Destination Out

From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate is an ongoing series of letters written by composer/multi-instrumentalist N., founding member of a band formerly known as the Mystic Horn Society. Volumes one through three are Bedouin Hornbook, Djbot Baghostus's Run and Atet A.D., respectively. Volume four is not yet titled.

___________________ 29.X.82

Dear Angel of Dust,

I've been meaning to write for a while now, a while that seems like years though it's only been weeks. A bit of melody held me up, the beginnings of a piece I've been wanting to write but can't. It would be a piece, were I able to write it, the sleek skein of whose retreat would limn an interpolative truth. Retreat, I mean, would imbue the receipt the piece would bestow--imbue and ambiguate such receipt (grudging receipt). Which is where the wrench or the rub I've been up against comes in: how to ambiguate receipt without foreclosing on receipt. Foreclosure is the risk I've run and evidently succumbed to, unable, as I've been, to get on with or get beyond the mere bit of melody which has held me up. Grachan Moncur III's "Frankenstein," however, encourages me to believe I can. That he wrote it as a waltz, more exactly, keeps me from giving up. It seems he speaks to retreat and receipt's cautionary rhyme and revision by pushing waltz's restrained embrace a bit farther, furthering such restraint via titular monster-held-at-bay (extenuation confounding stark, Frankensteinian stitch with ur-rhapsodic stitch). I've let myself be taken up with this more than I probably should have, tending more toward shutting down on other fronts than makes any sense. Still, sense or no sense, that's how it's been. Sorry to've been silent so long.

We've made some decisions regarding Orphic Bend you should know about. Here are the pieces we've decided will be on it, in the order in which they'll appear:

"Prometheus" (Take 1)
"The Slave's Day Off" (Take 1)
"Tosaut Strut" (Take 3)
"Our Lady of the Lifted Skirts" (Take 1)
"In Walked Pen" (Take 2)
"Udhrite Amendment" (Take 1)
"Drennethology" (Take 1)
"Like A Blessed Baby Lamb" (Take 1)
"Half-Staff Appetition" (Take 2)
"Dream Thief" (Take 1)
"Bottomed Out" (Take 1)
"Tosaut L'Ouverture" (Take 2)
"Feet, Don't Fail Me Now" (Take 1)
"Altered Cross" (Take 3)
"Opposable Thumb at the Water's Edge" (Take 1)
"Sun Ship" (Take 1)
"Aggravated Assent" (Take 2)

These, then, are the pieces you should base your liner notes on. Having taken so long to get this info to you, I hate to rush you, but the sooner you can get the notes written the better, as we're about to send the album into production. The jacket will be the last phase of the process but, even so, it's not all that far away. You should also know that since we're including more pieces than we originally planned we'll have to make it not a two-record set as we thought at first but a three-record set. And instead of the Limelight design, with booklike leaves and three-dimensional pop-outs, we'll use the three-panel folding design Atlantic used for their Passions of a Man Mingus release three years ago.

Let me know if there's any more info you need for your notes.

Yours,

N.

___________________ 8.XI.82

Dear Angel of Dust,

We got the test pressing of Orphic Bend this morning and got together at Lambert's to give it a listen this afternoon. It was during Aunt Nancy's bass solo on "Dream Thief" that what I'm writing to tell you about happened: the balloons appeared again. With the very first note she plucked, a balloon emerged from the point...