I am unable to pry Amsterdam open. There is a thick wall, a thick concrete wall that stands between us. I am not good with unmalleable material. I am a soft sponge - penetrable. Sometimes trying is pointless when you are unable to try in a meaningful way. Or do you just keep going? Amsterdam is raw and humid and harsh. I can thrive and relate to raw and sharp, but not when the rawness is dull and cold. Some of the people in my program are in love with Amsterdam and all it has to offer. I am glad. I do not feel this. I want to smell and touch Amsterdam but it’s not letting me. Why won’t it let me? I can get along with every city I go to, why now, why here? There is an energy, a really pushy energy that tourists exude on it, making its residents impatient, making the city impatient but unable to say no.
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MUSIC ::: Did you know Barry Lynn, also known as Boxcutter, also known to me as one of the most phenomenal musical artists of all time has a Soundcloud and he puts new unreleased music on there for us to listen to? When I listen to Boxcutter all of the cells that make up my existence re-articulate their existence and open up to the infinite possibilites. This all sounds cliche because it is how I always describe him, because his musical output’s great vastness permeates me that much.
I was in J’s music room in 216. It was early 2006. It was really bright outside. I was sitting in his lap on his gray oversized office chair that always swung back a bit too much and I was sure we’d both die this way. He played “Mossy” and I fell to the floor on his rug, closing in on my face with both hands the way I do when I hear music that overtakes me. I started crying and demanding the song be put on lifetime repeat. It was one of those moments that everything changed, that I heard something so new and so exciting that it made me want to keep being alive so I wouldn’t miss moments like these. I have those moments. They are rare, but they occur and when they do all of pessimistic insecure me seems implausible.
Mossy is one of the songs on Oneiric, Boxcutter’s first album on Planet Mu. When I hear oneiric in my head, I remember Mary Anne Hobbes talking about it when he did an exclusive session for the Breezeblock, and I managed to get myself in on the shout out as “Miss Riot” because that’s my handle on DOA from many many years ago. It mattered to be part of that moment so much then.
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Now I am here, in the moment. I’ve been spending hours every day in front of Resolume with my Korg midi controller imagining with my own hands how all my favorite music looks like.
I understand. It crawls inside + dwells in the space between the cells. It settles in the void between your thoughts + memories connecting it all together. Making it all one. Making it whole. BOXCUTTER 4 LYFE.
agreed agreed agreed
special moments
can’t say i know much of boxcutter BUT this reminds me of my own moments with THE OCTOPUS PROJECT.. songs like MALARIA CODE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWJBitaozcQ&feature=related
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i would love to know what you think of this track magda
.js
I’ve been in Amsterdam for 5 years now and I still feel like I haven’t pried it open. We have a mutual disrespect for each other now. There are many things to like; the multiculturalism and melting pot feeling, opportunities seem to come after some work in making them happen. There is always a veil though or more a membrane that I look through and feel separated from the life here. It has a strange draw and I know a lot of people who are mildly discontent here but don’t leave. Something about it that’s hypnotising – nothings too difficult despite all the bitching and moaning that we do around the bureaucracy and the impenetrable nature of many Dutch social circles. I get the feeling that the Dutch have learned to cope with living in the most densely populated country in the world by have an ability to withdraw from everything that goes on around them. I never quite sure if this analysis is fair.
Without braveness, all other virtues drop their meaning.