Wooden Shjips
V.

In listening, united in the rebellion of the spirit, under the arches of the chromaticism of a rainbow in celebration.

Instructions for use:

How to fight the system, from a hammock.

Or rather, how to ignore the system, from a hammock.

In the perception of that sound, in that perverse undulating mood

that makes us sink from that accommodating position, from that backrest, now worn and uncomfortable, of that couch stained with caffeine and lies, turned into a dinghy and wandering guide through dark seas dense with polyurethane foam, veering between wrecks and debris of our living rooms and our domestic prisons.

In the extreme rotation of the senses, the compass has regained its ancient absolute power, and the direction to follow shines in that Versailles of the Ego, in that millennia-old rise of individual monarchy.

...

The day after the landing of that European youth, on that Pentecost Monday on the beaches of Nuremberg, that platinum blond tuft, that face marred by history and those mysteries, those other stories of those distant and far-away worlds from the common horizons.

And a one-way ticket to Hell in hand.

What a challenge for human understanding, that young man with that pure candor and what threat he could pose to the certainties of the classes, directly descended to earth from the Atlas, the Atlantean evolutionary era where spiritual beings were guides for humanity. K.H. was animated and inspired by his spiritual angels, probably also by the Wooden Shjips, what mysteries this figure carried and what anxieties he stirred with his entrance into those dioceses and aristocracies of the time, within those evils that have dwelled since antiquity, in those cathedrals of power and darkness. The Child of Europe, with all the misunderstandings he caused in all layers of existence, was the people's beloved, perhaps he was the "swan knight" depicted by Rembrandt. But also a constant danger for his opponents, stabbed in the Ansbach gardens by the snares of that order that must maintain its program and pursue its project.

Killed with rare barbarity, agonizing and forced to bleed out a via crucis in that garden, dead on the third day, that mission ultimately uncompleted because "the monster was stronger" and those last words, "Father, may your will be done, not mine."

...

And always that compass, that individual sovereignty that opens the world to the senses and the lyrics of this Fifth work by those tenacious Wooden Shjips, this slow seduction and sedation from the decays, from those ashes that, like snow, fell from the forests of Portland during those days of recording the album, from those incendiary desires of the temporal assassins.

That desire to move your ass beyond the mainland, in that arrow between your Guinness, your porch, the stars, and those dreams waiting to catch fire...

In that psychic allegory dear to the youth proclaimed earlier, that still harmless evolution of the Shjips who have modulated a newfound trance with roots of classic rock and more open landscapes beyond psychedelia, hiding syllables behind imposing bastions of sound.

That aphrodisiac touch of Ripley Johnson, that murmur that remembers smoke rings, vanishing as soon as they take shape.

That sound that molds art and fantasy rock, unearthing the gems of the psyxties and melding them with the punk minimalism of Suicide and with dream pop reverberations.

Desert of sound, melancholy elegy under that often inflexible and distant rugged road from rustic tribalities, stimulation of a new visual imaginary, warriors from the rocks hurling poisoned pamphlet arrows and darts against remote-controlled drones armed with thoughts stolen and impoverished.

And from those walls of sound, that know so much of maieutics, so much of a revolutionary pedagogy capable of opening horizons to generations stunned by the maelstrom of social media, that integrates to then divide at will, finally flattening critical thought capable of overturning this packaged reality, with no alternatives...

Total narcosis of delirium, hence the desire to escape crazy from the madness of this delay, of this oblique sound, swayed by the wind on this hammock overhanging the abyss, imagining other worlds even utopian, but that may be the spark of a new floral style...

"Eclipse" opens with a boreal saxophone odyssey, recalling a Roxy-esque memory, with a nod to an Andy Mackay returning from an acid tour with Spacemen 3.

Alain Delon wanders restlessly through the gardens of the Eur, under a blistering sun awaiting a feminine redemption, absent as the coolness of that desired bough, seemingly the last man on earth waiting for the imminent evaporation of his soul lost in endless brokerage of the conscience. Listen to believe, said another offal merchant.

"Staring at The Sun" tells of the contemplation of what you love, an interstellar track reminiscent of Buffalo Springfield, that intimate moment when, staring at the sun you find that fragile balance point between inner pax and the turmoil from the window.

Even the apocalyptic destruction of the forests of Portland, which characterized the album’s recording period, the haze of those days becomes a wondrous hallucination, with that typical jam and those notes that gleam like floating embers in the skies.

And those wooden ships, that aim at the sun, in that sensual and intoxicating design that at this moment might clash like Peter Sellers in H.Party, instead have a clear vision on the horizon.

An oasis, somewhere, even in the future, waiting and pulling the strings on the waters of those boats. Let's at least send us a postcard.