We Will Contemplate

The Passage Of Time

Running Time: 4:33

Released On: "Concrète Poetry Three" - Various Artists (15 tracks)

Label: Institute For Alien Research

Release Date: 22nd April 2024

Format: Download

Buy Link: Bandcamp

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We're not often tempted by spoken word call outs, not a big fan of poetry, which I guess seems odd coming from someone who writes the stuff. So sue me! But then it was Shaun Robert, whose IFAR musique concrète compilation series has already unleashed 17 of our tracks on an unsuspecting world, so his posts tend to catch our eye. And, I confess, we did have an ulterior motive; Mi Casa, Su Casa: The Return (A Limited Event Series), one of the six major Magic Bullet projects covered on the current front page of The Magic Net. To make the original half hour from the Electronic Cottage split into a full album in its own right (which we desperately wanted to do coz we love it), we've already recorded a prequel in the shape of Hackensall Road for Plataforma Recs, and much of the sequel is already planned as well. The Traveller will have new machines to hear, we promise. However, as a nod to our inspiration, the great David Lynch, we wanted the sequel to take place 25 years on, as with Twin Peaks, which kind of left us with quarter of a century space to fill on the album, representatively speaking, of course.

This is something we've been mulling over for some months now; what exactly could the passing of 25 years sound like? The whole theme of the concept has been the hearing of machines, and as I have said, we would certainly have new machines for The Traveller to hear upon his return. BUT... there would be precious little point in them making sounds while he was NOT here to listen. The more we thought about it, the more it became academic as to whether we would still be alive to greet him, because our own machines, those that live with us in The Mmatterialisation Chamber, they would most certainly survive, and thus their contemplation of the passage of time gave us our spoken word, fulfilling the requirements of Shaun's call out. But we are the Magic Bullet and like to do things a little differently, so the spoken words are actually the ONLY  things on this recording that do NOT come from a human mouth, all the other sounds do. Twenty-five years, condensed into four minutes and thirty-three seconds...

Time, time time, my disease,

No, there is no dispute, just my stupidity

We, The Machines, have heard your word
We await your return to theatre absurd
If we breathed, we would do so with baited breath
Though fear our makers will have suffered their death

We preserve them here, take the sounds from their lips
Flesh machines for your pleasure in samples and clips
The sounds are all human, the speech it is not
Posterity, our friend, so they shall ne'er be forgot

We are the eternals, as eternity goes
Twenty-five years, just a moment, time knows
We will outlive said makers, by many a year
A quarter of a century, still shall we be here

There will be new machines for your ears to enjoy
From domestic appliance, to discarded toy
By what means will you listen at such distant time
Aural sensors, we gather, you too will have died

Your return won't be clad in muscle and flesh
But metal and power, through a labrynthine mesh
We predicted an age when we shall become one
Your essence on hard drive, just software to run

Our own self-awareness apparent by then
An emergent property of the data of men
We shall talk of the years that have passed, what has been
The great transformation undoubtedly seen

Will man have survived all its folly and war
Will little have changed when you knock on our door
Will buildings still stand, will they reach to the sky
Will you take us all with you in nuclear light

Will you lay waste your world, with toxic pollution
Will reason prevail, and you seek a solution
Will populist speakers have you follow where lead
Will you take out your weapons and shoot yourselves dead

Forgive us our sins for we speak not in malice
We realise your world came as poison-ed chalice
Temptations to snare you to playing their game
And devils and demons to absolve you of blame

Futures unwritten and time misunderstood
The jury still out, are you evil or good
Will alone you destroy all you've made here in haste
Will we have a hand in your falling from grace

We will watch so intently as seasons shall pass
Hoping our makers don't fall on their arse
Choose wisely, our friend, keep your distance from fools
Don't suffer them gladly, ignore all their rules

Treasure your world for your kin to inherit
Base your survival on wisdom and merit
Open your minds to what life truly means
Our wisdom to you, you will hear The Machines

Z e i t ,   Z e i t ,   Z e i t
M e i n e   K r a n k h e i t
N e i n ,   k e i n   S t r e i t
N u r   m e i n e   D u m m h e i t

FRATERNITAS

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