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harold budd

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    © 2016 by Kaizen Artists

    By the Dawn's Early Light

    Boy about 10

    Tattered Lee’s overalls and brown shoes

    turned up at the toes

    Winchester pump action .22

    scarred by chaparral

    Stinking dead horse alive with flies

    Rusting hulk of 35 roadster

    Running in circles firing

    Breathless

    Running more

    Down the slopes to the meadow

    Absolutely exhausted, delirious

    Ass hits hard ground

    Gets cut crossing the barbed-wire fence

    Chased by the corpse at the shooting gallery

    Circle some more

    Merry-go-round

    The painting

    A child with a lion in a sylvan field

    Fat boosters throwing rocks at the rattlesnake

    Dervish dance

    Xylophones rattle as the snake whirls

    then slows to stupid circling

     

    April 1990

    I wrote the poems ‘Aztec Hotel’ and ‘Boy About 10’ within days of each other in April 1990. That is to say I simply wrote them – as I did all the others – with no particular purpose in mind at all. But for some reason ‘Boy About 10’ stuck very close to me; it insinuated itself on my consciousness. Aside from it being a hazy mirror of personal history, it seemed to arc across a simple check-list of circumstances and root into something fundamental. It wanted to generate something else but I couldn’t see or hear what that would be.

     

    That same month, in Tokyo, Ray Hearn took me to an artbook store in Roppongi where I just happened to thumb through Sandro Chia’s Ninety Thorns In The Wind. In an instant everything was clear. The only thing left to do was get to work. I had casually come across the photo of Santiago McKinn perhaps twice in the past decade or so. The last time I saw it, in a news article when it was sold, I knew it wouldn’t go away again.

     

    Harold Budd

    Album notes from original release

     

     

    Tracklist

     

    1  Poem: Aztec Hotel

    2  Boy About Ten

    3  Arcadia

    4  Dead Horse Alive With Flies

    5  The Photo Of Santiago McKinn

    6  The Corpse At The Shooting Gallery

    7  Albion Farewell

    (Homage To Delius, For Gavin Bryars)

    8  Poem: Distant Lights Of Olancha Recede

    9  Down The Slopes To The Meadow

    (For Ruben Garcia)

    10 She Dances By The Light Of The Silvery Moon

    11  Blind Bird

    12  Saint's Name Spoken

    13  The Place Of Dead Roads

    14  A Child In A Sylvan Field

     

    Poems

    15  Boy About

    16  Wings

    17  No Name

    18  Advent

     

    Harold Budd: Piano, Hammond B3, Synthesizer, Vocal

    Bill Nelson: Acoustic and Electric Guitars

    B.J. Cole: Pedal Steel Guitar

    Mabel Wong: Viola

    Susan Allen: Harp

    All compositions by Harold Budd, except “The Place Of Dead Roads” by Harold Budd and Bill Nelson. “The Place of Dead Roads” refers to the novel by William S. Burroughs.

    Published by Toyon Music, administered by

    Universal Music Publishing

    Recorded and mixed at Kingsway USA Recording Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana from March 15 – April 4, 1991. Special thanks to Daniel Lanois, Mark Howard and Karen Brady. Mastered at Precision Mastering, Los Angeles, California. My Personal and most sincere gratitude to Melanie

    Ciccone and to Kevin Laffrey.

    Original front cover photography (ruined

    polaroid) by Harold Budd

    Original sleeve design by Tom Recchion

    “The Captive White Boy, Santiago McKinn” –

    anonymous, 1886. We gratefully acknowledge

    permission for use from the Tokyo Fuji Art

    Museum. Particular thanks to Mr. Stephen White, Los Angeles, whose help has been invaluable

    1991