After enduring the ravages of re-entry, the first astronaut’s pages drift in the chemical wind, pecked at by birds and rust, finally settling on the surface of a beacon-less ocean. A staggering ship rescues the pages.
Far from restoration, the damaged and fragmented text is illuminated by the ship’s crew. They shine strange rails of light through the text’s waterlogged lungs; the rails reach past the atmosphere, into remote loneliness and decay, the origin of the astral, yet ordinary, tragedy.
Wooden punches, through pan delay, become slaps, falling into the origin’s open wound, cultured with soft analog distortion, short circuits, ambient chords, and steel friction. The wound is further cultivated by an edge trimmer. The buzz of its nylon string travels unpredictably.
The wound is left unassisted for a beat or two, right before a “spine-tingling” human groan of anguish. The groan precedes certain death. It is the explicit, condensed version of “Train Dreams (for Denis Johnson)’s” first five minutes. A revisitation to the unrecorded moment of re-entry, where things went wrong.
• Already Dead Tapes: http://alreadydeadtapes.com
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