Beatbeat Whisper

Those Icy Streams Would Be Just As Cold If You Left Them Alone

Apr 10, 2008

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Words by Sean Moeller // Illustration by Johnnie Cluney // Sound engineering by Patrick Stolley and Shawn Biggs

Twice in Jeffrey Brown's latest graphic novel release Little Things: A Memoir In Slices, does the character version of the autobiographical Brown gawk appreciatively at river streams that his friend points out exist and are as cold as they are because they're the product of a glacier melting high above them. Brown's on a trip to Seattle, Washington, to see a high school friend, who lives in a cabin three bus rides from the hub of any sort of civilization and his Chicago-dwelling, coffeehouse around any given corner chum finds himself having his breath taken away constantly as critters scurry out and a van of people calmly and coolly just let a bear crossing the road in front of them move about as leisurely as it damned well pleased.

Even with little commentary or descriptive set-up, the comic panels were explicit in depicting the awe in Brown that came about through the age-old, but capital idea of intruding upon nature. There was a strong sense - and this happens to most of us when we break free from the familiarities of bustling and materialism and venture out into the trees, where voices and congestive white noise can't reach - that all of the things Brown was witnessing, while meaningful and almost too much for him to take it, were part of the humdrum. They were going to get pulled off without the help of anyone or anything else. They just were, these little operations and these tiny processes that have been going on for millions of years whether we see them and are inspired or shocked by them or not. It knocks you down some.

Beatbeat Whisper have felt these same things, turning them into the respectable mere mortals that we can always strive to be - the kind of people who look at a fallen leaf and trace over its green veins with their fingertips and try to imagine what it must have felt like to have had rain water shooting through them from the bottom up. Davyd and Ayla Nereo, the brother and sister combination who make us this Oakland, Calif., twosome have surely done something just the same in their time. They've likely gone to a secluded bend of a pond or lake and skipped flat, washer-like stones off the surfaced and thought that each grazing of the water's skin was like a heartbeat to be trusted. They've likely wanted to sneak up on jittery squirrels just to calm their tails or to gently pick up a willing bird, put its chest to their ear and hear what a bird's ticker really sounds like to our ears. Is it the same, is it nowhere near? The music that they make together - that you'll hear on their new album Wonder Continental this week - is much like that icy stream flowing down from spots on a mountain that people don't get to very often. They plume out of instruments that sound as if they've had countless hands touch them over their many decades - love them and treat them in their own ways, all of them. It can be spooked and startled and yet it's not precious at all, nature talking its own jive.

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1. first song

   Welcome to Daytrotter
2. second song

   Childhood Of Playful Heart

   

   - original version appears on Wonder ContinentalLyrics: Which miracle is it that I get to choose, he got the last one and put it to use fortune in hand, coloring sand, drawing pictures of truth And all of the shades between the years are the same guessing the color next seems such a waste and the taste of his marker stained parts of his teeth and when he bit down all the colors leaked My light bulb remembers a dinner mom made, two minutes in nostalgic microwave timer it rang, did I tell you he sang every time that he ate And up on a hilltop in a bathtub I read, last words of funny men make a degree he made me laugh, dry bubble bath, he took the water to school Where he met a girl to climb a tree, to lay in her arms comfortably but unlike my sister who always climbed quicker, I know he said so to me… He always gloated getting top bunk, twenty-one wishes and he still wouldn't budge morning I wake, I draw a bath late, you know I still wash his feet…Explanation: A little while before the winter solstice of 2006 I was talking with a friend of mine who was about to go around a new bend in his life squiggle. He was hesitant and weary of this new course, but I was convinced it was a similarly blind-turn to others he had taken before. While my little explanation here is using different imagery than I use in the song, this conversation was what shaped the lyrics and voice of this song. It's me watching myself, with the watcher and the watched being both now and in the past. Huh?

3. third song

   Old River

   

   - original version appears on Beatbeat WhisperAyla: I wrote this song for a play, in which the explorer has to tread through his fear in the forests and climb mountains, and he comes to a river.  It's rushing so fast, he doesn't know what to do, how to cross it.  So he sings: Do you remember Old River, as you run so fast, as you run so far do you remember Old River, as you run so fast, as you run right past did the shores that you flew by go by in a blur, or did you see the little children there on the banks as they played in the afternoon light, in the wake of your water as you did run on by… do you remember Old River , as you run so fast, as you run right past you passed by a hill so sturdy and calm, the land lit up with homes in it's arms the land lit up in the half-moon light, you carved out a mountain as you ran on by that night… do you remember Old River, as you run so fast, as you run right past so many things you've seen Old River, they didn't go by too quickly for you to catch your sweet memories for you to hold your moons and mountains for you to wash the many ankles of the children as they play and as they splash and as they tumble round and laugh and as they skip and as they jump and as they dance and as they run on by… do you remember Old River, as you run so fast, as you run right past? now you'll remember Old River, remember everything, remember as you dream…And the river falls asleep, and the explorer crosses safely…  this song has since taken on new meaning as I sing it without the story context.  It's a lullaby to the busy mind.

4. fourth song

   Suddenly Apart Was Shared

   

   - original version appears on Wonder ContinentalDavyd: We were asked to be part of the compilation "Firsts" from Digital Clouds Records, and decided to go back to our parents home in Sonoma County to write a song for it. Ayla: Usually we write songs individually, then play them together.  This was a fun experience 'cause we wrote the song together, Davyd picked out chords, I played around with them, wrote some words in the backyard, then we made lots of noise while mom and dad cooked dinner.  The next day we recorded it in the living room on our album you can hear our clock ticking. The round at the beginning is a song we sang growing up, to give thanks to nature.  It inspired the words that follow, about respecting our connectedness to everything and everyone, and thus losing all sense of hate.For health and strength and daily bread, we give these thanks, our world… As bread breaks, as bridges bust and quake, underfoot uprooted and waiting as blind sides stroll casually by, underneath their steps do not know their own meaning… and at first glance only form will there be, weathered over by time, in lines side by side placing mirror in front of he, his own ripple water, sudden spied his own ripple water, his own two eyes…"But," they cried, "cast not your weary glances here for I have to  carry my own, my wings, my shoulders and blades, they say will wash away my enemy, these blades, they say will wash away, will wash away…" these blades, they pray will wash away, away… and looking far, and farther on beyond they see the lighter skin clothes, darker eye notes, but inside it's the same as the sun, from the eyes it was bright as the sun, in the eyes… tum-bel-ing down to him, saves him from arrogance tumbling over him, washes his darkness, the blinds of the horses tum-bel-ing over him, ricochet lightning show till mirrors he sees, and through glass he goes… and looking backwards, beholds the elephant's child growing bolder and wise, with no fear in her step for her hide, for her cloak, and her trunk never stolen, for so precious is her note, so beautiful those notes those notes, the notes, the notes… and in her his family, held closely in seams, the stitching is soft, no barrier it leaves and lightest of thread held them all by the knees (together at the knees were the strongest of strings) oh the strings, oh the strings! the strongest of strings at the knees, together at the knees were the strings oh the  strings they were needed and seen, they were seen together at the knees were the strings… and backwards he bent to see them merely as things but he'd forgotten the meaning of separate, of sacred backwards he bent to see them merely as things but he'd forgotten what it meant to have hatred

5. fifth song

   Up The Long Tracks

   

   - original version appears on Wonder ContinentalLyrics: I can see crashes on shore let the seconds slide by rail I wait so romanticized dawn of steam, kettle heats the tea I drink from sleep by rail I await so eagerly Counting change, three spots on the track for you laid I can see this morning slip away distant howl, I can feel a shiver running down I can see this morning take the crown But you realize the rumble is yours and the room it quakes and my shiver shakes you seem to impress and steal my breath and as I a child I stared at your magic, press you wide my eyes your cold steel it seems so alive Nickels down, rush inside to peek through window shade timid me I hide while pulses race steady roll, big wheels turning heads by simple grace eagerly we watch as pulses race And just once I can lay my hand upon your side and feel your steady rumble like a dream you are unstoppable to you I am grateful, you're my Wonder Continental helping whispers 'tween the eyes to come alive and one hand cuts the rock like paper thin are views of hate held by closed eyes. Explanation: I wrote this song in Santa Cruz living by some well-trafficked train tracks. I had a small collection of pennies and decided that they should go under the wheels of these big, slow, lumbering ol' timers and become something more than pocket weight. Seeing and riding these trains and having them so close to my home was a very powerful feeling that impressed upon me my own fragility and impermanence. The title is worded such because a certain freight company has the initials U.P. and when I wrote it I didn't know what distance the tracks covered. All trains just go forever, I think.