Hey Everyone,
Stickfigure is proud to present to you "Third Rail To Paradise" by Lid Emba. It will be released on Tuesday, February 26th as part of "Terminal Muse: Yellow" which is the third (and final) part of a trio of releases under the main title "Terminal Muse". The first one was "Red" and the second one was "Blue".
"Terminal Muse: Yellow" completes the trilogy of releases.
"I was about ten years old when I made my first recording. No drums. No guitars. No music. Instead, the family dog being hit by a car. An accidental preservation of an accident. I was playing with friends in someone’s front yard, our neighborhood being one of the few in a sprawling Floridian network of green lakes; skinny, winding roads fed by dead-end tributaries, sometimes paved, often dirt; and dense tracts of mossed cypress. The grass we were sprawled in abutted one of those roads.
Paddy, my mangy, clueless, and eternally happy mutt, was obstinately chasing cars as they zoomed by, something my friends and I would have done as well had we been dogs. I had a portable cassette recorder, an exotic technology back then, and happened to be taping some silliness when we heard the impact. Our heads whipped around. Paddy lay bloodied and torn. A sun-beamed sports car sat cockeyed, lightly vibrating. I ran out to the road; Paddy’s head lifted as he saw me. He tried to stand and walk, probably in shock, but fell and dragged himself with his front paws. His back legs were broken. My Dad appeared out of nowhere. He sped Paddy away in the backseat, ignoring the outraged driver.
We played the tape back, first hearing our chatter, then a few honks, skidding tires, and a smash smeared with popping glass. That afternoon I walked around the neighborhood playing the tape for anyone who would listen, including my Mother. I was fascinated and kept looping the horror. Only later, when moonlight replaced the heat of day, did the weight of the sudden, terrible violence descend and envelop me. Before we got the call that Paddy had died at the vet’s, the driver appeared at our door and asked my Dad to pay for his busted headlights. The tape disappeared long ago, but it plays permanently in my memory when triggered. The various musical/ psychic phases in my life have been signposted with recordings ever since; cassettes, vinyl, and CDs featuring this or that band, this or that genre, this or that high hope or doomed din. None has come close to approximating the irrational tangle of tones, emotions, movement, and superimposed auditory spirits narrated by that first tape.
Until I started doing Lid Emba.
Here we have Lid Emba’s fifth CD: the third and final installment of the Terminal Muse trilogy. The triad title came to me just before I began a year of treatment for hepatitis C (aside: the treatment worked, the hep C remains undetectable). In the midst of my dread, it occurred to me that the need to create art is akin to suffering from an incurable and excruciating affliction: the terminal muse.
This CD finishes the cycle. A new sequence is in order, perhaps dedicated to healing. Meanwhile, perhaps all of the trilogy’s tracks will blend to create a meta-dream manipulator and I’ll be able to travel back to those humid hours, repair Paddy’s legs, transfuse his lost blood, and watch him sail after other cars, impervious to metal and speed.
Full Disclosure
Lid Emba is Sean Moore, a regrettable master of isolation who has known and seen too much but still does what he must do." - Sean Moore
"In the first thirty seconds, it sounds like it’s one of those really experimental noise-for-the-sake-of-noise things that you might expect out of one of those weird Godspeed You! Black Emperor side projects. However, by the time it gets to the 0:45 mark, it takes a turn in the direction of Stereolab. And that’s when I realized that I like it. Bass guitar, organs, and drums. In a weird sort of way, it sounds like each of those things is completely independent of everything else. Somehow, though, when they’re all mashed together, it makes sense. In another way, about a minute later, I’m reminded a bit of The Sea and Cake. And that’s another reason to get excited about this. There’s another section between about 3:30 and about 5:00 that I don’t know what to make of, nor do I know what to compare it to. In part of it, the drum bit sounds like chop of helicopter blades, and that’s kinda strange. The rest of it is a different but not entirely unfamiliar thing." - Dlee / This Is That Song
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