It’s Absurd, Isn't It? [Performance Note: To be performed at a rigid, hypnotic 60 BPM. The atmosphere is thick, damp, and heavy. The vocal delivery should be a low, breathy, half-whispered jazz-singing style—dripping with tension, agonizingly slow, and intensely intimate.] [Intro] [The track opens with a continuous, heavy Uilleann pipe D-drone, vibrating so low it rattles the ribs. A Tuva throat-singing overtone hums beneath it like tectonic plates shifting. Ethereal waterphone scrapes bend in the stereo background, sounding like icy metal weeping. A tenor saxophone improvises a dark, breathy, low-register melody that crawls through the silence like smoke.] [Verse 1] The limestone is sweating tonight. Your skin is cold, but your breath is steam. Down here, beneath the peat… Beneath the ancient Atlantic shelf, The gravity is different. It pulls us toward the floor of the world. Feel the waterphone shiver against your spine. I can taste the salt-marsh on your neck, Slow… So slow. We have all the time the earth has lost. [Chorus - The Pulse] [Deep, hypnotic bass drops in, locking with a rhythmic, sparse Balinese Gamelan metallophone chime. The beat is a heavy, static 60 BPM pulse.] Deep, deep, down where the gamelan strikes. Lie back on the wet moss, love. Let the throat-singing vibrate through your hips. We are melting into the ancient stone. Oh, it’s a tense, slow friction. No light to see what we are. Hold your breath… And let the dark take us under. [Verse 2] [The sax plays a discordant, melancholic blue note that hangs in the air. The sea organ pads swell, vast and oceanic.] You have no eyes in this cavern, only fingers. Your hands are like pale roots searching for water. Under my shirt, your palm is a warm weight. My ribs are opening like a wooden gate in the wind. It’s absurd, isn't it? How beautiful it is to be buried alive with you. We are two ancient mollusks in a velvet trench. Press your forehead to the lime-drip. Kiss me until we forget we have teeth. Kiss me until the marrow turns to liquid. [Bridge - Freeform Jazz Improvisation] [The tempo remains a static 60 BPM, but the instrumentation goes wild and avant-garde. The tenor sax plays a low, filthy, weeping line that mimics a sigh. The Gamelan chimes drop like heavy drops of mercury. The vocal becomes a spoken, hypnotic whisper close to the microphone.] One... [breathe] Two... [slide] The drone never stops. It’s in your blood now. Are you tense? Good. Don’t move. Let the vibration do the work. Your shoulder feels like cold marble. My tongue is a wet leaf. We are sinking through the geologic layers. Through the coal, through the iron, Into the cosmic fire at the center. [Chorus - The Pulse] [The Gamelan chimes grow louder, ringing out with a meditative, eerie resonance. The deep bass pulses like a slow heartbeat.] Deep, deep, down where the gamelan strikes. Lie back on the wet moss, love. Let the throat-singing vibrate through your hips. We are melting into the ancient stone. Oh, it’s a tense, slow friction. Sixty beats... sixty beats... Hold your breath… And let the dark take us under. [Outro] [The jazz instrumentation begins to dissolve. The tenor sax plays one last, long, melancholic sigh before fading. The continuous Uilleann pipe drone bends the pitch down, agonizingly slow. The waterphone mimics the sound of stalactites crying in an empty cathedral.] Subterranean… Cosmic dust on your hips. We are the last wet things left alive. Sinking. Slow. Slowing... [The voice fades into a whisper] Keep your eyes closed. The rock is closing over us. It feels… so warm. [Only the low, vibrating Tuva throat-drone and the dripping resonance of the sea organ remain, pulsing in the dark until they fade into absolute silence.] [END]
