4. Gordon Matta-Clark

UnReQuieted, the new dram pop excursion is rolling into the second act. Here's track 5 :

Like You Really Care  >  Really Wish I Could  >  Who Can Say?  >  My Father's Hat  >  Gordon Matta-Clark  >  Mar Y Cielo  >  Vibrations  >  This  >  You Know I Know  >  Who Can Blame Me?  >  Astray  >  Dear Mongolia  >  Mar y Cielo (reprise)

HERE'S THE FINAL VERSION :

Gordon Matta-Clark is the oldest song in this collection. I first became aware of land artists like Robert Smithson, James Turrell and Michael Heizer thanks to Zisso, my architectural thesis advisor. Gordon Matta Clark was sort of lumped in there. His most engaging works for me were his carving dizzying volumes into the thick fabric of derelict buildings. I didn’t really get deep into his work until later when I was working my first architecture job in NYC with Emilio Ambasz. 

It was during those few years there that I started meeting with Merritt after work, often with bottles of something and going up to the roof of his apartment. (It was going up one night that Merritt and I were held up at gunpoint in the vestibule of his building.) It’s a little hard to remember exactly how the songs of that time came to be written but I remember he’d just strum some and I would start singing something and that was pretty much it. If something caught I’d turn it over in my head walking around the city and we’d develop them little by little after hours. Many awful songs were left on the rooftop. This one we actually did a little demo (demo now, but then it seemed like a major 4-track production). I remember working on the last harmony vocals in my apartment in Brooklyn before the party the last night I lived in NYC.

This song is probably the only one on the album that doesn’t quite fit the UnReQuieted theme. No love lost, really. Perhaps just the destructive obsessive  love of one’s own dark self and paralyzing bad habits. More like ReQuieted. Just thought there should be something bouncier here. So I thought there was no connection until this morning when Heather discovered Laurie Anderson's 2015 album which included this : Three Ghosts  where she talks about his death at 35 from pancreatic cancer. 

I had thought of using GMC's Splitting for the cover art of UnReQuieted before knowing Laurie's take that it was about his parents' divorce. Duh.

The horns were arranged by Andrew. At the end of each chorus I wanted to have what we called a “miasma" letting the horns just play anything to try and show the release of the singer’s pent up soul out through the beautiful holes in his heart. 

Something nice here in our first run through :

Lyrics

You work on my life like Gordon Matta-Clark
you’ve taken this condemned old pile and cut into its heart
to reveal all the spaces and a clear view to the stars

I was folded up so tight no one could squeeze inside
but with a clip clip and a flouirsh, unfolding me so wide
you unreeled all the faces I swear I had to hide

You divined invisible lines
and forced me to concede that gravity isn’t what it used to be

You work on me with a solid patience
Now that I have found my footing
I'm lifting off of my foundations.

Between every room I built heavy walls
I layed down lathe and plaster and bricked up all the doors
to conceal, eliminate a straight shot to the core

Then you came in with chainsaws like Gordon Matta-Clark
cutting through linoleum, day breaks through the dark
and you peeled back the layers and I can feel the air is finally moving
Chainsaws all are singing:
 
You divined invisible lines
and forced me to concede that gravity isn’t what it used to be

You work on me with a solid patience
Now that I have found my footing
I'm lifting off of my foundations.

You work on me. Gordon Matta-Clark.

music and Lyrics by Humberto Cordero and Merritt Bucholz

Korey Charles : trumpet

Bruce Abbott : alto and soprano saxes

John Wolf : trombone

Dan Sullivan : baritone sax

Jim Snider : bass

Andrew : drums, percussion, guitar

Aaron : guitar

Emily Wade Adams : backing vox

Hum : vocals, keyboards

Recorded by Jon Evans at Brick Hill StudioMastered by Coast in Berkeley, CA

LISTEN TO THE WHOLE ALBUM : : : AND NOW AVAILABLE ON iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and all other music platforms.