Relating to an entry a while back regarding the phenomenon of digital music player shuffling, a track by the post-rock band June of 44 came into the speakers today. I hadn’t listened to them in a while. The first thing that comes to mind regarding this band is their meticulous, almost hand-crafted album art using art like old-school tattoos (see Tropics & Meridians) and a sort of murky, mysterious and sometimes tense atmosphere. For some reason I always got the vibe of wandering around the dark and cloudy backwaters of Americana when listening to this band, and of course, I’m always in awe of the bass guitar work of Fred Erskine, who is one my favourite players of the instrument up there with the likes of Rob Wright, Mick Karn, David J, etc.

“Sanctioned in a Birdcage” is a track of 1996′s Tropics & Meridians. I don’t really listen to a lot of this music anymore, especially contemporary artists as it’s not really where my headset is for contemporary music at the moment. However, I save a little spot for this group, as well as selection of others from this time period in my life. I remember things that I was doing, like writing abstract zines on typewriters and going to gigs in shitty run down coffee shops. I did see this band at such a place in June of 1998 at an overcrowded and loud show at a place called Crosstown Traffic.

Anyway, back to the song: a dissonant piece of mid-90s post-punk abstraction. The lyrics being shouted from the backline of beaten up guitar amps which are as follows:

Nails and grenades
But I’m under interrogation?
report through the hole
left where the trees and halberds once stood
taller then eye contact
and years turn to dust left behind
with bark and other remnants of something that used to be alive
old forests like cemetaries
with stumps for headstones
and the birds are left to be built over
a dated idea to be alive
like old electronics
still used
but archaic
a house to keep the insides in
to protect it from everything else
as if they’re not even there
function lost
like not being able to find the handle to a broken coffee cup
brown stains around the lip that can’t be cleaned
now useless in a wastebasket
identity #1
where do the birds go?, where do the birds go?, where do the birds go?
where do the birds go?,

crushed on interstates
by the progress of a world
of trucks and other developments
or kept inside
protected by the serenity of a birdcage
unaware of the powers that their grandparents felt
the trees that they once lived in.. we now live in
the trees that they once lived in.. we now live in

One birdcage to another
safty in a non-touchable place
to those wings that know freedom:
a dirt home and their excuse not to die
bird sanctuary a refuge for wildlife
where predators are controlled and
hunting is not allowed
no more fear
seeing only the serenity of being alive
unaware unaware unaware
unaware of any other aspects of the world they are isolated from
kept under the table like a villian in a scary movie
removed until the mystery is over
then crushed and defiled like crushed carnations in a diary
work from history
cancer from a different disease
as unaccepted as an empty lot in a growing subdivision
feel everything
and remove the beauty of simplicity
it’s easy to be alive but being alive
really alive
means freedom on a different level
high or low is irrelevant it’s both
look at everything
to absorb everything
attempting to understand everything from carnations to dead birds
Yes, I feel this today and can relate. The imagery is fantastic.