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S​é​ance Fiction

by Void Denizen

supported by
Thomas Distefano
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Thomas Distefano I almost didn’t buy this album, thinking I’d maybe only listen to it once or twice, but pulled the trigger on the buy button and it’s been finding its way into my musical rotation quite a bit. Finding it really fun, uplifting, thought-provoking, inspiring, invigorating. Hope there’s more coming sometime! Favorite track: Monkey Business.
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1.
Shrimpimp 03:00
All dressed up in LEDs Tell me, what do you want to be When you grow up? (glow up!) GROW UP! You could be a shrimpimp at a prawnshop With your pump boots and your flattop With your broombox and your ragtop You got soapscum rocking in a headlock While the Tantric Tarantulas Be Nibbling at the Nebulas, The Nipples of the Nephilim, You know that I grew up with them? Eh? You know that I grew up with them? You know that I grew up? If I should throw ^UP^ my dreams I'd come vDOWNv with the Flew And with my feet upon the ground learned things I never knew things I never do Or you could be a Lobster Mobster with a krill grill. "Put your money where your mouth is with your ill will." I've got a grill full of krill, skrilla and dough. "You're worth your weight in gold in the Glasgow flow." Skrilla by the pound, doe by the pence, Pensively impounding every goddamn ounce of sense! "You swore you'd never swear again!" Well, that's the way it goes my friend. If I should throw ^UP^ my dreams I'd come vDOWNv with the Flew And with my feet upon the ground Learned things I never knew Things I never do (All right, hang in there I’ve got this other verse too real focken tongue-twister this one hang in there) Roller derby topsy-turvy roller-coaster ride hocus-pocus hokey pokey Buddha-pesticide: The rhyme dictates the reason; the meter rules the tide. "How do I decide what is hiding in my mind?" Mariachi marionettes, caffeine and cigarettes, Rorschach cave-art in foam around the rim. "If you're drowning in your cup, then you better learn to swim." That's why I prefer drinking beer to drinking gin. Foam around the rim. Foam around the rim. You know that I grew up with them? You know that I grew up?
2.
3.
We came down from the trees and we moved under the sea sea monkey see monkey do. With the serpent on his arm and the apple with its charm sea monkey, sea monkey dew Oh, let’s go within let’s contemplate our origins Oh, let’s go without who knows what we could find up in the clouds There is a place inside us all where sin is still original a place where we ReVerse the fall (it means we verse it differently) We place the apple on the tree like backwards played pornography where coming is going and knaming is knowing a tale retold eternally we rewrite our own history. We came down from the trees and we moved under the sea sea monkey see monkey do. With the serpent on his arm and the apple with its charm sea monkey see monkey do Oh, oh what a day I hope another comes along, oh, let us pray. Oh, oh what a night I’ve never known one quite like this, oh no, not quite. Oh, oh what a day I hope another comes along without delay. Oh, oh what a year let’s close the book on this one now as another one draws near Oh, oh what a song Let’s write another one just like this But not as long sea monkey see monkey do sea monkey sea monkey dew (Monkey dew!) sea monkey see monkey do (Monkey dew!) sea monkey sea monkey dew And at the end of a long evolutionary day the monkey lays down in the field and stares up at the moon through the trees; the earth’s enlightened child, magnetizing the monkey with its lunar lullabies, urging it to follow its example—to leave the earth, it says: “Rise, enlightened child I left the cradle long ago,” raining down its golden smiles. “On and on, off we go!” Monkey, shed your skin as without, so within moving on into space the finish line, the human race. On and on, to the stars on and on, it’s cold up there So far out, will we find the body will be kept in mind? So far out, will we find the body will be kept in mind? So far out, will we find the body will be kept in mind? So far out, will we find the body will be kept in mind? Full moon, stuck up in a tree out on a limb, eternally tree of life, geometree set yourself from matter free So far out, will we find the body will be kept in mind? So far out, will we find the body will be kept in mind? So far out, will we find the body will be kept in mind? So far out, the body will be kept in mind So far out, the body will be kept in mind The body will be kept in mind
4.
Laptop of the morning to you have a look at your Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and see what the future has in store for us today. Unseen beyond the screen, there resides our ancestry Our forefathers, our grandchildren I strive to strike through the screen to reach the other side I seek the philosopher's stone a rock technology by which to finalize infinity The ultimate goal of all technology: to transcend space and time and I take that to mean... communication with the dead and preferably in rhyme
5.
Petrified 05:27
Bruce Lee played Ping-Pong with nunchucks I put a leash on my pet rocks whatcha laughin' about? That's my labradorite! It's alright you can pet, don't be petrified He's as good as they get he's all bark and no bite barking all through the day barking all through the night Don't be petrified The rocks (the rocks) The rocks (the rocks) They're sexual deities Stone-faced royalty, entwined Don't be petrified The rocks (the rocks) The rocks (the rocks) They contact the Pleiades, Leave all mortal soil behind Don't be petrified Earth defiance Sky alliance Dumb-as-a-rock Rock-it-science! Don't be petrified Yes that's right this labradorite has trapped the northern lights inside How do you like this warm welcoming reception? Of sunlight touching rocks with fossilized perception It’s made all of these wonderful arrangements to store your memories in so that you don't estrange them and if you choose to rearrange them, rearrange them take them with you, if you promise to replace them Yes that's right this labradorite has trapped the northern lights inside Don't be petrified Don't be pet terrified Don't be petrified Don't be pet terrified The Celts had a thing called the InterKnot it tied all things together like connect-the-dots and Stonehenge was the router but we all forgot how to dial up to the stars and the dead below because the modem was too old and the connect too slow yeah, the InterKnot. I'm Leprekanye West. I've got a pot of bling. It's off the chain and in the chest a golden heart with interest so take these seedy words and you better damn ingest! And don't think I'm jesting, fool I've got a vested interest. I'll give you back a thousandfold whatever you invest.  
6.
Row, row, row… Sailing past the silent sirens I request of them a song Cause you know my ship’s been (w)reckless For unfathomably long. Should you choose to raise the dead Be sure to raise them well Or they might grow up To become a living hell. Tie me to the mast! Plug my ears with beeswax! Pray we’ll safely sail past! As we brace the rowdy rapids and row. With my craft as my raft, We brace the rowdy rapids With my craft as my raft, We brace the rowdy rapids With my craft as my raft, We brace the rowdy rapids and row… Trouble up ahead Trouble underneath White crests and the depths Sirens singing us to sleep. A flash of light reveals a sight Sailors fear to see: A field of masts with ragged sails rising from the reef. A little known fact about the sirens is that their deathly serenade was not charged with malignant intent. The sirens themselves had a curse rested upon them—the curse of eternal life, and of possessing a voice so beautiful that if any man would hear it, they would bear the weight of the ultimate rock song. But were a man to pass by unscathed, not only will he have heard that song and overcome death’s calling, he would also have lifted the curse of immortality from them, allowing the sirens to perish peacefully… With my craft as my raft, We brace the rowdy rapids With my craft as my raft, We brace the rowdy rapids With my craft as my raft, We brace the rowdy rapids and row… Weary of the water star-bored and bored with land keep up your stoic rowing patterns So I may understand this song of death that’s sung to me with mantic empathy could hypnotize or paralyze For all eternity or tie willful mortal men to the mast of their self-mastery.
7.
(I'm in the prime of my life!) All these crippled concrete creatures are my cronies and my teachers I’m a creature preacher Speak the language of the street. Where the sidewalk ends the other side begins So take a walk with me, I’ll help you understand No harm in harmony We’ll keep you safe from harm We won’t set off the purple burglar alarm. And all the pachyderms in packs carry Pakistani flags. An alpaca packing heat is shooting glances at their feet. As he spits with disdain it forms a Mandelbrot stain On the bright hot sand of strange and foreign land. All these crippled concrete creatures are my cronies and my teachers I’m a creature preacher Speak the language of the street. All these painstaking stain-stalkers cleaning up this mess Of chain-smoking skinwalkers’ metamorphosis. This landscape is shedding skin to decorate the outside from within. Like cave art on concrete, no street art can compete it’s truly off the wall, completely overhauls the human mind. Too street-smart for wall art, this city has a stone heart But there’s a way to get inside: Make windows of this concrete wall See through it like a crystal ball. In the city everything is made up of concrete and stone Where do I fit in? I’m made of flesh, blood, and bone. Outline my thoughts in chalk, I watch the sidewalk like a hawk. This psychic teleprompter beneath my feet, as I shuffle to the beat. All these crippled concrete creatures are my cronies and my teachers I’m a creature preacher Speak the language of the street.  
8.
Halfway, halfway, I’ve waited all day, halfway, hurray! How are we to endure this light so obscure? How are we to resist if this darkness shall persist? Everybody’s got the eclipse on their lips On the tip of their tongue, it won’t be long It won’t belong It won’t be long It won’t belong to anyone. Halfway, halfway, I’ve waited all day, halfway, hurray! Oh, all the pleasures we’ve denied For our devotions throughout time How brightly they outshine The hidden reaches of the mind Halfway, halfway, I’ve waited all day, halfway, hurray! The tension between night and day Eclipsing what we have to say The symmetry of life and death A cemetery of the breath Our eyes orbit the obituary A eulogy, unspoken text Reflections of the planetary Revolving round a void. The nearest graveyard is a bookshelf We pay our respects to ourselves Revived in spirit by the voice We raise the signal from the noise Shhh… we raise the signal from the noise Shhh… we raise the signal from the noise Shhh… we raise the signal from the noise
9.
Tragic Magic 05:05
We’ve all fallen victim to this tragic magic cursed by the misspelling of this magic spell but now that our tongues are tied together There’s no way in hell that we can kiss and tell. I’ve absorbed your karma, baby, you’ve absorbed my cosmic seed. We’ll reap what we have sown and maybe we’ll follow one another’s lead in times of need, indeed. I’ll strike a match to light your shadow or would you rather take a shot in the dark? Let’s not get tangled up in conversation. Who knows what kind of trouble that could spark… We gotta keep ‘em guessing, baby, we gotta keep ‘em on the edge. We’ll teach ‘em all a lesson, maybe. But silence can be equally dangerous, for us. You say it was never really your decision. You claim that you never had a choice. It’s just a fated cosmic coalition, and in effect you lost your voice. We’ve all fallen victim to this tragic magic cursed by the misspelling of this magic spell but now that our tongues are tied together There’s no way in hell that we can kiss and tell. Oh well.  
10.
11.
Carry my casket like a boombox on your shoulder Carry my casket like a boombox on your –What?! Carry my casket like a boombox on your shoulder Carry my casket, then you drop it like it’s hot. From a stone age to a rock epoch plug into the earth, you get culture shocked this lyrical satirical alchemical comedy historical hysterical botanical harmony ((harmony)) You seek a plant to get you stoned Bear with it, child, you’re not alone Turn up the base Turn up the soil raise the dead, heavy as a boulder and Carry my casket like a boombox on your shoulder Carry my casket like a boombox on your shoulder Carry my casket like a boombox on your –What?! Carry my casket like a boombox on your shoulder Carry my casket, then you drop it like it’s hot. I took a hit of GPS got lost within the endlessness gave up the compass in my chest and oriented to the west Taoists are always in The Way they have no need to navigate and gypsies don’t need GPS they’re at home inside the emptiness. He’s a bardo bard in a vardo cart muthafockas like that got a lotto heart every beat is a gamble and a fateful art. (Rien va plus) place your bets (inside of you) no regrets life has a lotta little rules, just like roulettes Could it be I finally went viral? Just swirling round in spirals… Bloom now, flower child, and do as thou wilt shake off the shame and strange the guilt. Transcendent of sameness the shamans are shameless shame on you/shaman you all else remains nameless. And I could get into diatribe about a tribal diet but you can’t deny it you just gotta try it if you don’t do it that way you might end up dying… but we all end up dying, don’t we? we all end up dying… so… Carry my casket like a boombox on your shoulder Carry my casket like a boombox on your –What?! Carry my casket like a boombox on your shoulder Carry my casket, then you drop it like it’s hot. And due to some ill-fated rumor his spiritual growth had been mistaken for a tumor he heard laughter from hereafter with his sixth sense of humor. And in a vision he was shown this growth to be the stone he’d sought so hard to find for(e)telling the end of time.
12.
The means are getting meaner It ain’t easy being green When you’re caught in between human and machine. You are my life-support, he said. Interface to formlessness. Nothing comes between us. The serpents in my dreams guard the realms of the unseen. Nothing comes between me and my machine. Nothing comes between the realms of the unseen. 
13.
Genius 04:57
Lunatic, heretic, contradictory, self-indulgent, necromantic endeavor. “You’re listening to radio VOID. We’re here on your doorstep, ringing the doorbell, didgeridoing dubstep. Ready to dance in the disco lights of the law, here’s Void Denizen.” Tuck and tumble took the lead over rock and roll The tax attorney’s taxidermied head upon the wall His trophy shelves, treasured selves, déja voodoo dolls You shake your head, double-take, you thought you’d seen it all. You’ve heard it all many times, but this time its for real. Oh say it isn’t so! Say it isn’t true! Nothing’s actually happening, but it could happen to you (who?) (yoo-hoo) Low down dirty genius Stole the divine fire could turn it into anything but couldn’t find a buyer. Low down dirty genius Stole the divine fire inhaled it up like oxygen and couldn’t get much higher. Low down dirty genius Stole the divine fire he used up all its resources and never once got tired. I sleep in window-sills, fetus style, curled up like a fern, Unfurling in morning light I stretch my limbs like wings in flight sing Icarus icaros, wax poetic, cons and prose, A fanfare of feathers. They slowly crash and burn. Disperse what we’ve gathered, This phoenix ashen urn. I’m a word player from the astral projects. I’m a world prayer for them loveless rejects. All my trains of thought are on track, I’m making up my mind. My style is polyphrenic, diverse as the divine. I’ve got a range of imagination, raging many stories high. Knock knock, it’s a poltergeist, it nearly had me paralyzed. (don’t be petrified!) There’s a signal in the noise There’s a shape within the voice The mind is made up, evermore As if there never was a choice. I don’t fear a man who’ll kill me, who will put me in the grave, But I fear a man who’s overcome and made of death a slave. (Yes, it’s so far out!) Low down dirty genius Stole the divine fire could turn it into anything but couldn’t find a buyer. Low down dirty genius Stole the divine fire inhaled it up like oxygen and couldn’t get much higher. Low down dirty genius Stole the divine fire he used up all its resources and never once got tired. He hired a new gun Then he fired it for fun. Little bullet children, sent flying on the run Hungry for blood, sons of a gun. And through these bullet hol(e)y men in death they were made One. Pumped full of lead, they turned it into gold. Insides filled with insights that could be bought and sold. I’m not a gangster, I’m a gang-star I’ve got a star gang constellation. We ain’t got no flashy gang signs, just real communication. We know sign language for sea-creatures, And if you wonder why It’s cause that’s where we came from, But we’re reaching for the sky! Lunatic, heretic, contradictory, self-indulgent, necromantic endeavor.
14.
Last Words 02:03

about

This record is a genre-fluid synThesis of lyrically-driven story-songs, loaded with wit, whimsy, and wisdom. It's an alchemical comedy of cosmic proportions, an enigmaniacally mystical see-saw of seen and unseen, of gravity and levity. There are raps and rhapsodies; a simian space-opera, and an astro-gospel. There's a rock song about rocks, and a sea-shanty about sirens. The songs in this collection are a kind of slave-songs--let's call them "necro spirituals"--that strive to uplift and liberate the captive listener from the bondage of death's dreary promise by clanging its conventional shackles in a musical manner and making light of the dark arts.

I'd love to hear what you see in these songs: snailconvention@gmail.com

WATCH IT:

"SHRIMPIMP" MUSIC VIDEO: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuzMyFRapp0

NEW VIDEOS & INTERVIEW: realitysandwich.com/321767/necromancing-the-philosophers-stone-void-denizens-psychomagical-hip-hop/

credits

released May 18, 2016

All songs were composed and arranged by Michaelangelo,
except Petrified and Monkey Business were written with Mark Sandusky;
and Genius was written with Aslan Rife.

All Lyrics were written by Michaelangelo,
except for Travis Puntarelli’s contribution on Silent Sirens.

All tracks were Produced, Recorded and Mixed by Joshua Cook @ Key of Now studios at The Convent Arts Collective in San Francisco, CA.
Except Shrimpimp: production, synths, mixing and programming by Liran Kehat @ Kishta Studios in Israel. Mastered by Idan Egozot.
and on “Last Words” the background music, Theme of the Sentimental Centipede, was recorded by Michaelangelo.

All tracks were Mastered by Jerad Paul Fox @ Faultline Studios in San Francisco, CA.

Performed by:
Michaelangelo - lead vocals, backing vocals, didgeridoo, djembe, kick drum and sticks, glockenspiel, percussion, beatbox
and
Joshua Cook - backing vocals, bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, synth, organ, piano, glockenspiel, percussion, programming
with:
Travis Puntarelli - backing vocals (6, 8), acoustic guitar (6, 8), fiddle (6), glockenspiel (8), ghuzeng (14)
Benny Langfur - electric guitar (12), acoustic guitar (9), sitar (9, 10)
Gabriel Goldberg - drums (8, 11)
Marissa Balonon-Rosen - flute (3, 9)
Graham Patzner - violins (6, 7, 8, 9, 12), trumpet (6), backing vocals (8)
Aleksandra Shirah Dubov - vocals (13), backing vocals (8, 13) siren vocals (6)
Gracie Joo - vocals and backing vocals (13)
Sautarelle - Violins (13)
Charles Darius - trumpets (11)
Shannon Harney - backing vocals (9)
Aaron Glass - backing vocals (8)
Mark Sandusky - acoustic guitar (5)
Kendra Moriah - backing vocals (5)
K.C. Wassner - flute (14)
Leo Suarez - cello (1)
ChiffChaff, Nightingale, and Horsey - chirp, tweet, gallop (3)

In loving memory of Frankieman

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

I’d like to thank Joshua first and foremost for being my musical midwife and helping me extract this record and expand my limitations with his instrumentality, shepherding the rebel flock of my raw talents into the free-range pen of this refined finished product. Thank you Liran for jumpstarting this project with me—and for refusing to produce Shrimpimp if I didn’t promise to make a video for it. Thank you Travis Puntarelli for your help prototyping the compositions of Sirens and Halfway in their early stages and for being an embodiment of myth, music & magic (between naps and playing musical cars with the city’s parking spots). A big thank you for all the amazing musicians that freely (or in exchange for art & faery favors) lent their talents to this project—it reminds me that my expression is measured by the company I keep, which is to say if I am the punchline, y’all are the joke and without you I’m just a weird one-liner of DNA gone astray. I also want to thank my sweetheart Rachel for her patience and support—not to mention her creative input in regards to the layout of the album cover. Thank you, Aaron Holstein for letting us use and cut up your electronic samples; Joelle Wagner and Jeff Cravath, puppeteers of perspective, for your gifted eyes that were able to frame my image and hold it high enough for all the world to see. To Julian Bendaña, Gray Tolhurst, and Irish for letting us test the tunes on your ears whenever you passed through the studio (and to John Zaklikowski for letting me shoot some photos and video of the crystal-ballin' techno-mandalas in his studio). In a similar fashion, thank you Kate Willett and Ariella Robinson for your humorously versed reviews. Thank you Dirk Schwarzhoff for letting us use your Peruvian jungle audio as backdrop for the tale of the Lemur King. Thank you Matan, my brother from another mothership, for your critical and technical ear and your insightful feedback; Chris Greenchild for sending me the recyclable samples from the early/aging outlines of Genius. To Michael Garfield for your awesome reflections in your Reality Sandwich article. To Maarten Verhoeven for letting me use his Space Chimp. Thank you to The Convent Arts Collective and all its denizens of past present and future—especially Neeti for helping me make the kickstarter video. And of course thank you dear kickstarter supporters for making this dream a reality! Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe I still owe you a music video. Time to get back to work.

Album Art by The Ungoogleable Michaelangelo (www.voidandimagination.com)

2016 (c) Void&Imagination/KeyOfNow. All rights reserved, all wrongs reversed.

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Void Denizen Los Angeles, California

Void Denizen is an alter egomaniacal exploration of self through other, of cultural vs cosmic identity, and an effort to raise the dead. It is the brainchild of The Ungoogleable Michaelangelo.

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