The Hill of Crosses in Siauliai, Lithuania (560055N 232500E) is one of the most demented folk-art installations on the planet, a thicket of 100,000+ crosses, crucifixes, graven images, minor effigies, rosaries and other pilgrim-offerings dating back almost 200 years and maybe longer. It is a monument to accretion, to the endless addition of one more thing. It has its parallels in the votive-stuffed caves of Arkalochori (35 8' 0.76"N, 25 15' 26.94"E) and Psychro (35.1628055N 25.4448972E), as well as the Buddha-stuffed caves of Mogao (400217.98N 944815.28E), Bezeklik (42 57 22 N, 89 32 41 E), and Pak Ou (20.0489N 102.2101E). At this Hill of Crosses, one rubs up against what Aliferis has called das berwltigensein (the overwhelm) in one of its many forms. In the past, human encounters with the overwhelm were always described in religious terms: a glimpse into the abyss that staggers human speech, and our need to fill that void with a force that eclipses human measure; that is to say, God. But in 2012, our horror vacui has replaced God with ourselves, and the overwhelm we face is a socially constructed one, of endless surveillance and information-gathering, where everywhere is the same and anywhere is nowhere, and where the principle of too-muchness prevails unceasingly: Labour unparallelld! a wondrous rocky World of cruel destiny / Rocks piled on rocks reaching the stars; stretching from pole to pole.

Clearly we have lost our bearings. Clearly the need is for something on a smaller scale. Clearly we must reclaim the void. To that end, Fire Museum (39.955117N 75.161240W) and Tequila Sunrise Records (39.969203N 75.14505W) present this gathering of guitar-driven emanations, the first side leafy, lyrical and acoustic, the second side an astringent application of electric gnarl. Circle of Crosses brings together folk pythia Dora Bleu (guitar and vocal) with psych-improv wizards Sam Shalabi and Tom Carter (guitars and other instruments). It links Tripoli (32548N 13119E) to Washington D.C (385342.4N 770212.0W) and Houston (294546N 952259W), not to mention Mile End (453130N 733500W) to Louvain-la-Neuve (50 40 4 N, 4 36 42 E). Consider these songs map coordinates for safe-houses from das berwltigensein, a set of precise locales for ecstasy, atheist shrines, or open spaces for reverie in the forgotten recesses of the planetary connectome.

-- John Cleves Symmes Jr (392342.89N 843341.44W), Tequila Sunrise Records



MP3 SAMPLES:

FOR LEONARD'S ISAAC
IMPROVISATIONS ON SILENCE
ON PERFORMANCE



Dora Bleu's web page
Tom Carter's web page
Sam shalabi's Alien8 page