Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Albert Ayler, Spiritual Unity (ESP'Disk)


Why? The letter pre-dates human history. As in, if you are going to write history, you need something to write it with. That's logical. As logical as saying, if you want to recover history, you may need to shred books and libraries, stripping them down to the mere letter, since the letter is where history began. Why? As in, when Nirmala moved up to Michigan from New Orleans, she could never get over the fact that there were no ghosts up there. She needed to live with ghosts. I would have to agree. I remember Mexico City, how every time we got there my head would be swimming. My parents said it was the altitude, but looking back I now see something else going on. Centuries of souls buried in the ground percolating back up to the surface through the cobblestones of Coyoacán. You never see them, of course, they don't really exist (letters are symbols, with no material weight of their own), but nonetheless living with them is not always pleasant. As in, someone or something walks up behind you on Miguel Angel de Quevedo to nuzzle the hairs on the back of your neck. Turn around it's not there. Why? As in, the back of this record says it's a trio, but it's realy a quartet or quintet or big band. Ghosts on hand in the studio, covered in mud, dressed like poor sharecroppers and Union soldiers.

Suggested Wine Pairing: Bottles in some sense always hold ghosts of the past. As in the Morgante Nero d'Avola 2002, Sicily (dark like plums grown in volcanic soil, harvested by ancient Sicels).

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