Accumulation
My body, suspended by the pressure of the ocean’s floor.
My toes dangle just above sands that feel like the roughness of the top
sheet on an unfamiliar bed. Just a few grains of this sand possess the
softness of the hair my cat sheds, dusted off the floor after collecting
for some days or months.
The floor possesses the grains of many nights at rest, in that space
between moments where we all wait. A cloud of sand forms and settles
where my foot touched; a blanket of infinite newness. The sand, in its
place, somewhere else. I have tried to grasp at this cycle, but can
never find a hold, though I feel the beat of every grain finding its
place again.
The is and is nots of my body, wave with a current layered above another
current. This perpetual motion places me in a stasis, shifting in
place. This projection of myself into space, beyond my understanding,
shapes every drift of hair on my body; conditions my skin; flushes my
pores. My whole being dissolving into grains, floating softly to the
floor.
Somewhere above, the thinnest most piercing of energies grows louder,
brighter, cacophonous. Photons find their way to my chest. Vibrational
waves slow at increasing rates. They penetrate my
bones, the swaying, nonlinear motion dies and is buried. Motion shoots
me one way and another, so quickly, I can’t feel the direction. Am I
flying straight? Diagonal? Am I flailing? Breath is not something I know
but it calls to me to
take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take
gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp,gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp
So that something can enter me. Propel me into whatever is next.
A new state of being?
What even is that?
All I know is what has occurred, unending, unquestioned, in this place that possesses nothing.
Not even a name.
****************************************************************************************
T4T LUV NRG presents “Call Me G”,
the new album by Brooklyn’s Russell E.L. Butler, their first full length
LP since the release of 2018’s critically acclaimed “The Home I’d Build
For Myself and All My Friends” on Left Hand Path. In the intervening
years, Russell has experienced an accumulation of personal subjective
experiences which are explored through captivating musical modalities
and expressions on this sprawling, gorgeous, and deeply emotional album.
Russell’s work on “Call Me G” can be described as a unique amalgam of
early NY house music, dub techno and poetry. The album’s title track, as
well as its instrumentals, are a kind of storytelling for histories
that continue to exist without observation as well as for secrets and
the power they hold in spite of their truth being obscured and sometimes
lost.
Storytellers like Russell have the ability to collapse the past and
future into discrete experiences of non-linear time through the
emotional landscape of music and voice. Each song contains a palatable
loneliness and hurt to which many in this modern world can relate, but
each track also suggests the possibility of genuine connection and the
formation of the self through communing and reintegrating with the
natural world. These parallel concepts are the subject of
“Accumulation”, a writing by Russell which accompanies the release of
the album. The emotions, conflicts and resolutions that accompany
Russell’s storytelling are felt acutely on tracks such as “I’m Dancing
No One Is Watching” and “Stare Into The Light Beam”, among others.
On the title song, which closes the album, Russell sings “Can you call
me? Will you call me? All that I want is for you to call me by my
name...My name is G.” Context is part of interpretation and thus it is
left to the listener to feel in the music and lyrics the concept that
what may seem erased never truly dies, the traces still exist in the
thing that takes its place. The T4T LUV NRG label is in part a
continuing effort to facilitate the documentation of true stories that
don’t get told—rather than representing a singular vibe or genre.
Russell’s album is a stunning and profound entry in this evolving
catalog of music and art. The beautiful cover of “Call Me G” is based on
a hand drawn portrait of the artist by Diego Guzman.
Tracklist:
1. Secret In A Silent Voice
2. To Be Enough
3. I'm Dancing, No One Is Watching
4. Stare Into The Light Beam
5. A Brief Aside
6. The Place Where I Found You
7. Call Me G
