SONG:
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: Based on “Scientists Discover the First Carbon-Rich Planet – Which May Have Mountains of Diamonds”, BigThink.com, 14 December 10, as used in the post “Planet of diamonds”.
ABSTRACT: I suppose I should give theoretical physicist Michio Kaku partial credit for the lyrics to this, if they can be called lyrics. I also suppose this is what happens when I start listening to Captain Beefheart, may the cosmos rest his soul. It’s winter in the top third of the world. I live in the bottom portion of that third, so I don’t actually look out at fields of ice or really feel the darkness closing in – no more than usual, I mean. Maybe a little. But it strikes me that there’s something in common with that experience and what it must be like to look out at a planet with mountain-sized chunks of diamond, spinning out in the cold vastness of space, visible only through eclipse.
I have a probably misplaced love for spoken word, especially found spoken words, and especially juxtapositions of seemingly unrelated found spoken words. So I decided to take two spoken word pieces – my reading of Kaku’s article and my favorite social worker’s reading of a clinical description of Seasonal Affective Disorder – and arrange them as if they were elements in a duet. I even ended with an antiphon, which is something I always love. Subsyndromal features! The vast majority of life! The guitar here is in a slightly altered tuning (the B string is a D, sort of – it’s actually transposed down a few steps from a real D). I started with that and worked my way out to where I knew the words would go. Then spent most of my time mixing. Mountain-sized chunks of diamond. I hope it brings the alien mineral winter to life for you.