UNTITLED
UNTITLED
PETER BONDE
DB-7″ EP
OCTOBER 1989
GALLERI SPECTA (ISBN 87-89138-22-8)
Untitled is a double 7” single released in relation to the painter and musician Peter Bonde’s exhibition Blinde Vinkler (“Blind Spots”) at Galleri Specta, a Danish gallery. The exhibition ran from the 7th until the 28th of October 1989.
For the recording of the single Peter Bonde gathered the musicians Martin Hall, Henrik Möll (SS-Say, Dualistic World Code), Thomas Ortved (Sort Sol) and Per Tuno Jacobsen a.k.a. Per Buhl Acs (No Knox, Cyklon-Anticyklon) to write and record it with.
1. Be Critic (2:38)
2. Blind Spot (3:20)
3. Vacuum (6:37)
4. Mask (0:12)
5. Self-Ignited (0:38)
6. Projection (0:39)
7. Manus (1:00)
8. Copy Everyone (0:45)
9. Corridor (1:48)
10. Protest (2:05)
11. Blind (3:04)
Peter Bonde: Bass, vocal
Martin Hall: Guitar, piano, keyboards, instruments
Henrik Möll: Tape material
Thomas Ortved: Drums
Per Tuno Jacobsen: Bass, instruments
Design: Peter Bonde
Photo: Simon Lautrop/Planet Photo
THE MARTIN HALL DOCUMENT (FRAGMENTS 1981-85)
THE MARTIN HALL DOCUMENT (FRAGMENTS 1981-85)
MARTIN HALL
CD
SEPTEMBER 1989
VIRGIN RECORDS (MHCD1)
The Martin Hall Document (Fragments 1981-85) is a compilation cd released by Virgin Records in the wake of Presence, Hall’s highly successful 1988 album. It is a selection of tracks featuring early Ballet Mécanique tracks as well as the complete single album version of Cutting Through. Furthermore a 12″ ep featuring a new radio edit of the song “Crush” was released as a prelude to the album release.
1. Leathern (5:03)
2. Among (4:41)
3. Imagine Focus (5:12)
4. Free-Force Structure (6:41)
5. Network (3:56)
6. Resonance (5:55)
7. Warfare (4:36)
8. Showdown (7:50)
9. Crush (5:14)
10. Cut Off (6:03)
11. Deep Inside Me (10:42)
12. Synthesis (8:28)
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
AMONG
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
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
Re-set 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
NETWORK
Through the rupture to the surface
With the tissue of days laying soft over skin
As white on white
In this reverberation of love
The warmth comes in waves
Guided by nerve
Just like the air covering me
As the light reflects itself
In this change of scenery
A reunion takes its place
Transforming namelessly
Into crystal and cell
Into heaven and hell
Into all we’ve ever seen
Into all we’ve ever been
From word to matter
Silhouettes ensouled by the loss
In a vortex of skin
To the centre of the bindings
While you simulate love
The transcendence remains your trauma
As you think in 2D
Think in 3D
In this network
Words reinforced in their turn-back from the walls
And absorbing all your nearness
I breathe in every particle of you
And in memory of you
I’ll connect these worlds apart
I will find all that I need
In the mirror of your eyes
And be breathless by love
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
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
And caught in the blue of night
In the meshes of your love
A freedom turned upside down
To this point of no return
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
The “Arbeit Macht Frei” parole
In rock’n’roll terms like these
You know what it’s all about
But that doesn’t change the need
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 you with my love
I’m gonna be crushed up in love
CUT OFF
Living the change as night closes in
Freezing my moves in each flicker of light
We’re lying so close
Your breath burns my skin
Still feeling alone though you’re right by my side
Nothing lost
Nothing gained
So it seems
Still we’re much closer than ever
Like a child in the night
In its dreams
In its return to forever
A dream came true
A nightmare too
And we’re just two out of millions
I hold you tight
As if the night was an angel of death come to take you away
And it feels so unreal
Like there’s magic in the air
And your face in the haze
It’s reflected everywhere
And it burns as it turns
Like a sun that blinds my eyes
Sharpening everything
Through your whispers
Through your cries
We’ve seen it all
The heavens and hells
Questioned each move in the name of the game
Played every role escaping ourselves
Ending concluding we all feel the same
As we were
As we are
We will be
Emotional “Führer der Menschheit”
Time is set
The twentieth century
And everyone knows what it feels like
It seems to be point 93
So feverish a reflection
The children of rejected love
All alone in the night
Fighting shadows of need
In the wind
Dust rising
Forming figures in the air
Night and day blown away
By a memory so bare
Bridges burned
Lives have turned
Slowly growing inside out
Mirrored in origin
In the limits of all doubt
The eyes of a child
A pulse running wild
Releasing this vacuum
A balance so tense
In thought and in sense
Can’t make it alone this time
In this mystery
Of every degree
From here to eternity
So tender and raw
The flame of the core
The hardest surrendering
DEEP INSIDE ME
Like re-running each way
Every aspect of love
Every night and day placed so precisely
Every sacrifice that freed us from our patterns
Guiding us face-to-face to this consequence so essential
And the tender pain that comes with freedom
Connects me to the presence we share
Love’s like a shadowplay
Imagined through survival
We’re here all by ourselves
But nevermore lonely
Nevermore lonely
Watching the lines being carefully drawn now
I couldn’t make it if I were without you
Knowing the ages of every tomorrow
In every turn ever made just a notion
Child on child
Sustain my love
The final triumph
The thirst deep inside and the surface
From crowd to crowd
In these streams of emotions
Watching it all gather to action
And every time we connect with the basis
In the holy name of the transfer
I let you grow deep inside me
With the dignity of my life
I let you grow deep inside me
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
Berit Spælling: Harp
Flemming Nygaard: Cello
Janine Neble: Backing vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, instruments
Michael Karshøj: Drums
Morten Versner: Bass, violin
Nicolay Krogh: Bass
Per Hendrichsen: Treatments, guitar
Stine Hammarlund: Cello
Søren Frank: Saxophone
Søren Jacobsen: Guitar
Thomas Langballe: Drums
Design: Birgitte Wester
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg
The Cutting Through album was also re-released as a single vinyl album entitled Cutting Through (The Re-Release). The new single version of “Crush” was released as a 12″ called Counterpoint featuring additional material in form of a current television soundtrack written by Hall called The Point of No Return.
The Document cd uses the dates of the original recordings as reference points – not the actual release dates of the featured records. This explains the time period given – 1981 to 1985 – although the Cutting Through album was released in February 1986.
1. “Leathern” was recorded with Ballet Mécanique in April 1981
2. “Among” was recorded with Ballet Mécanique in May 1982
3. “Imagine” Focus” was recorded with Under For in January 1984
4. “Free-Force Structure” was recorded with Under For in August 1984
5. “Network” was recorded in January 1985
6. “Resonance” was recorded in January 1985
7. “Warfare” was recorded in June 1985
8. “Showdown” was recorded in August 1985
9. “Crush” was recorded in August 1985
10. “Cut Off” was recorded in August 1985
11. “Deep Inside Me” was recorded in September 1985
12. “Synthesis” was recorded in September 1985
CONTINUUM
CONTINUUM
MARTIN HALL
PROSE POETRY
SEPTEMBER 1989
BORGENS FORLAG (ISBN 87-418-8863-4)
Continuum (“Kontinuum”) is Martin Hall’s third book, a set of writings released five years after its predecessor, The Identity of Alienation.
The book consists of short notes, a line of reflections written in a continuum of a 24 day journey through Europe. The release, however, should not be mistaken for a travelogue. Continuum is a poetic examination of how the journey affects the traveler, not a picturesque description of sights and places.
Although the tone in the writings is considerably more calm than in Hall’s earlier releases, the imagery throughout the book remains shadowy and ambiguous.
Genre: Prose poetry
Pages: 38
Design: Martin Hall
“And the first words fell. A little about a lot, fragments and panoramas. A 24-day continuum in a Europe of these days.”
”Beautiful and frightening poems from Martin Hall … very, very authentic.”
Politiken (the Danish equivalent to The Guardian)
“A nerve-wracking mosaic that gathers in luminous moments reflecting the essential artistic relationship between language, the world and identity.”
Berlingske Tidende (the Danish equivalent to The Times)
COUNTERPOINT (THE POINT OF NO RETURN SOUNDTRACK)
COUNTERPOINT (THE POINT OF NO RETURN SOUNDTRACK)
MARTIN HALL
12″
SEPTEMBER 1989
VIRGIN RECORDS (MHMX1)
Counterpoint (The Point of No Return Soundtrack) release was a 12″-ep featuring a radio edit of “Crush” from Martin Hall’s 1986 album Cutting Through. The 12″ was issued to promote the compilation-cd The Martin Hall Document as well as the re-release of Cutting Through on Virgin Records in September 1989.
1. Crush (1989 Edit) (3:43)
2. Point within Circle (4:00)
3. Counterpoint (1:24)
4. Dome (1:30)
5. 8 (6:26)
6. Erosion (4:33)
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 you with my love
I’m gonna be crushed up in love
Flemming Nygaard: Cello
Martin Hall: Vocals, instruments
Design: Birgitte Wester
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg
The Counterpoint ep also contains the complete soundtrack to a television film called “The Point of No Return”, five pieces of newly recorded instrumental music written by Hall. The videos covering these tracks are included on the VHS-videocassette Audio-Visual released in 1990.
All titles featured on the Counterpoint recordings are available on the Catalogue box release from 2007.
THE HALL OF MIRRORS
THE HALL OF MIRRORS
MARTIN HALL
MC
SEPTEMBER 1989
MIND AND MEDIA (MM888)
The Hall of Mirrors is the only one of Martin Hall’s music cassettes that was released through an actual distribution. Issued in a limited edition of 888 – all individually numbered copies – the tape offered a refreshing new way of working as far as Hall was concerned: Using a line of guest vocalists on the various tracks, the tape had a more sketch-like production to it, something that suited both the project and its main artist.
The Hall of Mirrors also features Hall’s first collaborations with both Irma Victoria and Aud Wilken, two performers that would later be highly featured on his Mind and Media label. The cassette was the label’s first release.
The track “Song for Someone” – one of the recordings on the tape that Martin Hall sings himself – is included on the Catalogue compilation box (2007).
1. Mind (4:13)
2. Fragment (1:17)
3. Brainwash (feat. Aud Wilken) (2:44)
4. Compression (feat. Henrik Möll) (1:44)
5. Box 1 (3:20)
6. Song for Someone (3:10)
7. Intermission 1 (0:21)
8. Heyl (3:45)
9. The World (Chanson D’Amour) (feat. Ken Rivad) (3:10)
10. Memorial (feat. Irma Victoria) (3:52)
11. Box 2 (2:54)
12. Reprise (1:32)
13. Intermission 2 (0:58)
14. Tension (Focus of Unity) (6:18)
15. Box 3 (3:56)
16. Got a Feeling (4:32)
17. Finale (0:51)
MIND
”What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow; our life is the creation of our mind.”
(The Dhammapada)
Never mind = no matter
No mind = never matter
FRAGMENT
”Everything has its tides – the pendulum swing to the right is the measure of that to the left – rhythm compensates.”
(The Kybalion)
BRAINWASH
“The mirror is not to be confused with the reflections which appear in it.”
(The Cycle of Day and Night)
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
COMPRESSION
”If thought precedes action, what precedes thought?”
(The Living Qabalah)
Give me your name
Give me compression
Give me your name
And give me your mind
BOX 1
Fragments of an interview:
It’s very often that people take kindness for weakness, which is a shame, because it puts you in a situation, where you need to be hard before you can be soft – you need to somehow show people the disciplines and tensions, before you can actually deal. And that’s again just a symptom of, well, the whole 20th century basically, but particularly about, well, people’s attitudes and mental arrangements, towards themselves first of all, and secondly to others.
Things are what they are, regardless of how much we disagree about them, and having emotions about something is stupid, unless it’s got a purpose – I mean, unless you can use that emotion as a fuel to change.
I mean, that’s the whole thing, that it takes one to recognize one, and what you see in others is merely a reflection of yourself.
But the question remains: What are you going to do about it – because, well, it might be that you actually are the one martyr of this world, but then if you really are, that just puts a much greater job on your shoulders than sitting at home feeling sorry for yourself. And it comes into a situation, where there’s very little escape from what is real; it comes into the scenery, where you begin to become not just responsible for your own life, but actually becoming the architect of your own, well, actually destiny, if you want to put it like that.
SONG FOR SOMEONE
”Without struggle, no progress and no result.”
(Views from the Real World)
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 analysis 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
INTERMISSION
“Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, gently with much sagacity.”
(The Smaragdine Tablet)
HEYL
“That garment is made up of tales and stories; but we, we are bound to penetrate beyond.”
(The Zohar)
THE WORLD (CHANSON D’AMOUR)
“O then come hither, and lay my book, thy Head and Heart together.”
(The Pilgrim’s Progress)
Got the world in my pocket
Got the world in my hand
Got the world in my singing
But I don’t understand
What came first from the big void?
What came first, hen or egg?
It’s too strange to consider
So I love it instead
Sometimes when I think about the great buildings in this world, I feel proud – I don’t know why, but I feel proud. And when I feel proud, I also feel love. And when I feel love, I want to sing. And when I sing, I sing a “Chanson d’Amour” … And if you want to sing a “Chanson d’Amour” too, then sing along with me now:
La-la-la, la-la-la
God bless you …
MEMORIAL
“It’s a matter of observation, not learning.”
(Assume Power Focus)
Wake up children
The day is near
Wake up children
I feel so weird
I can remember
I can forget
Sometimes it all seems like a dream in my head
Wake up children
I can remember
Hey-hey, hey-hey
I can forget
Tra-la-la-la
BOX 2
Fragments of an interview:
Well, it’s easy to know about something, but to actually understand it, that’s something else. I mean, if you really understand something, it’s going to change your life – because otherwise it’s just an intellectual commodity that you carry around in your head. But, I mean, true understanding, I don’t think that that is a matter of information, or just dumping more information into your brain – I think it’s more a matter of actually getting rid of nonsense in yourself.
I’ve had enough of emotional hysteria. It’s quite stupid to produce this massive emotion about feeling not understood – because after all, when you take into account, that you’re actually dealing with something like six billion emotionally and mentally handicapped people, then the big issue about being personally misunderstood, it’s a bit grotesque.
Well, I think it’s a bit weird, that what’s most easily obtainable in this world, is what people identify themselves most heavily with – a thing like common emotion, getting angry about something, or feeling something, is what people somehow make their ultimate identity, and in the light of the fact, that, as I’ve said, it’s the most easily obtainable, it becomes a bit bizarre, that people turn it into their religion.
REPRISE
“What is now proved, was once only imagined.”
(The Marriage of Heaven and Hell)
INTERMISSION
”You do not question or worry about your wisdom. You just do whatever is required. The situation you are facing is itself profound enough to be regarded as knowledge. You do not need secondary resources of information. You do not need reinforcement or guidelines for action. Reinforcement is provided by the situation automatically. When things must be conducted in a tough manner, you just do it because the situation demands your response. You do not impose toughness; you are instrument of the situation.”
(Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism)
TENSION (FOCUS OF UNITY)
“Opposition is the source of all growth.”
(Tao Teh King)
Tyranny of ignorance
You will know who you are
As the mask of identity falls and breaks on the floor
Tension grows in the focus of unity
Tension grows in the still of the night
See the pain and the pantomime
20th century erosion
In the blood print of stimulus
It takes more than a dream
BOX 3
Fragments of an interview:
Personally, there’s a lot of things that I’d like to rewrite in myself, and there’s a lot of things that I’ve done that, well, I’d do it differently today. It’s very difficult for me to forget things, and, well, that’s been quite a struggle in a way, to overcome this weight of the past. But the strength to actually change comes very much, I think, from a superior viewing – because a thing like all the time bringing your past into your present is wrongful according to, really what a life is. And, well, let’s take an example like bitterness, I mean, it’s a thing that most people would find quite easy, to actually surrender to the feeling of bitterness, because there’s so much evidence in a 20th century life of, well, pain and resistances. So it, unless you actually take a stance against it, it’s a bit like a ghost that tries to take you into the shadowplay of self-solemn martyrdom, and really, the only way to avoid all these aspects that are so dominant features in, I think, every person’s inner life, you really need to add up up what you’re in, what you’re doing – because in the end, you’re stuck with you.
In the end, you’re going to die alone, so what you’re doing is really between you and you, all the time. And in that context, it’s, well, it’s different to live, because what you do is between you and you, and you need no justification or “forgiveness” from any outer world.
GOT A FEELING
“The standard of the physical plane is strength; the standard of the astral plane is beauty; the standard of the mental plane is truth; and the standard of the spiritual plane is that of right and wrong as we understand the terms; therefore there is no ethic except in terms of spiritual value; all else is at best expediency.”
(The Mystical Qabalah)
Got a feeling in my heart
And it makes me wonder why
Wake up in the morning and it’s there
I feel it inside me
Everywhere
FINALE
“The nature of reality is to liberate.”
(The Book of Tokens)
Stronger than thousand suns
Zero equals one
Two reveals unity
As all things to be
Aud Wilken: Vocals
Henrik Möll: Vocals
Irma Victoria: Vocals
Ken Rivad: Vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, instruments
Design: John L. Christensen
Photo: Ken Rivad
REAL THING 1989
REAL THING 1989
MARTIN HALL
7″/12″
JANUARY 1989
VIRGIN RECORDS (111940/611940)
“Real Thing 1989” was the second single to be released from Martin Hall’s hugely succesful album Presence that came out in September 1988. The single was remixed and released in both 7″ and 12″ formats entitled respectively “Discotheque” and “Broadcast” in the two various edits.
The 12″ version also featured a new track, “Theme”, a song for which the video was included on Hall’s 1990 Audio-Visual VHS release.
1. Real Thing 1989 (Discotheque) (5:32)
2. Theme (4:34)
3. Real Thing 1989 (Original Version) (5:35)
1. Real Thing 1989 (Broadcast) (4:41)
2. Real Thing 1989 (Original Version) (5:35)
REAL THING 1989
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
THEME
Regain your human rights
Surviving
The countdown
Face the fact
Born to die
Cut down to black and white
Love under will
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
While all things must pass, a presence remains
A fire will burn, purify – never change
It’s seen in the sky, it’s felt deep inside
As there’s so much more to this than meets the eye
It’s something within, it’s something without
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
In this forum of time and of place
There’s a rainbow arising after the rain
As the sun melts the snow
The ice and the fire
Mountain streams overflow
Run down from the higher
And the water, it glitters like diamond
As pure as the light
Flemming Nygaard: Keyboards, cello
Lotte Grundlev: Backing vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, keyboards, guitar
Tina Schæfer: Backing vocals
Design: Birgitte Wester
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg
Presence received excellent reviews. It was also the first Hall record to ever to enter the official top 20. The album is a crystalline pop production featuring catchy songs with grand-scale arrangements and epic, highly charged lyrics. The record was subsequently released throughout Scandinavia and Northern Europe where it also generated a line of great reviews.
Topping several reader polls and year lists in various Danish music magazines at the end of 1988, Martin Hall began to feel slightly alienated towards his new role as pop star. As a comment to this turn of events he wanted to release the remix of “Real Thing” with a new title, Surreal Thing. This didn’t go down well with Virgin Records at the time though and a compromise was made calling the new version of the song Real Thing 1989. However, when the track was included on his Catalogue box in 2007, it was finally called Surreal Thing.
The video stills are taken from Hall’s live appearance at the national danish television Friday night show Fluen in January 1989.
The recording of Presence were made using a Fairlight CMI music computer. The album is co-produced with Flemming Nygaard, former member of Under For as well as musician on Hall’s previous record, Cutting Through. He is also the pianist on the television stills above.
Nygaard was both a classically trained cellist and a highly gifted technician – all in all an invaluable aid to Hall in the making of Presence. When Nygaard tragically died in the late summer of 1989, Hall dedicated his newly written Requiem‘ to him, an organ concert performed at Taksigelseskirken (a church in Copenhagen) in December.
PRESENCE
PRESENCE
MARTIN HALL
LP/CD/MC
SEPTEMBER 1988
VIRGIN RECORDS (259309)
Presence was Martin Hall’s hugely successful comeback album after a two and a half year long retreat from the music industry. It features a fairlight production, recorded and assisted by co-producer Flemming Nygaard.
The release created a massive media hype and featured the hit single “Beat of the Drum”, a track that would become the most played Danish single on the leading radio station The Voice in 1988 (then and now the biggest commercial radio in Denmark).
1. Real Thing (5:37)
2. Beat of the Drum (4:54)
3. Penetration (4:31)
4. Intermezzo (6:00)
5. Magnum Opus (9:17)
6. Presence (12:20)
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
While all things must pass, a presence remains
A fire will burn, purify – never change
It’s seen in the sky, it’s felt deep inside
As there’s so much more to this than meets the eye
It’s something within, it’s something without
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
In this forum of time and of place
There’s a rainbow arising after the rain
As the sun melts the snow
The ice and the fire
Mountain streams overflow
Run down from the higher
And the water, it glitters like diamond
As pure as the light
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 you 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
PENETRATION
The cooler the game, the more it will run hot
The sharper the knife, the deeper it will cut
The more you hold on to, the more you will lose
The more you let go, the more you constitute
It’s so easy to criticize someone else
But if you’re superior why don’t you help
‘Cause knowing the truth in your head is a lie
If you aren’t in practice of it in your life
Solar plexus charge
Guided by the heart
As the silence rules
Before the storm
You’d better know what you’re into
You’d better know how to get out
What’s easy said’s always harder done
So rather small tries than big shouts
Cut down to black and white
Put all your views aside
And face the main thing
We’re in the same thing
There’s too much luxury
Too much hypocrisy
From penetration to revelation
Surviving the 20th century drain
Requires control of emotions and brain
So don’t have a drama but try to make sense
Of what’s going on in this world consequence
The rules of the game are as solid as rock
There are millions out there living in culture shock
Now one thing’s to see it, another to change
To know where you’re going, not just fight against
INTERMEZZO
Changeless
Beyond the point of return
Nameless
Written to whom it may concern
Fineness
Cast like a shadow of life
Timeless
Moment by moment, always now
The nearer the source, the purer the stream
The stronger the will, the more real is the dream
The truer the flame, the brighter it burns
The harder the fall, the stronger the return
For all as for none, for you as for me
You may feel alone but you never will be
All life is a wave that rises and falls
A part of the great sea in which it dissolves
All things
Rise in the light of the sun
Being
Meanings are many, reasons one
For years
Searching but too close to see
We’re here
And this is where we’re meant to be
The nearer the source, the purer the stream
The stronger the will, the more real is the dream
The truer the flame, the brighter it burns
The harder the fall, the stronger the return
For all as for none, for you as for me
You may feel alone but you never will be
All life is a wave that rises and falls
A part of the great sea in which it dissolves
And born under stars, in eternity
In all that has been, all that is, all to be
A feeling within still to be fulfilled
Of something inside that can never be killed
MAGNUM OPUS
River of life, salt of the Earth
We are the children of unseen worlds
In this arena the strongest survives
But only intact if they stay true to life
And touched by a sparkle, a cool fire burns
The flame is a guest but it has to return
To its kingdom
Its arising
To its source
The mystery lives in crystal and cell
Untouchable real as the heartbeat itself
The immanent life, an eminent line
A journey more directional than defined
A resonance ringing, a midnight sun burns
What’s said by the words is what silence confirms
The media of senses, of heart and of mind
In worlds of the moment, the past left behind
It leaves me all breathless, it feels so complete
The heavens so still and the Earth so concrete
And it calls me
In a whisper
In a scream
Like a shadow that’s cast from above
In this kingdom of flesh and of blood
A superior allowance rules
The Magnum Opus of life
Calling for some, knowing you’re there
Hiding away in own worlds, unaware
Living in darkness, living without
The beauty of life, of demand inside out
Now stop the self-torture of doubt and of fear
The fact that you are says you’re meant to be here
To feel weak costs nothing, to rise above does
A future is calling for each one of us
And if you don’t want it, then die on your own
I’m gonna proceed even if I’m alone
‘Cause I want it
More than ever
For us all
Reasons known, reasons still to be found
Where there’s will, there are ways, none without
A superior allowance rules
The Magnum Opus of life
And it calls me
In a whisper
And it calls me
In a scream
When all is said and when all is done
A moment alone will come to everyone
To make you consider, to make you see clear
What you have caused in the time you’ve been here
It’s beginning
So may each find what each seeks
PRESENCE
A diamond is shining but it’s empty in its inside
A crystallization providing a home for the light
Purified by the flame, only core remains
In the face of mass ignorance you can’t change the world
But you’re responsible at least for your own
The sound of children crying
The words of leaders lying
In this nightmare theatre of shock insensitivity
So everyone loves the talking
But when it comes to the working
I see an empty stage and everyone returned to fantasy
Now I’m not getting heavy, I’m just pointing out some facts
If a gun was put against your head, I think you would react
There’s an instinct to survive, a will to live
And don’t you think there’s a reason for such technology
Or do you take it all for nothing in your self-view luxury
‘Cause if you do, well really
Who do you think you are?
The rising sun drives back the darkness
The morning light exposes Earth
And here I stand within the realms of all to come
A tension inside
A feeling arising
Like a charge in the sky
The pressure before it bursts
The lightness when it has been released
A shadow is cast from clouds slowly passing
While summer rain’s falling
The sky opens up
And as I walk upon the face of Earth
Deep in my heart, a stillness undisturbed
In open fields, the wind carries the words
Within, without – a flame burns on this Earth
I’ve got the spirit, I’ve got the feeling
And I’ll be true to what I believe in
An inner greatness is my conviction
And it’s the sparkle of my resistance
I feel the promise within the longing
I’ve gone from being into becoming
And in this journey of my existence
My only statement is my persistence
From circle to spiral
From charge to release
From feeling to knowing
From the inside into the outside
A life is what it becomes as it goes through this world
Its appearance is its allowance, its kingdom the Earth
It’s a matter of seeing what it’s in the middle of
It’s a question of below before a question of above
A cool flame burning inside, it’s embodied in flesh
A radiation of divinity
I feel a fullness inside, I see the richness of life
I see the wounds slowly heal and it’s amazing to me
I see a newborn child, I see integrity
The small intensity in the enormity
I see a single flame give birth to thousand lights
I see the principle in its simplicity
A tension inside
A feeling arising
Like a charge in the sky
The pressure before it bursts
The lightness when it has been released
A shadow is cast from clouds slowly passing
While summer rain’s falling
The sky opens up
And as I walk upon the face of Earth
Deep in my heart, a stillness undisturbed
In open fields, the wind carries the words
Within, without – a flame burns on this Earth
I’ve got the spirit, I’ve got the feeling
And I’ll be true to what I believe in
An inner greatness is my conviction
And it’s the sparkle of my resistance
I feel the promise within the longing
I’ve gone from being into becoming
And in this journey of my existence
My only statement is my persistence
In the river of life, in the light of each day
Purified by the stream, purified by the flame
Inescapable
And unchangeable
From the fountain of life, from above to below
As the river runs down so the cup overflows
And you are what you are
All that you may become
Flemming Nygaard: Keyboards, cello
Lotte Grundlev: Backing vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, keyboards, guitar
Tina Schæfer: Backing vocals
Design: Birgitte Wester
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg
Presence received excellent reviews. It was also the first Hall record to ever to enter the official top 20. The album is a crystalline pop production featuring catchy songs with grand-scale arrangements and epic, highly charged lyrics. The record was subsequently released throughout Scandinavia and Northern Europe where it also generated a line of great reviews.
As already stated, the album’s first single “Beat of the Drum” became a massive hit in Denmark and the song also attracted international attention. The album’s second single “Real Thing” became a minor radio hit in the first months of 1989.
The recording of Presence were made using a Fairlight CMI music computer. The album is co-produced with Flemming Nygaard, former member of Under For as well as musician on Hall’s previous record, Cutting Through.
Nygaard was both a classically trained cellist and a highly gifted technician – all in all an invaluable aid to Hall in the making of Presence. When Nygaard tragically died in the late summer of 1989, Hall dedicated his newly written Requiem‘ to him, an organ concert performed at Taksigelseskirken (a church in Copenhagen) in December.
BEAT OF THE DRUM
BEAT OF THE DRUM
MARTIN HALL
7″/12″
AUGUST 1988
VIRGIN RECORDS (111675/611675)
“Beat of the Drum” was the first single to be released from Martin Hall’s hugely succesful album Presence released in September 1988. At the end of the year the song would have become the most played Danish single on the leading radio station The Voice in 1988 (then and now the biggest commercial radio in Denmark).
The single was released in both 7″ and 12″ formats as well as in a press kit box edition entitled The Final Comeback.
1. Beat of the Drum (4:54)
2. Repeat of the Drum (4:54)
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 you 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
Flemming Nygaard: Keyboards, cello
Lotte Grundlev: Backing vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, keyboards, guitar
Tina Schæfer: Backing vocals
Design: Birgitte Wester
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg
Presence received excellent reviews. It was also the first Hall record to ever to enter the official top 20. The album is a crystalline pop production featuring catchy songs with grand-scale arrangements and epic, highly charged lyrics. The record was subsequently released throughout Scandinavia and Northern Europe where it also generated a line of great reviews.
The album’s second single “Real Thing” became a minor radio hit in the first months of 1989.
The recording of Presence were made using a Fairlight CMI music computer. The album is co-produced with Flemming Nygaard, former member of Under For as well as musician on Hall’s previous record, Cutting Through.
Nygaard was both a classically trained cellist and a highly gifted technician – all in all an invaluable aid to Hall in the making of Presence. When Nygaard tragically died in the late summer of 1989, Hall dedicated his newly written Requiem‘ to him, an organ concert performed at Taksigelseskirken (a church in Copenhagen) in December.
CUTTING THROUGH (THE FINAL RECORDINGS)
CUTTING THROUGH (THE FINAL RECORDINGS)
MARTIN HALL
DB-LP
FEBRUARY 1986
SAM (SAM25)
The original double album Cutting Through – The Final Recordings released in February 1986 features one record with grandiose, high-tech electropop while the other contains a Tibetan flavoured hybrid of ambient music.
The title was also released in Germany at the time, available as a only one record in this territory.
1. Showdown (7:50)
2. Crush (5:14)
3. Cut Off (6:03)
4. Deep Inside Me (10:42)
5. Synthesis (8:28)
6. Further (20:54)
7. Over (22:01)
SHOWDOWN
As everything changes me
Exploding in start on start
It shines on so hard through you
A crystal of flesh and blood
And caught in the blue of night
In the meshes of your love
A freedom turned upside down
To this point of no return
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
The “Arbeit Macht Frei” parole
In rock’n’roll terms like these
You know what it’s all about
But that doesn’t change the need
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 you with my love
I’m gonna be crushed up in love
CUT OFF
Living the change as night closes in
Freezing my moves in each flicker of light
We’re lying so close
Your breath burns my skin
Still feeling alone though you’re right by my side
Nothing lost
Nothing gained
So it seems
Still we’re much closer than ever
Like a child in the night
In its dreams
In its return to forever
A dream came true
A nightmare too
And we’re just two out of millions
I hold you tight
As if the night was an angel of death come to take you away
And it feels so unreal
Like there’s magic in the air
And your face in the haze
It’s reflected everywhere
And it burns as it turns
Like a sun that blinds my eyes
Sharpening everything
Through your whispers
Through your cries
We’ve seen it all
The heavens and hells
Questioned each move in the name of the game
Played every role escaping ourselves
Ending concluding we all feel the same
As we were
As we are
We will be
Emotional “Führer der Menschheit”
Time is set
The twentieth century
And everyone knows what it feels like
It seems to be point 93
So feverish a reflection
The children of rejected love
All alone in the night
Fighting shadows of need
In the wind
Dust rising
Forming figures in the air
Night and day blown away
By a memory so bare
Bridges burned
Lives have turned
Slowly growing inside out
Mirrored in origin
In the limits of all doubt
The eyes of a child
A pulse running wild
Releasing this vacuum
A balance so tense
In thought and in sense
Can’t make it alone this time
In this mystery
Of every degree
From here to eternity
So tender and raw
The flame of the core
The hardest surrendering
DEEP INSIDE ME
Like re-running each way
Every aspect of love
Every night and day placed so precisely
Every sacrifice that freed us from our patterns
Guiding us face-to-face to this consequence so essential
And the tender pain that comes with freedom
Connects me to the presence we share
Love’s like a shadowplay
Imagined through survival
We’re here all by ourselves
But nevermore lonely
Nevermore lonely
Watching the lines being carefully drawn now
I couldn’t make it if I were without you
Knowing the ages of every tomorrow
In every turn ever made just a notion
Child on child
Sustain my love
The final triumph
The thirst deep inside and the surface
From crowd to crowd
In these streams of emotions
Watching it all gather to action
And every time we connect with the basis
In the holy name of the transfer
I let you grow deep inside me
With the dignity of my life
I let you grow deep inside me
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
Flemming Nygaard: Cello
Janine Neble: Backing vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, drums, keyboards, bass
Søren Frank: Saxophone
Søren Jacobsen: Guitar
Design: Martin Hall
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg
With the release of the original version in 1986 Martin Hall publicly declared his plans to end his musical career. Already appointed “the musical prodigy of the age” by the press, his decision was surrounded with great media coverage – after all, he was only 22 years old at the time. According to several interviews he couldn’t recognize himself in the figure created by press and fans any longer and therefore released the double album under the artist name “The Martin Hall Concept”.
Although Hall in time did return to the music scene, the Cutting Through album and the two following concerts in Stakladen (Aarhus) and Saga (Copenhagen) nevertheless marked a clear dividing line between his early and later career. After the final concert at Saga he withdrew from public life for a couple of years – from 1986 to 1988 – a period he dedicated to a metaphysical quest.
In September 1988 Martin Hall made a massive comeback with the highly successful album Presence. In this respect Cutting Through was re-released as a single cd/lp on Virgin Records in September 1989.
In 2009 the album was a made available in a remastered cd-version (combined with the Relief album from 1985).
TREATMENT
TREATMENT
FRONT AND FANTASY
12″
NOVEMBER 1985
SOUND OF MUSIC (SOUND1201)
Front and Fantasy was a short-term collaboration between Martin Hall and Martin Krogh resulting in the 12″-single “Treatment”. The title was released in the autumn of 1985. The duo only recorded this one song throughout their existence (the B-side is an instrumental remix of the song).
Martin Krogh committed suicide in April 1988. He was a founding member of the Danish glam-punk group Ads and later the industrial outfit Dualistic World Code.
1. Treatment (6:17)
2. Re-Treat (4:39)
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 through
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
Martin Hall: Vocals, guitar, strings
Martin Krogh: Keyboards
Design: Birgitte Wester
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg
“Treatment” is considered a club classic on the European underground scene. In 2009 Danish EBM pioneer Leæther Strip recorded a cover version of the title for his album Ængelmaker. On the 2010 dvd-release Live at St. Paul’s Martin Hall renders a quite heartbreaking acoustic version of the song.
