urbane, to comfort them

'The Present', the eighth movement of Ben Goldberg's Orphic Machine, is one of my favorite songs of all time. it succeeds at something both pivotal in art and rare in music, which is to alienate the viewer such that they grow hungry, and in that hunger for meaning find a reflection of themselves. mourn for the things you will lose, and live to minimize the function of that mourning. its subject matter is orphic in nature, but as a song I think it does not dwell in catabasis — it is not descending, but recognizing where we already are, the knowing-was-never-ours-to-have of our trajectory, nadir or zenith, as a place to explore, a place to feel. "The function of poetry is to obtain for everybody one kind of success at the limits of the autonomy of the will."

and Carla Kihlstedt on the melody, violin and vocals! ron miles on the trumpet! the best 10 minutes spent.