This piece was performed and recorded live at the E Spot Lounge, in North Hollywood CA, 2016 (the venue is still there but apparently has a new name). The track is an excerpt taken from a long-form set of improvised music by The Stratos Ensemble.
lyrics
I'm always sleeping in a bed... brand name - Bad Memory
A bed known, and named by many as... escape
A bed in a room, with a computer in the corner
Filled with never-ending games
Of attention-determinant remedies
To keep me from seeing... what I blocked off with my bad memory
A room with a hallway, a hallway that leads to a living room, a living room surrounded on all sides by walls made--of lies, from walls little and white to walls big and black, and all for the express purpose of containing, covering up, and keeping out of view... all of my old antique furniture...
A VICTORIAN DISCONTENTMENT CABINET, made from the finest discontent. Been stirred among the populous from gossip constructed of my own... resentment.
A RHODESIAN RECLINING CHAIR (no kidding!), made from authentic, elephant-ivory tusk, arms of... omissions. Yeah! I got it from the catalog of: woulda', shoulda', coulda' warned, started, stopped someone from 'punking, scorning, targeting for corruption myself or others, and got it for the unbelievable, unprecedented low price of... regret!
I GOTTA' SOFFA made in the middle east, payed for by lazy me, and purchased and delivered by the neighborhood chaos merchants... the news. Yeah. It seems they made it themselves, insidiously wove it with covert strings of fear and hate, and when you sit in it's illusionist cushions of comfort, it makes you feel like... I can't do anything about it anyway.
I GOTTA' LAMP OF LUST
AN ON-THE-SLY POD WITH EQUALIZING SPEAKERS (THAT JUSTIFY MY CHEATINGS')
A WIDE SCHEME TV,
all in my American entertainment system, built with see-through selfing moments, yeah. I got it with such cool perks, from an American company, with the American, selfless slogan... "not if I don't f--k you first!" (...in little letters on the back).
Hanging on the walls of my living room of lies are picture frames, containing faulty blame, and wrong accountability, covering up holes in my walls of lies, from moments when I realized it was... my responsibility. And within this carpeted, red-white-and-black, prison of neglect, head resting on Bed-Bath-And-Beyond %100 cotton kisses of neglect, I have married inability, as a last bastion of defense from doing... anything. And she has become my worst lie...ability.
Ironically...
I'm just one front door away from possibility,
which if I could just muster
enough... care
to peel myself off this complacent couch
and crack the front door
with the blunt force
of a courageous act,
I'm looking at the front porch of Change Boulevard.
If I could just walk, in reverse, back up the broken path of my cobblestone past to the front gate, and look down the street... I'm looking at TRUTH WAY!
Now...
I might be off on a deep one...
but these do somehow sound like directions to freedom,
and what good is freedom,
land of the free,
if we...
don't know what it is we're being freed from???
credits
from Thi rx EP,
released December 19, 2021
Musicians on this track:
Brian De Benedictis (B1) - spoken word
Dean De Benedictis - piano and effects
Coco Roussel - drums and electronic pads
Rod McDowell - electric bass
David Boswell- guitar and guitar synth
Jim Goetsch - soprano sax
THE STRATOS ENSEMBLE is a band and music project that has been expanding the margins between ambient electronic soundscapes
and improvised jazz sensibilities officially since 2004. It is lead by producer Dean De Benedictis, originally a fusion keyboardist who is known as electronic musician Surface 10....more
