Daniel Higgs - Metempsychotic Melodies
April 12 2008 at 10:30:22 PM
Hardly a word that can be used to describe the music of Arcus Incus Ululat alias Daniel Higgs is not already verbalized by the man himself outside the scales of his slender, serpentine lays. Fresh from the wailing colors and star-singed gown of his previous outing, Atomic Yggsdrasil, Higgs returns to sing of love as the holy union, sensual and other, between man and creation. A love without purpose, reason or reward; love for love’s sake, so the sages and poets remind us.
Higgs’ own poetry welcomes awe in the presence of hands thrumming knots from the mouths of banjos – still rustic, yet regal in their own unique way. Presented through melodies puzzled globally, from American country to the streets of Asia and outer space, the verses tell of skulls, crucifixion and sexual organs; contradictions of beetles, basilisks and doves; three-headed beasts, moaning rainbows and minds caving in. The words are howled in maddening distention, some rolling on through iridescent vibrations plucked and sparked like the flickering tongue and burning tail of a falling candle, or else trapped in the lunar shades of his furrowed beard. And all so intimate you can hear him swallow in the interval. For all its portentous bowing of the strings, Metempsyhcotic Melodies sounds like nothing so much as a cosmic wedding and Higgs a kind of Gnostic priest of the order of dust and dreams; a troubadour joyous before the zodiac, who imparts but small particles of his blissfully insane mind. Know that state and abide within.
[Todd DePalma]
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