The Western Lands
The Western Lands, the western bank of the Nile: The frontier to a vast and inhospitable desert, today as in ancient times – but also, in Egyptian mythology, the Land of the Dead: A space open to be filled, just as William Burroughs work published in 1987, with meaning, an 'open book' in many ways, readable from all possible angles, strung together by an ambience which transcends the limitations of chronological 'storytelling': Juggling with atmospheres, real and unreal memories, and steeped in occult symbolism. The road which leads to the Western Lands, Burroughs tells us, "is devious and unpredictable. Today's easy passage may be tomorrow's death trap. […] To reach the Western Lands is to achieve freedom from fear."
Far more than an interpretation of Burroughs'
text, Tiago Sousa's "The Western Lands" retraces itself the journey
of an artist towards an unknown territory, aiming not at a 'conclusion', but
a transition: Just as Burroughs intersects the present with an hallucinatory
'beyond', subverting our common notion of 'reality', Tiago Sousa's seven compositions
draw upon both the noisy and the melodious, loose rhythms as well as hypnotic
repetitions, parallels of equal value which never converge to one simple truth,
one simple solution. It comes as no surprise, then, that "The Western
Lands" also marks the introduction of a second voice to Sousa's musical
spectrum – the guitar, new counterpart to the piano, the former protagonist
of his two earlier works ("Crepúsculo", 2006, and "Noite
/ Nuit", split with french artist SRX, 2007): From the frail harmonies
of "The Writer" and "The Valley", to the harsh and discordant
sounds of "Can any soul survive the searing fireball of an atomic blast",
the sinister melancholy of "The Road to Western Lands" – pieces
like "Waghdas", "Ka" and "Centipede's City"
always hold Sousa's work in an unsettling balance, never quite yielding to
either side, unfolding a wide musical landscape we as listeners can wander
in: A musical 'cut up', equally "devious and unpredictable", whose
lost part are for us to find: "The most obvious road is almost always
a fool's road."
Manuel Malzbender
All songs written and recorded by Tiago Sousa
based on the book with the same title by William S. Burroughs
Thanks to: friends and family, specially to Ritinha, Carlota and Christian
Free Download:
download/listen
at resting bell
CD-R
There are two different versions.
Restinge Bell version (limited to 50 copies);
Small paper sleeve homemade.
order
My version;
colored card sleeve homemade.
Order: tiagomacedosousa (at) gmail (dot) com
The Western Lands Photo Session
By my dearest friend Vera
Marmelo
