december magiK--again; and some words on "chance encounTers"

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]

 >    I absolutely \italic{cannot} locate the lyrics to "December Will
 > Be Magic Again", which has my vote as the best contemporary
 > Christmas song ever written.  If anybody does know these lyrics,
 > could you please send word?

 > --  Heather Stevens

     IED adds his vote to yours, Heather. Here are the lyrics of the
song. The beautiful imagery of "Oscar's mind" is an allusion to
Wilde's collection of fairy tales, which Kate has mentioned as being
among the most moving stories she knows.

    December Will Be Magic Again
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 December will be magic again.
 Take a husky to the ice
 While Bing Crosby sings "White Christmas".
 He makes you feel nice.
 December will be magic again.
 Old Saint Nicholas up the chimney,
 Just a-popping up in my memory.

      Ooh, dropping down in my parachute,
      The white city, she is so beautiful
      Upon the black-soot icicled roofs,
      Ooh, and see how I fall.
      See how I fall
      Like the snow.

      Come to cover the lovers.
            (Cover the lovers,
             But don't you wake them up.)
      Come to sparkle the dark up.
            (Sparkle the dark up,
             With just a touch of make-up.)
      Come to cover the muck up
            (Cover the muck up,
             Ooh, with a little luck.)

 December will be magic again.
 Light the candle lights
 To conjure Mister Wilde
 Into the Silent Night.
 Ooh, it's quiet inside,
 Here in Oscar's mind.

 December will be magic again.
 Don't miss the brightest star.
 Kiss under mistletoe.
 I want to hear you laugh.
 Don't let the mystery go now.

      Come to cover the lovers.
            (Cover the lovers,
             But don't you wake them up.)
      Come to sparkle the dark up.
            (Sparkle the dark up,
             With just a touch of make-up.)
      Come to cover the muck up
            (Cover the muck up,
             Ooh, with a little luck.)

      Oh, I'm coming to cover the lovers.
      Ooh, and I'm coming to sparkle the dark up.
      Ooh, and I'm coming to cover the muck up.

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     Tim Snyder asked for more information about Bill Nelson's new
Enigma 2-CD instrumental set, "Chance Encounters in the Garden of
Light". First, IED has to disagree with a description of this album
which appeared in Love-Hounds earlier.  After careful listening IED
cannot see how Disc 2 can accurately be described as "heavier", or in
any way louder, more aggressive, more rhythmic or more melodic. The
fact is that with the exception of the eight tracks (not included on
the vinyl version) originally found on the "Ecclesia Gnostica" 7"
single, there is no particular musical or rhythmic pattern to the
arrangement of the 63 tracks which make up the entire 2-CD set.
     There is, however, a very strong thematic link between most of
the tracks on "Chance Encounters"; or rather, a peculiarly Nelsonian
amalgam of themes. These are all indicated as much (or more) by the
titles of the tracks (all 63 of which are instrumentals) as/than by
the music itself. The state of pure consciouslessness or meditative
mind in which Nelson says all of these little pieces were recorded is
sometimes effectively communicated by the dominant musical type in
this collection: a synthetic evocation of churchy, quasi-Gregorian
choral drones over which odd, whispered half-melodies dart and sway.
(Of the 63 tracks, at least half are of this type.)  But aside from
this current of suspended or attenuated "physicality of being" audible
in some tracks, no real thematic connection can be discerned in the
music itself.
     In the titles, however, Nelson very deliberately alludes to the
models for his art and metaphysical philosophy. Titles like "The Four
Square Citadel", "The Angel at the Western Window", "The Hermetic
Garden", "Realm of Archons" and "The Dove Consumed (The Serpent
Slumbers)" seem to refer not only to Christian iconography, but more
specifically to Rosicrucianism, a now sparsely numbered sect or
society which shares something in common with Masonic organizations.
     Other track titles, such as "Phantom Gardens" and "The Spirit
Cannot Fail", may be references to the writings and teachings of R. O.
Spare, an eccentric theological philosopher of the mid-1900s.
     Still other titles, including those for the eight pieces culled
from the earlier 7" vinyl record, as well as the new cuts "Gnosis",
"Theurgia" and "Threnodia", are apparently connected with Gnosticism,
another small but highly sophisticated semi-religious order. There may
also be links with the Order of the Knights Templar, which, for Kate
fans' information, IED recently discovered is still in existence, and
which, like the Gnostics' and Rosicrucians' societies, meets
periodically to perform various ritual ceremonies and discuss common
philosophical goals, much like the Masons.
     Also still prominent among Nelson's titles are images which
reflect his longtime interest in the "surreal" or fanciful art of Jean
Cocteau: as for example with tracks like "Clothed in Light Amongst the
Stars", "The Hand of Fate" and "Staircase to No Place", but more
significantly indicated in the artwork for the album, which includes
direct visual "quotations" from films like "Le Sang d'un poete" ("The
Blood of a Poet"), of 1930.  Nelson's cover-artwork has referred to
images from Cocteau's films and designs for years now. (He shares this
interest in Cocteau with David Sylvian and Yukihiro Takahashi, both of
whom have recorded with Nelson.) There are many similar references in
earlier Nelson instrumental titles ("Heavenly Messages Nos. 1, 2 and
3" , "The Alchemy of Ecstasy" and "Aphrodite Adorned", from "Map of
Dreams"; "Feast of Lanterns" from "Living For the Spangled Moment";
and "Rise Like a Fountain" and "The Hidden Flame" from "Getting the
Holy Ghost Across" are examples.)
     All that said, there are very few musical surprises on these two
latest discs. The most notable exceptions are the tracks "West Deep",
"Pilots of Kite", "Seventh Circle", "Little Daughters of Light",
"Burning the Grove of Satyrs", "Infinite Station", "My Dark Demon" and
"Calling Heaven, Calling Heaven, Over", each of which has a certain
rhythmic or otherwise punchy element to rouse the listener from the
trance (or sleep, depending on his receptivity) into which many of the
other tracks may have placed him/her.
     It's probably pretty obvious that IED likes this music. He has
grave reservations about its "artistic value", however that may be
defined, but he thinks it's fair to say that each of the 63 tracks has
a musical kernel (sometimes miniscule, but there, nonetheless) which
explains its existence and lends it a little bit of hypnotic power.
Final judgement: In order to feel that you've really spent your $25
wisely by buying "Chance Encounters", you should probably make sure
that you're one of three types of listener: a.) the kind who can
repeatedly while away two-and-a-half hours concentrating hard on music
which basically does nothing and goes nowhere, but which does tend to
reward careful listening with at least a modicum of "enlightenment";
b.) the kind who enjoys puttering around the house to the
accompaniment of background music with "class" (such a person is going
to miss some of the music's intentions, but could still enjoy the
audible surface); or c.) the kind who has tons of money to spend.
     Finally, how does this kind of music compare with that of Kate
Bush? Poorly. Despite his honourable artistic motivations,
consistently excellent taste and intellectual virtues, Nelson allows
his work to suffer from a far too modest musical ambition. He is
successful at what he does mainly because he attempts to do very
little. There is a sameness to his instrumental tracks--not only
within "Chance Encounters", but across all of his instrumental work
going as far back as 1979--which he would do well to break away from.
Particularly in his instrumental work, Nelson has chosen to follow a
path so narrow that the art now runs the very real danger of becoming
entirely superfluous.
     IED has no doubt that Kate could, if she were forced to, produce
as many hundreds of similarly vague, amorphous instrumental
"impressions" as Nelson already has, and with every bit as much
technical and musical success. That she chooses instead to find a new
direction, from a new source of inspiration, before beginning to
record even _one_ new track, is proof in itself that her aesthetic
standards are immeasurably higher than Nelson's--or than that of any
other musician working in our time, for that matter.

-- Andrew Marvick