Exquisite Corpse – Reassembling Reality

This EP is a bit of a highlight of early 90s ambientish techno for me. I think it is called reassembling reality because Anxiety combines two other XCOR tracks, X-out and Time flies sitting in a tree, both excellent (deceptively simple) in their own right. I X-out/Anxiety being played at techno parties in the mid 90s, including Birmingham Que club (Oscillate). It is a thing to behold and not easily forgotten when heard at room shaking volume.

If you want a louder version of Honeymoon, get one of the En-Trance compilations. This release is on the low end when it comes to volume mastering unfortunately.

Anxiety takes its name from a part of the words in which the narrator is anxious to learn the mysteries of nature. Why it was named Honeymoon on a compilation is unknown, but it is the track. The other tracks are good, yet that one is in a league of its own.
The text is a patchwork of excerpts from traditional Native American texts and books about their culture. Inspiring stuff, as close to nature as one would expect from the Warriors Ov Gaia.

I now place my feet upon the Earth. With great happiness, I walk upon the sacred Earth, our Mother. May the generations to come also walk in this sacred manner!

The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, Joseph Epes Brown

Everything the power of the world does is done in a circle. The sky is round and I [...] heard that the Earth is round like a ball and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing and always come back again to where they were.
The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.

The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, Joseph Epes Brown

It was good for the skin to touch the Earth. And the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred Earth

Oglala Sioux, Chief Luther Standing Bear

The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing.

Oglala Sioux, Chief Luther Standing Bear

[...]the old Lakota was wise. He knew that the man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard, he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too. So he kept his [youth] close to nature’s softening influence.

Oglala Sioux, Chief Luther Standing Bear

"Guard your tongue in youth," said the old chief, [...] "and in age you may mature a thought that will be of service to your people!"

The Soul of an Indian, Ohiyesa

Training began with children who were taught to sit still and enjoy it. They were taught to use their organs of smell, to look where there was apparently nothing to see, and to listen intently when all seemingly was quiet.

Oglala Sioux, Chief Luther Standing Bear

My father went on talking to me in a low voice. That is how our people always talk to their children, so low and quiet, the child thinks he is dreaming. But he never forgets.

Recollection of Papago woman Maria Chona, in Pieces of White Shell: A Journey to Navajoland, Terry Tempest Williams

When I was ten years of age I looked at the land and the rivers, the sky above, and the animals around me and could not fail to realise that they were made by some great power. I was so anxious to understand this power that I questioned the trees and the bushes. It seemed as though the flowers were staring at me, and I wanted to ask them "Who made you?" I looked at the moss-covered stones; some of them seemed to have the features of a man, but they could not answer me. Then I dreamed a dream.

Brave Buffalo describes his dream of the sacred stone, in Touch the Earth -- A Self-Portrait of Indian Existence, T.C. McLuhan

I dreamed that I was in the mountains and fell asleep in the shade of a tree. Something shook my blanket. It was a buffalo, who said, "Rise and follow me."
I obeyed. He took a path, and I followed. The path was above the ground. We did not touch the Earth.

Brave Buffalo tells of his first dream, from which he received his name, in Teton Sioux Music and Culture, s Densmore

When a man shuts his eyes, he sees a great deal. He then enters his own mind, and things become clear to him, but objects ing before his eyes would distract him. For that reason, a dreamer makes known his request through what he sees when his eyes are closed. It has long been his intention to make his request to Wakan Tanka. And he resolves to seek seclusion on the top of a bute or other high place. When at last he goes there and closes his eyes, and his mind is upon Wakan Tanka and his work. The man [...]

Teton Sioux Music and Culture, s Densmore

This is a superb EP, or perhaps a mini album of sorts. None of this material appears elsewhere as far as I know. Subtle, quiet yet danceable tracks that build and weave. The opener is, in my view a total ambient techno classic. Soft but 'large' crashes, like rocks coming together or a huge door punctuate a rhythm that develops a great hook. This is fairly understated head nodding material but with that early nineties aesthetic that seems so lost today. One of those long term favourites that gets dug out every so often for a bit of a boogey! Long live the EC.

I have heard a million TechnoTranceElectronirogressiveIdmEbmHouseAmbientElectroHipHopReggaeDubFreestyle tracks in my life and 'Honeymoon' stands out for it's hypnotic thoughtfulness by a country mile. Let it creep up on you in the dark and you, like me, will never forget it. Slow....Quiet, the Child thinks he is dreaming, but he Never forgets! If you,like me, appreciate quality sounds then I suggest you look to the right of this screen and if there is copies for sale, Buy them all!

"Honeymoon", known from the first "En-Trance" compilation on North South, is THE track here - a truly trance-inducing and extremely trippy track based on a simple piano motif, melancholic pads, a stumbling beat and some bloke talking about god-knows-what about 10.000 miles in the background. A techno version of Twin Peaks - eerie, abstract and incredibly good.