6forty project

I repeat that in landscape arrangements alone is the physical nature susceptible of exaltation, and that, therefore, her susceptibility of improvement at this one point, was a mystery I had been unable to solve. My own thoughts on the subject had rested in the idea that the primitive intention of nature would have so arranged the earth’s surface as to have fulfilled at all points man’s sense of perfection in the beautiful, the sublime, or the picturesque; but that this primitive intention had been frustrated by the known geological disturbances–disturbances of form and color-grouping, in the correction or allaying of which lies the soul of art. The force of this idea was much weakened, however, by the necessity which it involved of considering the disturbances abnormal and unadapted to any purpose. It was Ellison who suggested that they were prognostic of death. He thus explained:–Admit the earthly immortality of man to have been the first intention. We have then the primitive arrangement of the earth’s surface adapted to his blissful estate, as not existent but designed. The disturbances were the preparations for his subsequently conceived deathful condition.

Edgar Allan Poe, The Landscape-Garden [The Domain Of Arnheim], from The Tales Of Edgar Allan Poe, ©1983 by Running Press

Please support the bands by buying their records and going to their shows. Click on each band name for more info. All of the songs on 640.073 were either offered as free downloads, or were purchased legitimately.

6forty on twitter    ::    6forty on facebook     ::     mike@6forty.com

Lilys – Tone Bender    [00:00]
Machines Learning – The Island In The Hills    [03:13]
Milwalkie – Milan    [08:17]
Pale Saints – Way The World Is    [12:02]
Pale Saints – You Tear The World In Two    [14:46]
Leaving Richmond – The Bird and the Submarine    [17:41]
Maya – Running Low    [23:25]
The Boo Radleys – Foster’s Van    [27:45]
93MillionMilesFromTheSun – Rachel’s Echo    [32:00]
Constants – Passenger    [39:14]
Tannhäuser – Godzilla    [43:00]
Tristeza – Auroura Borealis    [48:22]
Spoonfed Hybrid – Somehow Some Other Life    [53:08]
The Cherry Wave – Blush    [59:25]
Moose – Butterfly Collector    [63:21]
To Sail Beyond The Sun – Falling In Slow Motion    [66:29]

640.073 playlist.pdf

Here we all choose a different way and different rules to disobey.

Birds: Where are we?
There’s no understanding in this
Valley of Understanding.

Hoopoe: Here we must pay
close attention. We are following a
path. No one knows how long we
have to go forward or how far.

Do you know the story of the bird
who lost his way? And nobody
was looking for him?
He turned into stone…and cried.
He cried little pebbles…

If all the heavens with all their stars
exploded in this valley, they would
be but a leaf fluttering in the wind.
Here a tiny fish is mightier than
a whale and nobody can say why.

The astrologer bird traces all
the constellations and planets on
his tablet of sand.
Then the wind picks up and…
scatters his design to dust.

How solid is our world…
and yet it is nothing but grains
of sand.

The Conference of the Birds, ©2011 by Peter Sís, The Penguin Press

Thanks to Guillaume from Exilym for offering this song in advance of its release so it could be used to anchor this collection. Please be sure to follow Exilym on Facebook and Twitter.

6forty on twitter    ::    6forty on facebook    ::    mike@6forty.com

Exilym – Where Only Dust Remains    [00:00]
Swans – Warm    [06:56]
Líam – III    [11:32]
Flying Saucer Attack – The Sea    [18:54]
Mogwai – 1% Of Monster    [25:20]
Hood – The Fact That You Failed    [28:41]

gas002 playlist.pdf

Then suddenly, once again, the BFG went into that magical top gear of his. He began hurtling forward with phenomenal leaps. His speed was unbelievable. The landscape became blurred and again Sophie had to duck down out of the whistling gale to save her head from being blown off her shoulders. She crouched in the pocket and listened to the wind screaming past. It came knifing in through the tiny peep-hole in the pocket and whooshed around her like a hurricane.

But this time the BFG didn’t stay in top gear long. It seemed as though he had some barrier to cross, a vast mountain perhaps or an ocean or a great desert, but having crossed it, he once again slowed down to his normal gallop and Sophie was able to pop her head up and look out once more at the view.

She noticed immediately that they were now in an altogether paler country. The sun had disappeared above a film of vapour. The air was becoming cooler every minute. The land was flat and treeless and there seemed to be no colour in it at all.

Every minute, the mist became thicker. The air became colder still and everything became paler and paler until soon there was nothing but grey and white all around them. They were in a country of swirling mists and ghostly vapours. There was some sort of grass underfoot but it was not green. It was ashy grey. There was no sign of a living creature and no sound at all except for the soft thud of the BFG’s footsteps as he hurtled on through the fog.

Suddenly he stopped. ‘We is here at last!’ he announced. He bent down and lifted Sophie from his pocket and put her on the ground. She was still in her nightie and her feet were bare. She shivered and stared around her at the swirling mists and ghostly vapors.

‘Where are we?’ she asked.

‘We is in Dream Country,’ the BFG said. ‘This is where all dreams is beginning.’ **

Please support the bands by buying their records and going to their shows. Click on each band name for more info.

6forty on twitter    ::    6forty on facebook    ::    mike@6forty.com

Swirlies – Intro / San Cristobal De Las Casas    [00:00]
Dead Red Sun – Caverns    [04:18]
And So I Watch You From Afar – If It Ain’t Broke…Break It    [07:58]
Lost In The Riots – Sentinels    [14:20]
Machines Learning – Bulletproof Tiger    [19:10]
Stereolab – The Noise Of Carpet    [23:40]
Enemies – Coco Et Moi    [26:43]
Wiltz – Doin’-a-deh    [30:30]
Gastric Band – Dustin Binman    [33:38]
Listing Ships – All Aboard The Andrea Doria    [40:34]
Midnight Movies – Time Of Year    [46:40]
Tannhäuser – U-Matic    [51:54]
You.May.Die.In.The.Desert – Hands    [57:02]
Long Fin Killie – Yawning At Comets    [61:23]

640.070 playlist.pdf

** The BFG by Roald Dahl, Trumpet Club Special Edition/Scholastic, 1982

‘This last then I will say to you, thrall Morgoth,’ said Húrin, ‘and it comes not from the lore of the Eldar, but is put into my heart in this hour. You are not the Lord of Men, and shall not be, though all Arda and Menel fall in your dominion. Beyond the Circles of the World you shall not pursue those who refuse you.’

‘Beyond the Circles of the World I will not pursue them,’ said Morgoth. ‘For beyond the Circles of the World there is nothing. But within them they shall not escape me, until they enter into Nothing.’

‘You lie,’ said Húrin.

‘You shall see and you shall confess that I do not lie,’ said Morgoth. And taking Húrin back to Angband he set him in a chair of stone upon a high place of Thangorodrim, from which he could see afar the land of Hithlum in the west and the lands of Beleriand in the south. There he was bound by the power of Morgoth; and Morgoth standing beside him cursed him again and set his power upon him, so that he could not move from that place, not die, until Morgoth should release him.

‘Sit now there,’ said Morgoth, ‘and look out upon the lands where evil and despair shall come upon those whom you have delivered to me. For you have dared to mock me, and have questioned the power of Melkor, Master of the fates of Arda. Therefore with my eyes you shall see, and with my ears you shall hear, and nothing shall be hidden from you.’ *

Please support the bands by buying their records and going to their shows. Click on each band name for more info.

6forty on twitter    ::    6forty on facebook    ::    mike@6forty.com

Hualun – Beseiged City    [00:00]
Immovable Objects
– From Courage To Liberty   [05:45]
– From Liberty To Abundance   [13:05]
– From Abundance To Selfishness   [15:00]
Architecture Of The Universe – Scoprirsi Rosso   [17:05]
Ana Never – Half Way   [25:45]
Deck B – six Twenty   [30:31]
Coma Cloud – Dagu   [36:32]
Loraine – Jonathan Lou (1912)   [41:17]
Echotide – 3mwy (Of Hope)   [45:09]
The Sky Is – Cosmos   [50:45]
Barrows – Lost In The Woods   [55:31]
Low – Pissing   [61:45]
We Are Lockhart – Livre   [68:01]
Sleep Lady – I Wanted To Be A Penguin Forever   [72:22]
Lander Configurations – Nostalgic   [77:58]

640.069 playlist.pdf

* The Children of Húrin, J.R.R. Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien (ed.), published 17 April 2007, by HarperCollins in the UK and Canada, and by Houghton Mifflin in the US

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a High German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.

Please support the bands by buying their records and going to their shows. Click on each band name for more info.

6forty on twitter     ::     6forty on facebook     ::     mike@6forty.com

Sweek – A Dead Sleeping Forest   [00:00]
Giranice – Banako Zen   [10:06]
Frank Booth – How To Breathe Fire   [19:15]
Amp – Souvenir   [26:40]
Marriages – Ten Tiny Fingers   [34:00]
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra – Mountains Made Of Steam   [39:30]
Red Room Cinema – White Arrows   [48:46]
Canyons of Static – Drift   [57:48]
Appellative – Keys   [65:03]
The Nest Itself – From Peaks To Pittance   [70:07]
Ontario Plates – Gonzo   [73:30]
This Will Destroy You – I Believe In Your Victory   [78:25]

640.068 playlist.pdf

Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”  Published in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, 1820 [public domain]