In the field of Power Electronics and related genres, Thomas Garrison’s CONTROL project exemplifies the upper echelon in terms of sound, quality of output, and respect. In August 2021, Thomas was diagnosed with Stage 2 Prostate Cancer. Anyone familiar with the state of the US healthcare system knows that any serious illness is massively expensive. Although a charity drive was launched immediately by our mutual friend Marcus LaBonté (Cloister Recordings), donations have predictable waned. Thankfully, due to the aforementioned respect, many of Thomas’ peers were ready to show their support, not just monetarily, but also by creating exclusive tracks for this compilation.
This is not music full of sweetness and light. The artists here have not shied away from expressing negative feelings related to Thomas’ situation, or echoing their own experiences with other loved ones who have had to bear similar burdens. But this makes perfect sense while showing support, admiration, and love for a peer who unflinchingly exorcises his own demons on record and stage.
In case you missed it, the full High Strange album is streaming now. Also the LP and Cassette are available and ship within four days. Listen or order over here on Bandcamp.
For those of you that didn’t buy the LP version, here are the full lyrics and credits. Enjoy. -Jonathan
A1 | Descend and You May See
Indra from above Where are you daughter where? (You’ve) lost your way my child Beware or you shall sink
She followed from the heights A ray of lightning down Noble father Indra What realms do I behold? Behind you lies the second The third is where you stand The circle of The Earth Mark the seventh house
Libra it is called Day star in the hour Fall gives equal weight To night and the day Indra named The Earth Is that the ponderous world? Dark, that from the moon Must it take it’s light
Heavier of spheres Of all that travel space Downward set my glance What is it that you see? Beauty, forests green And the waters blue Peaks topped with white Yellow fields below
(It) once had all the beauty (As) all that Brahma made Then fell a mishap (The) orbit was disturbed Rebellion led to crime What race dwelleth there? See them for yourself (Their) speech no happy ring
Descend and you may see Return and tell me all Do their moans and wailings Hold some reasoned ground?
A2 | Black Hands
I can tell you what is harder than all drudging and keeping awake nights Harder to bear than draught and cold and dampness It is to receive the confidences of all the unhappy people up there They all come to me – Why? Perhaps they read in the wrinkles of my face some runes that are engraved by suffering, and that invite confessions In that shawl, lie hidden thirty years of my own and other people’s agonies It is heavy, and it burns like nettles
Look at these walls Does it not look as if the wall-paper itself had been soiled by every conceivable sin? Look at these documents into which I write tales of wrong Look at myself – No smiling man ever comes here Nothing is to be seen here but angry glances, snarling lips, clenched fists And everybody pours his anger, his envy, his suspicions, upon me Look‚ my hands are black, and no washing will clean them See how they are chapped and bleeding I can never wear my clothes more than a few days because they smell of other people’s crimes At times I have the place fumigated with sulphur, but it does not help I sleep nearby, and I dream of nothing but crimes Just now I have a murder case in court I can stand that, but do you know what is worse than anything else? That is to separate married people Then it is as if something cried way down in the earth, and up there in the sky As if it cried treason against the primal force Against the source of all good Against love
But the tortures, the sufferings‚ these I have to bear See how I look Do you think I could ever win a woman’s love with this countenance so like a criminal’s? Do you think anybody dares to be friendly with me Who has to collect all the debts All the money obligations of the whole city?
It is a misery to be man
Men are to be pitied
A3 | Foulstrand
Oh Lord have mercy upon us Save us for thy mercy’s sake Lord deliver us from thy wrath Have mercy upon us! Hear us! Have pity upon the mortals Out of the depths we call unto thee Make not our burden too heavy Have mercy upon us! Hear us!
Tears that men are weeping What more do you hear? Sighing, whining, wailing Nothing to rejoice
Woe upon us all Let us forestall hate Life of common suffering We are born in pain This is no Fairhaven This is Foulstrand Bleak domain of sickness We have lost our way Life of constant torture Affliction deep within God’s tormented creatures Why do we exist? World of contradictions Where we rot away We have been forsaken Left here to decay
Behold what has become of her Children, drudgery, hunger Beauty has perished, joy vanished If you keep silent, they cry speak When you speak, they shut you up (By) smashing out all your teeth I will tell there is no justice They cheer as we rot in hell
Short lived is our joy Forty days and nights Rather drown than live here Among these blackened hills
I cannot be content When I see your pain I am imprisoned here Forty days and nights Will that soothe your torment Pity on us all The everlasting one Hear our mournful plea Men are to be pitied (I) could now wish to die Seed of disaster Devours peace like fire The coming end destroys Our joy from the start Let us die together End this evil life
This is no Fairhaven This is Foulstrand
B1 | Evil is Life
Born beneath the clouds of heaven Driven we were by the lightnings of Indra Down to the sand-covered earth Straw from the harvested fields soiled our feet Dust from the high-roads Smoke from the cities Foul-smelling breaths Fumes from cellars and kitchens All we endured Then to the open sea we fled Filling our lungs with air Shaking our wings And laving our feet
Indra, Lord of the Heavens Hear us Hear our sighing Unclean is the earth Evil is life Neither good nor bad Can men be deemed As they can, they live One day at a time Sons of dust Through dust they journey Born out of dust To dust they return Given they were, for trudging Feet, not wings for flying Dusty they grow Lies the fault then with them Or with Thee? We, winds that wander We, the air’s offspring Bear with us men’s lament Heard us you have During gloom-filled Fall nights In chimneys and pipes In key-holes and door cracks When the rain wept on the roof Heard us you have In the snowclad pine woods Midst wintry gloom Heard us you have Crooning and moaning In ropes and rigging On the high-heaving sea
It was we, the winds Offspring of the air Who learned how to grieve Within human breasts Through which we passed In sickrooms On battlefields But mostly where the newborn Whimpered and wailed At the pain of living We, we, the winds We are whining and whistling: Woe! Woe! Woe! We, we waves, That are rocking the winds To rest Green cradles, we waves Wet are we, and salty Leap like flames of fire Wet flames are we Burning, extinguishing Cleansing, replenishing Bearing, engendering We, we waves That are rocking the winds To rest
B2 | The Final Complaint / The Parting Hour
We are born in anguish Torture mother’s heart Life must you awaken (To) light you must be born With a cry of anger (We) go into this life Why are we like beasts then? Not a race divine Barely even human Clothed in filth and blood Journey of man begins Over road of thorns Forbid the beaten path Every step brings pain Sorrow gladdens no one Only springs yet more
Thus you journey til you die And your death brings others bread
Who walks upon the waters? White light shines from him It is the crucified With him comes our doom The sea is now rising Darkness closing in The storm is ever growing Wrath of the dead Christ Fear of the redeemer Crying as they die Winter sun now shines down Shadows on the snow Troop of soldiers marching They have reached the cross Shadows swallow sun’s fire Darkness now descends
Your child cries for you Pain is in my breast (This) anguish, what is it? It is called remorse Each neglected duty Pleasure innocent Suffering inflicted Upon fellow man
Your child suffers because it misses you‚ can you bear to know that a human being is suffering for your sake? Now strife has entered my soul. It is rent in two, and the halves are being pulled in opposite directions. Such, you know, are life’s little discords.
If you could only know how I have spread sorrow and ruin around me by the exercise of my calling‚ and note that I say calling, which carries with it the highest duty of all‚ then you would not even touch my hand.
I am cast off by God and persecuted by man; I am deserted by the government, and scorned by my colleagues. How am I to believe when nobody else believes? How am I to defend a god that does not defend his own?
Do you know what it is? A martyrology. A calendar with a martyr for each day of the year. Yes, one that has been tortured and killed on account of his faith. Tell me why? Do you think that all who are tortured suffer, and that all who are killed feel pain?
Suffering is said to be salvation, and death a liberation.
The parting hour has come, the end draws near And now farewell, thou dreaming child of man Thou singer, who alone knows how to live When from thy winged flight above the earth At times thou sweepest downward to the dust It is to touch it only, not to stay And as I go—how, in the parting hour As one must leave for e’er a friend, a place The heart with longing swells for what one loves And with regret for all wherein one failed O, now the pangs of life in all their force I feel: I know at last the lot of man Regretfully one views what once was scorned For sins one never sinned remorse is felt To stay one craves, but equally to leave As if to horses tied that pull apart One’s heart is split in twain, one’s feelings rent By indecision, contrast, and discord Farewell To all thy fellow-men make known Where I go I shall forget them not And in thy name their grievance shall be placed before the throne
Farewell
Credits:
All lyrics were adapted from August Strindberg’s “A Dream Play,” which was translated by Edwin Björkman.
“Black Hands” and “Evil is Life” are taken almost verbatim from the play. The other song lyrics I mutilated into place, and added to.
I am very sorry August. -JC
High Strange: Conor Hickey – Guitar Jonathan Canady – Vocals, Electronics Joe Branciforte – Drums Jay Newman – Bass, Moog, Apprehension Engine
Cover: “Monk Meditating near a Ruin by Moonlight” by Frederik Marinus Kruseman, 1862 – Thank you Rijksmuseum Logo: Daniel Mirro and JC | Design: JC
Written and Recorded by High Strange 2020-2021 Mastered By Rich Tapper
Here’s a clip from my new video art piece “A Call of Love.” It was edited by my good friend and long time collaborator Isaac Williams. The music is an unreleased track from the 1997 Hollow Earth sessions (myself and Michael J.V. Hensley from Blood Box / Yen Pox).
The full video is 10 minutes long and NSFW. It will not be available online, but I am open to serious screening offers. Please email me at vergeoflight at gmail to discuss.
You can check out another streaming track from the upcoming High Strange album (me on vocals), and read an interview with Conor and Jay over at No Echo…
Lyrically based on August Strindberg’s “A Dream Play” HIGH STRANGE infuses their dark heaviness with a surrealistic edge. “Woe Upon Man” is a depraved cacophony of metal and noise primitivism, injecting blasts of fetid doom with mangled thrash. Massive slabs of rotted noise and low-end rumble into a seething mass of claustrophobic horror, creating a diverse and mind-blowing avant-heaviness.
releases July 16, 2021
Members:
Jonathan Canady: vocals, electronics Jay Newman (Unearthly Trance / Abandoner / Staffsmen): bass, moog, apprehension engine Conor Hickey (Brain Slug / Born Sinner): guitar Joe Branciforte (Carnivore A.D. / All Out War): drums
Derrick Spotts and I have a new(ish) noise project called Destructivist coming soon on Hospital Productions. The first link below is an audio-only YouTube vid which will give you a sense of what it sounds like (but was recorded before the Destructivist sessions).
The other two links are to the Hospital pre-orders (special edition and regular version).
This album is a collaboration between my old project Angel of Decay and Abandoner (Jay and Ryan from Unearthly Trance) that came out on CD-R in 2009. It is available now to stream / purchase on Bandcamp for the first time. “Ghostspeak” is honestly one of the best recordings I’ve ever been a part of. Make sure to check out Jay’s other excellent projects on that same bandcamp page.
malsonus.com 