• killing jar

    Image of a writing journal and a pencil.
    Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash
    shake, twist the flame
    dancing on the edge
    give shout and no one
    seems to hear

    becoming flutter
    all wraith and dream
    with a voice gone mute
    and eyes, no longer see

    a history on display
    inside for the killing jar

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    killing jar

  • Watch your step

    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash

    Investigations of another kind…

    Which is worse?

    • Having dreams that can never come true, or
    • No longer having those dreams that can never come true

    There’s is place in this forest haunted by ghosts and regret. Myrkr and madness linger at the centre. Here be monsters. Some are framed in mirrors.

    This is the way, step inside.


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    Watch your step

  • Bass Instincts

    Bass and electric guitar
    Photo by Juan Montana on Unsplash

    Any of you who read comments (or more than surface level at what I write) will have likely figured out that I went and bought myself a low- to mid-range electric bass last night. It may seem rather sudden, but it has been part of my thinking for quite a while. Years, in truth. And several months in earnest. I don’t just drop money on anything over $25 without some serious thought.

    So it wasn’t on a whim, as much as it might have seemed to have been.

    (more…)

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    Bass Instincts

  • burning books

    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash
    these witching hour dreams
    what are they supposed to
    mean?

    that chapter has long been
    burned at the stake i cannot
    will it into being

    leave now, o ghost
    so perhaps we can dream
    another life

    where our books no long burn

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    burning books

  • Towards the Within — There Must Be So Much More

    When I first saw the the Berlin-based band on the upcoming playlist, “Pink Turns Blue”, I almost outright dismissed them. The name evoked for me a sound other than what I thought I was looking for because it reminded me of the song “Pink Turns to Blue” on Hüsker Dü’s 1984 seminal album, Zen Arcade. I figured that if a band had intentionally named themselves after a hardcore band from my youth, they would probably play hardcore punk as well, which is not the music I was looking to discover at this time. If the name shared an accidental (or esoteric) relationship, it still seemed like an odd name to choose for darkwave. But, following my commitment to discovery via music “radio” I gave them a whirl anyway, figuring that I could skip the song part way through if it turned out not to be the genre I was looking for.

    I’m glad I didn’t instant-skip.

    Pink Turns Blue photo
    Pink Turns Blue; Photo: Daniela Vorndran, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

    How I have never managed to hear of Pink Turns Blue is a bit surprising to me. I’ve found plenty of indie bands over the years that were not easy discoveries to be made back in the 80s and 90s. A German band playing a darkwave, guitar-based sound during my old-school goth days falling off my radar? That seems almost criminal.

    The band was formed in 1985 and, yes folks, they named themselves after that aforementioned song (which I’ve included on my YouTube playlist for this series, if you are curious). The song that I heard first heard was “Your Master is Calling”, but it is one of those songs from the 80s that, while it caught my attention, also followed the habit common to the period of overstaying its welcome at over seven minutes, so I elected to share a different song that still captures the vibes of the band but is of a shorter duration.

    This is not like the synth-oriented sounds of the genre, but has more of a 3-piece sound: guitar, bass and drums. Some people would likely class the band as more gothic or more straight indie rock, but I can heard some of the precursor sounds in the band’s songs that feel very borrowed from earlier acts like Joy Division while avoiding some of the more Velvet Underground sound of Sisters of Mercy.

    If you listen, you’ll have to let me know what you think of this discovery in the comments below.