Mira Calix
Eyes Set Against The Sun

I thought I had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room. I thought I was watching the usual German family movie on rai due, but instead, I find myself in a desolate land. Frost and snow poetically and silently ravage the grass.

My heart suddenly turns icy. Sudden noises start, crossing the white grass, while a dense mist rises and it begins to snow. Undefined choirs stand out on the horizon. Sudden strings cut through my heart. A woman.

A woman is in front of me, sitting on that icy grass and smiling at me. It's Mira Calix, in her fluttering blue dress and long brown hair, lightly cascading onto her shoulders. She hums something feverishly and surprises me: she kills my emotions. On the horizon, only gurgling of water with a folk taste, almost prewar ("Because To Why").

I ask her where I am. She doesn't respond. She continues to sing. The strings rise, embracing us, while in the background confused voices indicate her song. Among their words, I only perceive "Whenever", a clear and striking word that kills me. I approach, but I can't reach her, even though she is sitting.

"What's happening to me?"

Piano. Then silence.

Electronic disenchantment. "The Stockholm Syndrome" starts, which is a true electronic crime. Mira starts to dance like a possessed on notes that cut through the skin and seem crazed. She begins to sing with a sickly grace.

I sit on the icy grass but I don't feel cold. Her hair twirls in the wind. A nocturnal elegy made of flesh. Frantic keyboards revolving around a feverish chain of silent sounds. Light and childish noises are lost in the shadow. I get lost, I cry ("A Cereus Night").

"Mira Stop! You're making me feel bad! You're tearing my heart apart!"

The melody ends and a light but macabre and shadowy piano begins. It has a jazzy feel and makes me feel better. I already feel my heart lifted. ("Eelio") Then crystalline and sharp sounds start. Mira quiets on the ground, twirling her hand among the white threads, while from her half-open mouth pearls begin to roll down, chaining themselves to the earth.

The piano emits cries of death that kiss the moon, pale, which suddenly appears in the twilight sky. The melody is sweet and makes one smile.

Mira seemingly falls asleep, while for the first time I manage to get closer. I point my fingertip on her wrist, but I can't feel it. Air. Mira, you're not a woman, you're not human, you're music. No one around here is playing: the melody comes from you.

Dimples form on her face. Snow begins to fall more heavily than before when a solitary violin starts in the shadow. I can no longer see anything. I only see the sparkle of that magical woman's eyes, piercing the shadow with amorous string sounds. ("Protean")

Silence.

The violins start. Even my breath ceases. I no longer feel even my heart. I feel like I'm dying.

A group of strings so much Aphex Twin was "Girl/Boy Song" cross Mira's body, then violently throw themselves into mine ("The Way You Are").

I fall in love.

When all of a sudden, making me jump, completely schizophrenic sonic percussions start accompanied by a sudden macabre choir and a long lament. I jump to my feet and look around, but it's completely dark. I can no longer see the moon nor the falling snow.

"Mira! Mira," I keep shouting while fierce percussions plot in the shadow. Glitch shadows here and there. I start to run, afraid of crashing into impalpable sonic walls. A childish melody returns, in the form of a puerile song. A voiceless electronic lullaby. ("Till Sammans"). Hands grab me.

It gets even darker.

"WHO THE HELL IS IT?????"

I fall deeply.

I can no longer feel the ground under my feet. I'm in mid-air. "Mira where are you?" I search for her voice, I search for her face. I can't find it. I reach out, trying to find a solid surface. The music is even closer: graceful piano and percussions. Delicate voice of Mira. ("Umbra/Penumbra") Where are you? Where are you?

Light.

Now there's so much of it that I forget how to see. A sudden glare with angelic violin sound currents. Perhaps I'm dead.

I'm not in paradise. I'm in limbo. In a sort of limbo. The melody feverishly returns. Mira sitting on a rock has her back to me while gasping into the void. Some moans, some lament tries to disturb the electronic carpet ("Belonging"), but it's a twilight of puerile sounds that prevails, managing to defeat the sonic shadow with their perpetual play.

I open my eyes. I'm in a white room.

Absolution.

A small table in its center, a flower on the wet wood. A chair thrown on the floor with ferocity. I sit cross-legged like Buddha. Mira resonates in the air for the last time: she twirls.

Eternal twilight. Eternal night.

"Eyes Set Against The Sun."

If you managed to read this extrasensory experience of mine, it means that as soon as you hear the sweet sigh of this little witch, you will never return to your cozy nest of love. You will be lost between a too-dazzling limbo and insistent darkness.

An incredible journey.

If you close your eyes, it will be even better.