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The Ex Nihilo Cycle

by Instar

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Sven B. Schreiber (sbs)
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Sven B. Schreiber (sbs) This album is double pleasure: On the one hand, there are the short stories written by Eden Kupermintz, recited by himself, which are quite interesting listening in itself, without any music. On the other hand, there are the dense and complex fusion/post-metal compositions, fitting seamlessly beneath the words. An ideal symbiosis. Moreover, Travis Orbin's drum work is splendid, as always. Favorite track: One Word At a Time.
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1.
We are fat with the waters of excess. Running a cool hand across my shoulder, I shudder not unpleasantly in the lukewarm breeze blowing from the ocean. It’s hard to even think that word, ocean. Gazing upon the rough, scarred skin of my hand, I remember the basin of cold water that had cooled it, not more than a few minutes ago. Those scars tell the story we are forcing ourselves to forget, a story whose verses, letters and songs claw at our throats like rivers of sand, pushing against the cliffs of our newly erected social structures. The ocean, here on Black IV, is the ocean of dreams. The water, oh the sweet, beautiful water which even now brings a shudder of ecstasy to the small of my back, is ice-cold, remembering its mountain source. The people of Black IV are much the same: timid, aloof, cold, easy going. Nearly ten years ago they invited us here, to stay. They have enough land, they said. They have enough water, they said. They would welcome us. And, as eager children, newcomers to the Heart’s embrace, we gladly accepted. But we grow fat with the waters of excess. I see my people’s eyes, I hear their well-disguised sighs. They miss the desert. Tempered within its horrible crucible, they know not what to do without it. Our terrible social muscles, the tendons and ligaments of family, tribe and Hold, move and coil beneath the skin we have sewn for ourselves. Clothed in Galactic customs, shrouded in their words which we have forced ourselves to don, we ache. We remember our home and we ache. We remember our suffering, we feel the rough maps of our scars, and we cry for return. But there is no return. Bow, they say. Drink deep of the water you have been given, they say. Rejoice, for we are the Sisterhood of Man, eternal, they say. And we murmur and nod our heads and drink deep of the water we have been given. But we grow fat on these, the waters of excess. And I’ve had enough.I reach across with my hand, firmly grasping the crimson sash, and fasten it across my breasts. Only then is the armor donned, by my closest guard. I smile faintly at her, brushing away that strand of hair I love so. With a tight expression, she harshly tightens the last strap. Yes. This is who we are; taut, harsh, scarred, leather, sand. Sand piling into the room, into the street below. “We are fat with the water of excess. It is time to bring the desert back”
2.
I thought I had smelled you and so, my heart reached out. But you weren’t there, just a trick of my scent. And so, my heart was left hanging out, stretching towards my surroundings, surveying. Intending. It found humanity and suddenly I was intensely aware of them. Humans. Like all of a sudden feeling the company of an animal in a forest clearing. Humans, gorgeous, supple, warm, alien humans all around me. Was it fear I felt? No, for once, no. It was just an awareness, a milky film of a feeling around the edges of my skin, the cool breeze slightly comforting my balmy palms. Nothing much, just that, a thin picking up of my heart beat, a murmuring of smiles, a coaxing of voices. A smattering of empathy. It seems as if the white blocks interspersed with green, now all alight with the triumphing blazon of day’s end, are all I’ve ever known. And I’m fine with that. So, my heart hanging outside of my body, I ride the bus. Buoyed softly up by the warm auras of my fellow passengers, it sits nestled in its own grove. I search for quickened breath, for sweaty palms, for the signs that usually come with these episodes. There is nothing. Instead, all I find is a curiosity, a quite different shade of emptiness. Now, the light is so bright, so clean, so agonizingly cleansing, that I flinch from the window. And back to the warmth of the people around. Yes, the people around me. That’s why I moved to this city. She sings to me. Why, I ask? She just smiles in return, supple leg brushing up against mine. Flaming orange now is the sun and the sky turns so pale I can see the rings. The flood of ships returning to the city fills me with pride. Look how far we’ve come! The white-wash walls of the buildings are silent. I walk her streets and sing. I sing so loudly that my lungs hurt. I sing so loudly that my ears ring. I sing so loudly so that her sister can hear me, on the other side of the sky, and know that I still love her, even when I’m in her sister’s embrace. Now I have been awakened by a choir of my peers! My heart undulates in the warmth of its nook, whispered alive by my fellow denizens. I laugh inwardly. For years now, yes it had been years hadn’t it, I had scorned them all. Bitter, dirty, loud, idiotic fellow prisoners. Scorn of my dream, bane of my hopes. I had come to the city to live and instead, I had found death. The death of the crowd. But now, by some miracle of an emotional physicality, I am open! I hear the noise of the ships going to the rings and I am filled with a strange pride. We have accomplished so much. This is it. Soon it will be day and, for the first time since I had come here, my city will become something different, the bright sister to my fear. I will love her, this time. I have loved her but it was complicated since I brought her so much pain. Often, when I had been drunk on my own rage, I walked her streets and wailed. I wailed so loudly that my lungs froze. I wailed so loudly that my heart died. I wailed so loudly that my bright sister would know I was looking for her, on the other side of the mind. Time to meet the sister. The knob is cold under my fingers. I turn it. But now the bus has stopped. It’s time to begin my new life. It’s time to finally enter the city. I pick up my things and head for the stairs. The handle near the door is cold under my fingers. I turn the handle and I’m in A Mari Usque Ad Mare. Her sister. I turn the handle and I’m in Cor Ad Cor Loquitur. My bright sister. And my heart is still surveying.
3.
See, with your eyes which are rapiers, the moons scattered among the stars. These stepping stones into forever softly speak our story. Oh, wondrous syllables, oh, unspeakable cadences, hear them echo in comfort across the spaces of my heart. We are alike two solar empires, vibrant, pulsing roads into the impossibility of space. The silk of our roads is the lifeblood of civilizations, the knowledge of languages, the limes of understanding. Lying in the darkness, they trade the smooth, ion-fueled markings of love. See, with your eyes which are sabers, the planets embedded between the stars. These stepping stones into forever softly unfold our hymn. Oh, sonorous letters, oh, mellifluous stanzas, catch them echo in joy across the star-charts of my mind. We are alike two intergalactic councils, lively, silent beacons anchored in the impossibility of space. The bells of our prayer are the humming of commerce, the manuscripts of wisdom, the borders of empathy. Shining in the darkness, they exchange the intangible, ion-fueled markings of love. See, with your eyes which are like épées, the only truth which shall escape the hunger of black holes; shall outlast the burning of fusion-stars; shall imbibe the sickness of forever engines; shall bind the passion of terran empires; the stepping stones into forever.
4.
One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it. One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear Than that from another. I can give not what men call love; But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not: The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something far From the sphere of our sorrow -Percy Shelley stinging gold swarms upon the spires silver chants the litanies the great bells are ringing with rose the lewd fat bells and a tall wind is dragging the sea with dream -E.E.Cummings
5.
She wears her boots one at a time but she is also made of stars and there is only so much contradiction my mind can take. However, I find that diving and swimming at the same time; an elixirious emotion that is both para and intra-dox; is both the banishment and the conjuration. She speaks alphabet one letter at a time but she is also the effervescent mist and there is only so much primal words my mind can speak. However, I find that dying and living at the same time; a panacea of feeling that is both extra and sub-mens; is both the sending away and the beckoning. She puts her coat on one button at a time but she is also the end and the beginning and there is only so much cosmic eons my mind can traverse. However, I find that asphyxiating and breathing at the same time; a hybrid of mentality that is both inside and outside chronology; is both the unfolding and the locking of my heart.
6.
This is the part they rarely tell you about. The memory of solar dominance, of life never in one place, still ran in my people’s blood. Or so I was told; no one was still alive that had set foot in one of the fabled cruisers our people used to make or that had gazed on stars from out of a body unchained by home-gravity. And that was the part they rarely tell you about: space travel operates on more than just three-axis. Most of the journey, at least as far as they eye could tell, was through time. You stepped on to a ship and away from your life. That first step, as the door hummed to a close behind you, that first step was a lifetime.I am a lantern awash in a storm and he is flotsam that I found with me in the stream. How can I hold on to him when he is adrift just as I am, when he has nothing to hold on to himself? Humanity is a chain. It is one tissue which feeds itself, extremities upon extremities that somehow, in the midst of groping hunger, feed each other. And space travel was sold to us, the people of Episcopal and a million-million other planets, like it was the great savior. The great release from the prison of community, the surgeon’s knife that would incise into the common flesh and free the individuals suffocating within. But, to me, it is no such thing. This is space for me: an impossible ocean that separates me from the life I knew, a life I had thrown away thinking it was too small. The irony is that at least the sailor on an endless ocean knows she has a goal, a beacon, a place to return to. I don’t have even that. But if I’m truly honest, and on this, the eve of my arrival, I would like to be, I was always lost. The problem with my old life, my lost life, wasn’t that it was too small. It was that it was too big. And we dreamed. Oh, how we dreamed and in dreaming wounded ourselves every time we woke up to gaze on our bluish sun. A people of fools, of faint-hearted saps wilting in wax towers. Or so it seems to me now. But when I was there, still a child, the memories were the sweet taste of dripping honey, the faint buzz of a stomach that had gorged itself. Until the ships came, the beautiful, blue, rune-inscribed ships. I thought I could escape my hunger. But nothing makes you more hungry than the stars. Now, the ship had decelerated enough so that I could make out individual stars out there, in the ocean. An ocean filled with stars, a deep heart for me to fill with starlight. The hunger is stronger than ever. The body besides me shifts and it has red hair, impossibly beautiful hair. In the corner of the room, I can hear my father’s hushed whispers as he speak of the mono-swords of the Late Crusaders. The wish-wish sound of my mother’s brush is his beat as she paints a purple scene of coronation. Thus, the cliche is all too real: the hunger was inside me. Forget the human tapestry, forget the organism which has no end, the body we call humanity. We are endless continuities, fragile repositories of liquid memory, songs, hope, fear and, most of all, longing. A longing for a home that isn’t there any more. A longing for a home that once was but is now separated from us by an empty ocean. A longing for a home that we carry with us and are thus incessantly reminded of its absence. The ship docks. The body wakes. My eyes open. I am alone.

about

Love Metal | Hate Fascism
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The Ex Nihilo Cycle is based off of Ex Nihilo, a science fiction story suite by Eden Kupermintz, and includes shortened versions of the various poems and short stories which are a part of it. The original work can be found here: bit.ly/2mZ8uvN.

credits

released September 15, 2017

All music written by Instar, which are:

Bass and Synths: Greg Greenberg
Guitars: Doug Van Bevers
Guitars: Nick Maini
Lyrics and Narration: Eden Kupermintz
Session drums: Travis Orbin

Guest sounds on Narrative Spire: Simon Handmaker
Guest choirs on One Word At A Time: Gabriel Lucas Gitin Riccio
Guest guitars on One Word At a Time: Brandon Wilson

Mixing & Mastering: Anthony DiGiacomo of Encircle

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Instar Austin, Texas

Narrative prog. Space synths. Star-death beats. Austin/Tel Aviv.

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