and intense music such as yours?
– Well, I don’t know. I think it’s true to say that loss plays a significant role on the album, but loss in the sense of moving on, accepting the consequences of life and leaving unnecessary luggage and debris behind. The English writer T.S. Eliot compared the process of human struggle and suffering to that of an sculptor carving a sculpture from a piece of stone: For every stroke with hammer and chisel, the sculpture is one step closer to perfection. It’s a very wonderful metaphor, I think … how loss and hurt release the true character of a person. Sorrow is sterile, but becomes a profound resonance for life when applied actively to reality. The only way to make sure you won’t repeat the mistakes of your past is to actively register the danger of doing so – you need to be reminded, day in and day out. I suppose that’s why pain plays such a significant part of our lives: It’s a course correction, a pilot, a way to secure the way ahead.
In our first interview you several times mentioned that you’re a very self-reflecting character, thinking and observing a lot and being very selective when writing lyrics and finding the right words. Therefore I wonder how long it might take before you’re satisfied with the lyrics or a song? Is the final decision to use a certain version of a song always a compromise to you?
– It’s a very interesting question … with a very different answer now and here, almost ten years later, than the one I gave you last time. Earlier I would go to extreme limits to attain some kind of personal satisfaction with a song and its contents, the lyrics, but nowadays, I’m pleased if they don’t make me uncomfortable – that is, if I accept the words as they are. I’ve become incredibly allergic to my own lyrics and it’s very difficult for me to write words I’m going to perform myself. It’s self-awareness gone completely astray. I didn’t write any songs for myself from 2001 until 2005. On the EP Introducing Roseland I managed to write four lyrics, so when the material for Facsimile suddenly came together very naturally so, I was very relieved.
– So to me, a lyric is good if I don’t get nausea by it. It’s come to that, really. I know it might sound terribly plain and vulgar, but this is the way it works for me now: If I can perform it without getting any allergic reactions, I’m pleased. Then it’s a 1:1 statement of how I feel, which is all I ask for. Too much invention is a terrible thing. Keeping things to the minimal has become a new way of working. That is why I probably end up only making instrumental music.
– On the other hand I can write a book of 700 pages. But it’s all got to do with the purity of the contents, I think – once you need to sing it, it becomes very difficult. Writing a book is like writing from another person’s view. I managed to write all the lyrics on Facsimile in the slipstream of The Last Romantic – the book cleared the way so to speak. I emptied myself into writing this epic novel and the few words left were the ones closest to the heart … the ones most fitting for a song.
Watching the videos to each single track I wonder what was the intention to use videos like these, always showing some kind of aesthetics, be it fashion and the walk over the catwalk, the cars or even the Japanese suspension bondage also being regarded as beautiful by some people?
– I think all objects become aesthetic when put into a frame. Like I began this interview with trying to explain how all art to me, in one form or another, is a reproduction, the notion of visualizing the songs with pure “surfaces”, the “skin” of our culture i.e. fashion, city lights and glimpses of bondage, seemed very appealing to me. I don’t think you need illustrations to the music anyway, but on the other hand, I personally like the images of the videos as surroundings … as a corridor to move through while listening to the music. Listening to the record at a Danish art gallery at the time of the release, having the videos projected on an enormous wall, really gave the music a nice frame. The more personal the lyrics, the more impersonal the imagery needs to be. At least to me.
Normally beauty is often related to people and human beings which is something that I’m missing in all of the videos. Was that a conscious decision to avoid humans being displayed?
– Humans appear as part of the sceneries displayed. We (MH and the photographer hansen-hansen.com) were only interested in showing surroundings, circumstances, the interactions between things, not the subject itself. As I said, the more personal a statement becomes, the more it needs to appear in an aesthetically purified environment.
All the videos were shot from an observer’s, almost a voyeur’s perspective? Someone being quiet and just watching what’s happening around him? Was that intended to be or is it some kind of coincidence? What was the idea of using that particular perspective throughout all the videos?
– To me, the songs needed no emotional persuasion. The images had to reflect that. Like people listening to the album on their iPod while moving from point A to B, the Facsimile DVD sets the visuals for a similar journey, an almost random walk through life. I very much like Pan•American’s records, since Mark Nelson seems to revolve around has the same sense of slowed down life-experience we wanted to portray. The alienation you might experience via the images cause you to move towards a centre of gravity in yourself – that, or be completely lost in the passing visuals. To me, both effects are equally fine.
You’re not just releasing albums like ‘Facsimile’, but you’re also doing more experimental works with ‘Racing Cars’ and used to work with on old opera singer which is really interesting as, if I remember correctly, your musical background originally lies in the (post)punk scene. How did this musical development happen and how did you end up with creating such intimate and intense music?
– I started playing classical guitar at the age of ten, but when punk broke through in 1976-1977 I quit that and started a band of my own. However, influences obviously remain, so I grew up listening to identical amounts of Stravinsky and Sex Pistols. A nice mix actually.
– As I’ve already touched upon, music, for me, has always been about conveying reality – a matter of passing on feelings and thoughts, of providing a room of reflection for whom it might concern … as other artists have provided for me. Music, art and literature is a passage, a channel of energy, a way to communicate and sublimate matters, but music without reason is pointless. I’ve always wanted to find new and other ways of working, so once a dynamic seemed used up, I’ve had to move on. Art is like this breath of life – you don’t just do a thing once, it’s a continual process. Life without development is a sad affair, and so is artists stuck in their past. Saluting a tradition can be a great thing, you’ve just got to relocate yourself every time you do so, approach the matter anew. Habits can be a foundation, but also blindness. As an artist you’ve got to embrace challenge. There isn’t any given formula.
You made a long break without performing live. What were the reasons for this long break and what did you do all the time in between? The info to ‘Facsimile’ also speaks of “avoiding the role as singer and autobiographical songwriter for years” and therefore it seems as if this has been a conscious decision. What were the motives for this decision, and what did you bring you back on track and releasing ‘Facsimile’ in the end? Maybe the fact that, in relation to the definition of a “facsimile” such as mentioned before, you had to find back to yourself again, to the core of what Martin Hall stands for as a muscian and human being and not just the image that people may had of you?
– I’ve never liked performing live very much. For many reasons. Mostly because I feel quite exposed. I get very nervous, particularly if it’s the first concert for years. I don’t enjoy the sense of people watching my every move. Obviously, once you’re into the music, you’re relieved of this pressure, but the time before the concerts can be very difficult. I hate touring. I’ve only ever done one tour and that was not a very pleasant experience.
– Ever since the early days with Ballet Mécanique, my first group, I viewed concerts as something similar to record releases – that it was a “work” in their own right. Even then, we played very seldom, and often the concerts consisted of entirely new material only played at that one gig. So concerts have always been more like happenings to me, musical exhibitions so to speak, not something you went on tour with or repeated endlessly. In the mid-eighties where my records were released in countries such as Germany, it was quite a problem with my attitude towards touring, and this aspect of my career is definitely one of the prime reasons for why I’m still such a cult act – why I’ve never gathered a bigger audience or had some kind of commercial breakthrough … apart from the fact that most of my records aren’t very well suited for a commercial break.
– Anyway, I also get quite depressed after shows. You invest a lot of yourself and then you’re left with this empty feeling, even though the concerts went very well. I can’t explain it – it’s just how I react. Another thing is that the venue for the show has to be special. I need the occasion to be special, the sight to be spectacular. So my latest concerts have been performed on a castle (Hindsgavl Slot), at an old Danish theatre (Aarhus Teater) and most recently at The Glyptotek, an exhibition hall in Copenhagen with marble pillars and sculptures everywhere. All of these concerts went incredibly well, the last one receiving 6 out of 6 stars reviews, but that was it for now. I’d like to gather myself again, to reconsider everything. I need some time on my own, time to write and re-locate.
Besides that you now begin working as an actor and somehow I guess you’re also painting and doing other kind of arts. Does that mean that you’re dedicating your life to arts in general?
– As you know, I’ve released a line of books, and I feel a great urge to continue writing. I’m looking very much forward to get on with my next book. At the moment I’m writing essays and chronicles in various newspapers.
– Then, on the other hand, as you mention, I was recently invited to play a minor role in a new Danish movie – actually the most expensive Danish movie ever made – an offer I just couldn’t resist. I had to play the part of a completely obscure character getting shot into pieces by the Danish resistance during WW2 … it was just too bizarre a role to turn down. I’ve just come back from shooting my scenes in Prague, and it was very a positive experience – very refreshing. So if someone asks me to play the part of a deranged English poet in the 19th century or something like that, I’ll probably say yes. But then again, I’m not going to start an acting career based on mediocre roles. If the part suits me, I’ll consider it.
Besides the movie you’re shooting in Prague what are your next plans? Do you think I can ever hope for a concert in Germany? Any plans for upcoming shows in Denmark so that I might come to see you perform there?
– In many ways, I would like to play a concert in Germany. Germany has always been one of the countries where there’s been a genuine interest for what I’m doing, so obviously it would be nice to play a concert here at some point. The only problem is that my live set-up is so difficult to travel with … I mean, the latest concert involving a chamber ensemble and 19 musicians, which does require a reasonable budget etc. Let’s see what happens. But as I’ve already stated, I’m probably not going to play in Denmark for a while.
– However, I’m preparing a re-release of some of the old recordings combined with new and previously unreleased material. It’s quite a compilation project, a box consisting of several discs combining club-tracks with soundtracks and remixes. A DVD with visuals and videos will be included as well. We’re in the selecting process at the moment, so nothing is definite yet, but as I said, it will be quite an extensive release summarizing my career so far. I think it’s a very good point in time to release this kind of work now. There have been requests concerning getting the old 12” singles on cd’s and downloads for a long time, and combined with the new stuff, it will be a fitting frame to view my musical activities through. The box will mark the end of one period and thereby the beginning of another.
BUNBURY
BUNBURY
PROGRAM
JANUARY 2007
THE ROYAL DANISH THEATRE
In relation to The Royal Danish Theatre’s stage performance of Oscar Wilde’s legendary play The Importance of Being Earnest – entitled Bunbury in its current version – Martin Hall was chosen to write the programs introductory essay about dandyism.
Bunbury premiered at Stærekassen on the 19th of January 2007 and ran until the 24th of April. The play was staged by Danish director Lars Kaalund and the cast featured prominent names such as Beate Bille, Claus Bue, Helle Hertz, Ole Lemmeke, Birthe Neumann as well as Søren Sætter-Lassen.
The set design was made by the young, award-winning architect Bjarke Ingels, the costumes designed by Anja Vang Kragh and the play translated by Holger Bech. The photograph on the cover of the program is taken by Per Morten Abrahamsen.
ONE-SIDED LP
ONE-SIDED LP
EFTERKLANG FEAT. MARTIN HALL
LP
DECEMBER 2006
BURNT TOAST VINYL (BTV074)
Internationally renowned Danish group Efterklang’s vinyl release One-Sided LP features the band’s collaboration with Martin Hall on the track “Tu Es Mon Image”. The song is taken from the latter’s Facsimile album released in March 2006.
According to rumour the version included on this vinyl edition is a slightly adjusted remix with microscopically louder backing vocals of Amber vocalist Biljana Stojkoska.
1. Falling Post (4:48)
2. God Vind, Kaptajn! (2:20)
3. Tu Es Mon Image (7:01)
TU ES MON IMAGE
Les rails de la nuit noire
Ils brillent comme lumière
Le monde ne dort jamais
Nourrit nos rêves
Mon image de toi
Est tombée du ciel
Les rêves paraissent continuer
Les chants intérieurs
Murmure des mots inouïs
Tu es mon image
Enfourche la lumière comme une vague
Les yeux d’océan, d’amant ne mentent jamais
Détournons nous comme des étrangers
Tout ce que je veux, c’est tout
Tout ce que je veux, c’est toi
Tu es mon image, c’est toi
Les rails de la nuit noire
Ils brillent comme lumière
Le monde ne dort jamais
Nourrit nos rêves
Mon image de toi
Est tombée du ciel
Tombée du ciel
Tu es mon image
Plus bleus que toute raison
Timides comme tout mensonge
Des yeux d’amants jamais secs
Tu es mon image
Biljana Stojkoska: Vocals
Casper Clausen: Vocals, keyboards
Edda Rún Ólafsdóttir: Violin
Hélianne Blais: Violin
Hildur Àrsælsdóttir: Violin
Mads Brauer: Keyboards
Martin Hall: Vocals
Niklas Antonson: Trombone
Rasmus Stolberg: Guitar
Rune Mølgaard: Piano
Thomas Husmer: Drums
Design: Nan Na Hvass
The LP is released by the American label Burnt Toast Vinyl LP. Edda Rún Ólafsdóttir and Hildur Àrsælsdóttir from Amiina appear as guest musicians on the two other songs, “Falling Post” and “God Vind, Kaptajn!” These tracks are only available on the vinyl release.
As the title of the LP reveals, side 2 of the One-Sided LP release doesn’t contain any music – it is an etching, carved into the vinyl, made by visual artist Nan Na Hvass.
RACING CARS – THE ART DIMENSION
RACING CARS
MARTIN HALL
CD
OCTOBER 2006
PANOPTIKON (OPTIK 08)
From the 13th of October until the 30th of December 2006 the Danish art museum Aros became the home for the high-profile exhibition Racing Cars – The Art Dimension by internationally renowned artist Ingvar Cronhammar.
With this world premiere of the unique meeting between art and racing cars Aros wanted to focus on the sculptural and aesthetic dimensions of the cars, dimensions which were emphasized in the artistic presentation: an enormous installation of Formula 1 and Le Mans racing cars.
1. Racing Cars – The Art Dimension (77:18)
Katja Andersson: Vocals
Konsort: Choir
Martin Hall: Vocals, keyboards, piano, tapes, balalaika, electronics
Michael Morelli: Countertenor
The Vista Dome Ensemble: Orchestra
Design: Helle Marietta Pedersen
Housing the installation of Formula 1 and Le Mans racing cars meant that the museum’s guests became subject to a remarkable experience at the exhibition, an installation that covered all of the 1.400 square metres of the museum’s special exhibition space and foyer.
By regarding racing cars not just as functional items, but also as pure form – as sculpture on wheels – the exhibition created a symbiosis between two widely differing worlds: between the ultimate motor sport and art. The exhibited racing cars were not only unique in their design forms, they had also seen active service on racetracks the world over with such legendary drivers as Stirling Moss, Ronni Petersson and Jackie Stewart behind the wheel. In a ground-breaking presentation guests were introduced to a unique universe where the walls had been painted black, the floor had been covered by reflecting steel plates, the gallery columns had become red, metallic pistons, and the lights had been turned into giant piston rings. The racing cars were presented on steel podiums in an installation of light, sound and moving images.
As the finishing touch a unique soundscape was composed for the event by Martin Hall. Presenting an entirely new, 77-minute long composition concurrently released on cd Hall once again worked with The Vista Dome Ensemble as well as the choir Konsort and singer Katja Andersson. Hall also added countertenor Michael Morelli who performs on four sequences of the work’s 45 musical chapters. On the cd, however, the work remains one coherent piece of work due to the overall impression of the exhibition itself.
Racing Cars – The Art Dimension still represents ARoS’ most visited exhibition so far. More than 10.000 people made it to the museum in the opening days alone. Altogether the exhibition was seen by 137.000.
“We know that cars of this type are driven with the body and that you feel and steer the car with your entire body. Against the background of the organic unity of driver and car that we experience in Formula 1 in action, the absence of the driver in the exhibition becomes yet more striking. In ordinary cars you sit behind the steering wheel, but in present-day Formula 1 cars the driver is fitted into the speed machine like a larva in its cocoon. When, on stopping, the driver pulls himself out of the car or is pulled out by a team hurrying to help, the effect is one of an amputation or a culinary act that could be carried out with a lobster fork.
The car is left like an empty shell. This has an effect all the more powerful as a result of the erotic connotations that have always been associated with the most powerful racing cars. Suspended during the race, the drivers fling their cars from side to side in staccato, writhing, zigzag movements. The purpose is to keep the tires warm. But sitting in the tightly enclosing car, with only his head sticking up, it appears as if the driver turns himself and the car into a dildo. The driver’s motor function and the car’s reactions are coordinated; the organ extension lives and obeys. In contrast to the raised driving position formerly occupied by drivers, a position in which they seemed both heroic and individually recognisable, drivers today are not only anonymous, but packed inside the entire organism of the car.
The most powerful expression of triumph in the winning driver, which is only caught by the close-up camera in the car, consists of a thumbs up sign or a clenched fist. The absence of the driver in the exhibition imposes a limit to the public, but is also acts as a spooky deficiency, an anatomical void.”
Excerpt from the catalogue written by professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art (Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation) Carsten Thau, autumn 2006.
INTELLECTUAL SELF-MUTILATION
INTELLECTUAL SELF-MUTILATION
BALLET MÉCANIQUE
7″
OCTOBER 2006
NAT INC. PRODUCTIONS (002LP)
Intellectual Self-Mutilation is a limited edition gatefold 7” single made in 500 numbered copies. It is the last track recorded by Ballet Mécanique before the band split up in 1982, originally intended to be released as a single at the time. Due to financial hardship it wasn’t, but 24 years later Nat Inc. Productions released it concurrently with Sony-BMG’s 25th anniversary edition of the band’s legendary album The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation.
1. Intellectual Self-Mutilation (3:13)
2. Leathern (Live) (4:52)
INTELLECTUAL SELF-MUTILATION
All their care in me mentioned briefly in a move
Selfish bourgeois as intellectual self-mutilation
Generosity of shared evil
Some denied the possibilities
And the icecold waters spread without intention then
Fattish colourless seemed eternal
Gloriless emotions strangled me
Pulse with mercy gave me light to see
Individual only as a consequence
From bleeding of brotherhood
I seek never seen
I seek never been
Pretentious as soul
Pretentious as honesty
From the journey that killed useless hate
I was born again to share the strength
And for those who try to wash their hands in suffering
I will be there soon but not already
I do not regret what I fought for
Only all the weapons I fought with
I refuse to feel the pain from all my former friends
Those who lived by form and then denied it
Nature
Something has begun to open
Beauty cuts thought
LEATHERN
Edges of speaking, outlived of hatred
Could I forgive at all?
Or could sigh be further than I reached always?
Light died, -ly pregnant
Up, killed in your words
Sheet-minded loving was respect as given thought
Of hairy swine-like
Hours of nameless
Of this penetration
Could I still cry for sad?
Tell friend and leech apart?
The fall of the fallen
Unnamed or misused
Lethal hate given
Word castles built in vain
Salute nugacity
Could I feel guilty?
The leathern tenderness
Did you cry lustful?
I can now nevermore give what I wanted to
To feel so leathern
Cry of the stone tears
Kiss of the unsaid
Without these arms to stretch (died in this early grave)
Like passion for unseen (buried before dying)
I seek the guiltful
To feel so leathern
Emotional
Leprous
Martin Hall: Vocals, piano, bass, cello, guitar, tapes, percussion, balalaika, glockenspiel
Michael Karshøj: Drums, bass
Morten Versner: Bass, violin
Artwork: Martin Hall
Ballet Mécanique’s debut album The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation was originally released in September 1981. The band synthesized rock, avant-garde and poetry in an at the time unheard way, using dancers, slides and films at their concerts to create their own surrealistic ecology on stage. Ballet Mécanique released their second and final album For in 1982 after which singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Martin Hall reconstituted the group as Under For.
When The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation was re-released as a special edition double-cd in relation to its 25th anniversary in September 2006, a bonus disc featured an abundance of previously unreleased material from the period, the biggest scoop being the track ”Intellectual Self-Mutilation”, Ballet Mécanique’s last studio recording ever (the song is recorded at Werner Studio, summer 1982).
Originally the song was planned to be released as a self-financed 7”-single in relation to the split of the group in the autumn of 1982, but the intention was never realized due to the lack of financial means at the time. Up until 2006 the song had never featured anywhere.
Concurrently with Sony-BMG’s re-release of The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation the independent label Nat Inc. Productions issued “Intellectual Self-Mutilation” as a limited edition gatefold 7”-single in 500 numbered copies in collaboration with the goth and industrial club The Black Cat. By this token the original intention with the recording was fulfilled – 24 years after the band split up.
Very surprisingly “Intellectual Self-Mutilation” went straight in as #26 on the official Danish single chart in week 41 (2006) after only one day of sales in the shops. Apart from the title track the B-side features a rare live recording of the track ”Leathern” recorded in Saltlageret during the spring of 1982.
THE ICECOLD WATERS OF THE EGOCENTRIC CALCULATION (SPECIAL EDITION)
THE ICECOLD WATERS OF THE EGOCENTRIC CALCULATION (SPECIAL EDITION)
BALLET MÉCANIQUE
DB-CD
SEPTEMBER 2006
SONY-BMG (82876855932)
Ballet Mécanique’s debut album The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation was originally released in September 1981. The 2006 special edition includes a disc of bonus material. The album is regarded as a milestone in Danish rock.
Among the extra material you’ll find the previously unreleased single “Intellectual Self-Mutilation”.
1. An Attempt of Interruption (3:03)
2. Poem (5:33)
3. Sweetened (6:13)
4. Lied (5:06)
5. Theory (1:48)
6. Ism (6:03)
7. Leathern (5:23)
8. Threads (2:44)
9. Veins (7:02)
10. An Attempt of Interruption (Live) (2:55)
11. Idolized Values (Live) (3:29)
12. Somatic Verb (Live) (4:12)
13. Ism (Live) (6:53)
14. Theory (Live) (2:11)
15. Terminal Memory (Live) (5:37)
16. Veins (Live) (5:50)
17. Audience (Live) (1:30)
18. De Vere Gardens (Live) (3:51)
19. Radio feature about Ballet Mécanique at the Roskilde Festival 1981 (3:59)
20. Intellectual Self-Mutilation (3:13)
21. Split Declaration (Saltlageret, October 1982) (2:24)
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
POEM
The homeless anger has cried so sweet
Does it rise from the blood-stained sheets?
Will
Dearly bought with the blood
Will torn emotions be the sky of above?
The genesis of illness lies in your blood
Hate is to be purity
Hate is of truth
I will not tolerate the inbred indulgence
Die in your blood beds
This could be love
Of such a desire
SWEETENED
This harsh taste on my tongue
How could I in any way conceal my despair?
To drain the purity
To put guilt to death
This haughty bitterness
Perhaps a resort
To see these bittersweet sweat drops fall
Fall in my own eyes
Their complete carelessness concerning relations
I can still hear their swelling words
To suffer is no longer to question
To swill the common platitude
Their perspiring excuses
This will be the plague spot of dead emotions
Tired in vain
Fought in sleep
Responsible in cry of blood
As the pregnant wound in my blood
What they seek are the souls
Land and torch of pure
Kneel to true
Kneel to sincere
To feel your heart warmth I will need
This will be the seed of pure
LIED
Sad whisper
Told unforgiven
Lied towards
I reflected yours
At all to feel
This too has caused
Curse of need
Sand of bleeding
Painful doubt
Lies of love
They have killed me beneath me
Nor likely
Reach for fall
I will not fall
High will save
Gutter’ish feel
You have to kneel
Before and for
Nothingness doomed
Sweet-lain or dried
Conquership or
Conquered emotions
Would you lie to me?
THEORY
By the heat of cancer
They sat out cry or deed
Wished perhaps through fight of grief
Kiss my lips to sweet sleep
And sit back in hateful doubt
To rip up a healed blot
Insult me with “ago”
And I watch my veins
These veins are threads in my flesh
Needlework of mothers
Wait for time or birth
What I was frightened of for far too long
I can now nevermore find way to you
Petting with wounds
Move mark versus ground
Or Christ forgive
ISM
Porridge kisses telling only of endless beds
Saw the throat of forgetting, while ache became ache
There is no obsession in thoughts of skilful concrete
You could easily connect ‘dear’ with envying
Share icecold kisses beneath lips
Eternal twice with axe-murdered hearts
Try to shed the tortured increase
Try to fight the eloquent betrayal
To desire adopted, truncated emotions
Like the seabirds above the red trains
These expanding smells of floating flesh
You condemn this evocative lust
But your pornographic emotions are way out of hand
Barefooted evil in usual kisses
This ache of unseen
These failures, friends
These senses of heartbeat
These brotherless conspiracies crucify our emotions
LEATHERN
Edges of speaking, outlived of hatred
Could I forgive at all?
Or could sigh be further than I reached always?
Light died, -ly pregnant
Up, killed in your words
Sheet-minded loving was respect as given thought
Of hairy swine-like
Hours of nameless
Of this penetration
Could I still cry for sad?
Tell friend and leech apart?
The fall of the fallen
Unnamed or misused
Lethal hate given
Word castles built in vain
Salute nugacity
Could I feel guilty?
The leathern tenderness
Did you cry lustful?
I can now nevermore give what I wanted to
To feel so leathern
Cry of the stone tears
Kiss of the unsaid
Without these arms to stretch (died in this early grave)
Like passion for unseen (buried before dying)
I seek the guiltful
To feel so leathern
Emotional
Leprous
THREADS
Beloved motherless
A tear of heart
Easy-drawn waiting
Hand and nail
This could be anywhere between reality and thighs
Slight touch of warmth made only of sweat
And fright became humiliation
And feel became inhonesty
You drained my soul of emotion
You killed my heart with devotion
VEINS
This pale pulse has told of old
Versus your SS-nakedness
Bodiless is carried on legs
On front to fight both
Every step is a step against
Bent to promised “be forgotten”
Could I cry now for faith?
You rejected my love
You rejected my need
Stud-like tenderness was all they could afford
I once dreamt of a swan-like soul to follow me velvet-likely
But I feel betrayed by the lecherous falseness given by former friends
I once called them friends
Ghostly born of graceless revenge
Their tongue love
Light the light of sadness
A lawn of dawn is what I seek
Ethical portcullis above my breathing
The length of an era of heart lust
The length of heaven
You fought your endless wars with pleasure
Pleasure-like of the second tear
A fluxion of floweriness
Or spiritual fratricide
This is the age of the dust
Count out mercy of degree
Heated rape from birth floods of erosion
Like velvet leaves on ice-born mountains
Am I still able to sink into the deepest waters of the air?
Lonely above
Like candilized veins
Misused to be torn
They can drain me for strength
Like impressions of wrong
Although tied together
I will fall for knives
They can drain me for strength
Like impressions of wrong
From where their ground was
From where their rights were
I thought I knew
Like the strained derm
Unforgotten or gifted
I realized these shaved angles
I oversized behaved angles
Truly heartful
And tears were told be cried
Can mountains fall by sound of horns?
Was openness like pulse stillborn?
I have inherited soul ache from the sadness that conquers hearts
Tear flesh bursts
Softened, pale
Blindly you watch ideological xenophobia
Demand a religion of love
Demand openness
Pains of truthful are the pains of grandeur
Breathless, choir’ish
What shall I call you?
Night dark sea
Heart shape of you
Demand a religion of love
Demand openness
There is only one truth
There is only one will
Will to feel
Seek for truth
Demand a religion of love
Demand openness
Your will to feel
The seed of will
The seed of openness
Where has it gone?
You’ve drained it for strength
INTELLECTUAL SELF-MUTILATION
All their care in me mentioned briefly in a move
Selfish bourgeois as intellectual self-mutilation
Generosity of shared evil
Some denied the possibilities
And the icecold waters spread without intention then
Fattish colourless seemed eternal
Gloriless emotions strangled me
Pulse with mercy gave me light to see
Individual only as a consequence
From bleeding of brotherhood
I seek never seen
I seek never been
Pretentious as soul
Pretentious as honesty
From the journey that killed useless hate
I was born again to share the strength
And for those who try to wash their hands in suffering
I will be there soon but not already
I do not regret what I fought for
Only all the weapons I fought with
I refuse to feel the pain from all my former friends
Those who lived by form and then denied it
Nature
Something has begun to open
Beauty cuts thought
WRITTEN ABOUT THE RECORD IN 1981:
“This is incredible! This is unheard! Today we are writing Danish rock history!”
( * * * * * )
Poul Borum (legendary Danish literary critic in Ekstra Bladet, the Danish equivalent to The Sun)
“This music will live a hundred years from now.”
Michael Strunge (legendary Danish poet in Sidegaden, a Danish music and literature magazine)
“Up until today Ballet Mécanique is the most revolutionary, innovative and deeply committed that has happened to Danish rock’n’roll.”
Aktuelt (a major Danish newspaper at the time)
“Martin Hall appears as the very symbol of youth seeking landfall and manifestation whether the decade was the fifties, the sixties, the seventies or, as now, the eighties.”
Politiken (the Danish equivalent to The Guardian)
WRITTEN ABOUT THE RECORD IN 2006:
“Ballet Mécanique’s debut album The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation from 1981 still stands as one of the most chilling and uncompromising works of its era.”
( * * * * * )
Ekstra Bladet (the Danish equivalent to The Sun)
“Ballet Mécanique’s debut album is a true classic in Danish rock, a strong and moving album that hasn’t lost any intensity during the years.”
( * * * * * )
Gaffa (Denmark’s biggest music magazine)
“A rock historical work of mighty proportions.”
( * * * * * )
Soundvenue (the Danish equivalent to Q Magazine)
“So intense, uncompromising and unique that the record simply remains inescapable even today.”
Geiger (the Danish equivalent to Wire Magazine)
”A still impressive and overwhelming work.”
Information (the Danish equivalent to The Independent)
”An astounding record that deserves its status as a true classic in Danish rock history.”
Undertoner (Danish site for independent music)
Martin Hall: Vocals, piano, bass, cello, guitar, tapes, percussion, balalaika, glockenspiel
Michael Karshøj: Drums, bass
Morten Versner: Bass, violin
Artwork and design: Martin Hall
Ballet Mécanique’s debut album The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation was originally released in September 1981. The record was instantly proclaimed to be a work of historical proportions and the title figures on lists such as the illustrious Danish rock encyclopedia Politikens Rockleksikon’s chart over the 50 most important releases in Danish rock.
Ballet Mécanique synthesized rock, avant-garde and poetry in an at the time unheard way, using dancers, slides and films at their concerts to create their own surrealistic ecology on stage. The group played (in)famous concerts such as at Copenhagen Reggae Festival in Enghaveparken in 1980 and at Roskilde Festival in 1981. Ballet Mécanique released their second and final album For in 1982 after which singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Martin Hall reconstituted the group as Under For.
The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation was recorded in a time span of three nights. Hall was 17 years old during the recordings. When the album was re-released as a special edition double-cd in relation to its 25th anniversary in September 2006, the bonus disc featured an abundance of previously unreleased material from the period – among other findings an entire live performance with the group recorded at a Danish theatre festival. The second disc also contains a radio feature from The Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s coverage of Ballet Mécanique’s appearance at the Roskilde Festival 1981. Furthermore the bonus disc includes a live recording of the unexpected announcement of the group’s split in 1982 made live on stage on October 15, 1982.
However, the biggest scoop on the bonus disc remains the track ”Intellectual Self-Mutilation”, Ballet Mécanique’s last studio recording ever (recorded at Werner Studio, summer 1982). Originally the song was planned to be issued as a self-financed 7”-single in relation to the split of the group in the autumn of 1982, but the intention was never realized due to the lack of financial means at the time. Up until 2006 the song had never featured anywhere.
Concurrently with Sony-BMG’s re-release of The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation the independent label Nat Inc. Productions issued “Intellectual Self-Mutilation” as a limited edition gatefold 7”-single in 500 numbered copies in collaboration with the goth and industrial club The Black Cat. By this token the original intention with the recording was fulfilled – 24 years after the band split up.
Very surprisingly “Intellectual Self-Mutilation” went straight in as #26 on the official Danish single chart in week 41 (2006) after only one day of sales in the shops. Apart from the title track the B-side features a rare live recording of the track ”Leathern” recorded in Saltlageret during the spring of 1982.
Recorded and mixed at Werner Studio, spring 1981. Re-mastered by Morten Bue at Audio Planet, summer 2006.
The material on the bonus disc was recorded on the following locations: Saltlageret 20/3/1981 (10), Festival of Fools 2’s Grand Gala at Folkets Hus 18/7/1981 (11-17), Copenhagen Reggae Festival in Enghave Parken 6/9/1980 (18) (at the end of the track you can hear how the band is being stopped and pulled off stage by the police), Roskilde Festival 27/6/1981 and Rock-Nyt 7/7/1981 (19), Werner Studio in the summer of 1982 (20) and finally Saltlageret 15/10/1982 (21).