disaster 1

a statement from bodies of divine infinite and eternal spirit: here is our largest production to date. our largest group of musicians. our longest song. our biggest disaster yet. recorded sweating in one take with the group on a 40 degree day in Elvis’ studio and then later that month joined by the choir at bell city takeaway and they followed suit, learning the song the day they sang it. the first time they speak it is here, as this disaster specifically. then we sat with the song and mixed it live in one take too. it’s both the purest specimen and metaphor for the whole bodies project. it’s immediate and uncompromised. it’s interested in what music can activate as a social-spiritual engagement more than it is on producing a record that sounds a particular way. new things were tested and now arrive stamped. this approach keeps the body in a state of listening, of caution, of potential disaster. and so the beauty of disaster is that it brings new perspective on beauty altogether. the awkwardness has a chance to become poetic. the fluctuating confidence takes the role of an instrument one wields so that the exhaustion of playing for 46 minutes transforms into the style itself. come shameful as you are says the song. it’s important to note that this isn’t our first time playing this song, in fact we have played this song for three years now and made way for many disasters. the poetry was written quick. then the rhythm and structure worked out improvisationally on a drum machine and a giant metal ring that hung from my studio ceiling at the time. the metal circle was of a sculpture from Joshua and Ichikawa Lee and some years before that Kirby and i had climbed and played music with the sculpture at a gallery in the city. in the studio i was painting with only black and graphite at the time and the rag i used became a kind of symbol for the song, so we carried it with us from this point and that stamps the vinyl now. this is a record that details trials, it’s made from friends and their many fabulous disasters. the record is an artefact, more than anything, of three years of relationships; small communities of people interested in the spiritual potential of music and art. it was first played at Absorb(ed) and hence returned to be archived here like a circle, greeted with warm attention from Kavil and Sasha. each time we have played it since has been different, the group expands and contracts with time and interest. a three piece version one week, a 10 piece the next. the instruments change, the room changes, and like always we change our minds on how to fall in response to the people we share that room with. all live music is church, it’s never not been. we confront, in that socio-sensory moment, opportunities to shift internal perspectives, explore private and shared narratives, analyse shame, discuss aesthetics, contemplate the spirit, reimagine our futures etc. we listen to how the present moment reveals the next shift along the circle. and so we the victim of time choose music. again and again it seems. one moment passes through and this one is an album on a walk towards another and another: that exact moment of the tunnel shines a warning all over us if i have infinite love then it is with this turn out the gate where it reaches its maximum just at the top of the city shot out like a song we sing mid air the name of a day like any other which is where the whole performance gains relevance at this speed too, i couldn’t possibly stop anything i wouldn’t possibly stop anything or rather in paralysing surrender i wouldn’t now know how to find a course other than what the feet allows for the album cover i asked Nathan to write the sentence out ‘37 members of the group known as bodies of divine infinite and eternal spirit preform the 46-minute song disaster 1’, so he etched it out with new equipment and tender, careful confidence and made an image that somehow so purely and literally articulated this one moment. to say this is one disaster, but life will reveal many. but this one is bright, neatly tilted and echoed in the trust of black and white. and when the choir met, i asked Lucy and Nina to photograph us and they captured this movement we had with this similar ease. with the digital, and then only one from the large format was mailed. blurred and beautiful. incomprehensibly and perfectly disastrous it sits now on the cover. here are some people doing some things. saying: music is a way to talk to each other while we work in love. the primary mantra of the song reads: you are holy and unlimited and you will live forever that’s the band name. bodies of = you are divine infinite = holy and unlimited + eternal spirit = you will live forever o this album is a prayer for peace ignition along the loop