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In celebration of the filters of raw earth into breathable air. The track "America! America!" is inspired by the forestal creation of a hand-crafted alder doumbek from Vancouver Island, at the cusp of the Great Bear Rainforest, a place that also signifies a cusp of human civilization. So, the sound of the wooden drum, of the local land, is played in conjunction with a Maple Shakuhachi (also indicative of the local country's national tree).

The doumbek and flute seek a passage, of wind and earth, into the waters of being and becoming, towards a sense of grounding (drum) and direction (flute). The vocalization/narrative sounding muses on the exhausting reactionary sense of progress that ensues in the modern world, where people continue to consume and waste, yet there is a lack of listening, and a lack of sheer creation.

The calamity of today is not one of natural resources, it is our state of mind, and as the musical instruments of the natural world teach us, there is much to learn from the shapes and sounds within. As Chuang Tzu said, "What happened was my own collected thought encountered the hidden potential in the wood. From this live encounter came the work that you ascribe to the spirit."

lyrics

America! America!

America! Why have you buried your deepest, darkest secrets in whispers unheard? Yours is a truth disguised in a white blur as brilliant as the green-footed greed of mad industry. Why do you never step lightly off the strength of Europe's forests, onto world mystery reduced to cartography?

What is your name? And since when have you dreamed so shamelessly without thought to the diligent right to be in peace on Earth? Where is your life, if not in the decadent splendor of your shared riches? Why have you become poor with anger, and offered only suicide to your stout-hearted mob?

I have been known to conceive a country out from the spotless lie of hidden wonder, yet I cruelly disembark from the gross unlearning of my future's childless offspring. I cook for days over the melting pot. While my stove is cast aflame, I remain transfixed by the looming sky, eclipsed under a bloody moon - The Springs foretold.

credits

from Evocations: district​.​Columbia, released June 18, 2013

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Rusty Kjarvik image

Rusty Kjarvik Brooklyn, New York

My ancestors are from the lands in and around what is now Norway, Poland, Germany and Greece. They lived above the Arctic Circle, spoke Yiddish, were Romaniote Greek, English settlers during the revolutionary war of America, and from Germany pioneered in 19th century Alberta, Canada where they also took Blackfoot names. They were buried in religious fame; and so I also go by Menachem ben Asser. ... more

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