Solamente Augustine by c.soûle

From the Artist

Such a great bulk of my life, spent muffling the tender inner voice, in maybe-understandable, certainly misguided attempt to shield myself from further feelings of loss. I believe we are all susceptible to this tendency. Turns out it only sublimates the pain, causing it to erupt in greater violence still, jutting out in all directions in fits of hollowed impotence, thorny, as failing, tangled canes.

We outsource the difficult imperative of the conscience to reaction, to the rage and hopelessness proffered by the digital half-world, to charlatan-shepherds of collapsing pretense. We listen for it in the emotional labor of the hurting, merrily excusing ourselves over the darling cliff of claimed helplessness, siblings in tow.

I have been working at listening for it a might bit better. These tunes are meditations on my novice's effort at the same. They are an apology and appreciation to Augustine, decades gone, for being held as object and unwitting surrogate to my own inner voice. Apology for this too-usual offloading of emotional work, work I should ought to have been doing myself, projected onto a mythologized, magical “other”. Gratitude for the borrowed “Nah, Pelon” that stood in for my conscience such a number of years and spared so many along the way some of my very worst ideas.

I have come to know my conscience as a tiny, sometimes intruding guest, an insectile dragon, often annoying, as it pollinates this inverted flower, this fig, my clumsy devotion.

Self-congratulations hangs around all day, every day, a constant histamine crackle, as I clod-hopper my way along, trying not to break every single thing I come across. Still, volcanic consequence slices clean through my Chuck's, describing old desolation, enriching future soil under these weeping feet.

The ration is bitter with the sap of old choices, but it nourishes well, across a tongue, plump and honeyed with gratitude.

Turns out his first name wasn’t Solamente, after all. He has only ever had one name. I just didn’t have the language yet to know any different.

But I am working to understand.

Enjoy,

Clayton aka c.soûle

Mad cook, voice artist, sound designer, electronic musician (he/him) operating out of Seattle. I explore sound in the wide open, often gentle, sometimes violent emotive space at the nexus of industrial, ambient, bass-heavy, acousmatic, electro and goth music.

Petals and Gears Conspire!