On Zapo’s El Sueno Alpajarreno (Zapo De Ray, 2024)
The sound has been sent straight down from the mountain
A dream made from whirring, from pulse and from peace
And strange air, as if Zapo Zeppelined, in a ship of cloud
To watch over, soothing a scarred land with shadow,
And yet always behind these soft sigils are the signals
To heed: sound as flare. As this mountain dream manifests,
Creating a different world for our thinking, in which cry
And clatter shimmer as songs and ear dares,
As this aural animal moans, or weeps, or sings to us,
Sharing once more its dream vision, while darkly reflecting
And harmonized with nightmare. Dream Expansion is ghost,
Glimpsed in the day, galvanizing. Summoned by sound,
Wide-eyed, faceless, it swallows you, it consumes.
As if cloud were gas, a boneless form, sucking structure;
Burning you slyly as the sonic palette is painted by so many
Slo-mo fumes. Gnomic, knowing, electronica teaches,
Persuading you, from position into its unknown port
In space that Zapo’s music soundtracks, as a Black Hole’s
Soul finds its singer and you are emptied and transported
To this alien realm, this new place, where we are the Martians
Or those for whom there is no name to speak of,
And where Buzzin’ Trees blister, with a slide of soft strings
Shimmering. Suddenly we walk the roads Roeg prepared
So that they could be trespassed by Bowie, the man
Who fell to earth moving skywards, as each clouded
Chord starts to swing and usher us up, into evolution,
The stop-start aping progress for the angel-primate
Who pines for something greater perhaps,
Than a dark-eyed dream, or moon steaming,
As it too turns over and the vapour in vision
Makes everyone listening question time.
Zapo now lives in Spain, having exchanged
Both London and Scotland, and the beach
He sound-ballads in being tourist free, is sublime
As he plays glaciers, not made of ice but thick climate;
Comprising the steam of sand under sunlight,
Or the movement of weather wisps as they tumble
In an out of sight, light and mind. What could be
A haunted harmonica plays, and addled Larry Adler,
Or hope-stung Peter Hope Evans, both mouth organists
To the stars, while Gil’s guitar stutters on, and the sea
Starts its sifting, removing us as the fragments, not of gold,
But mud staining, for in blurring the beach humans scar.
And yet once passed, once sealed, the Dead
Supercede us; by becoming Other they get to
Truly refine what we are. And a pretty pop-synth line
Soon heals, if not the damage done then the suture,
As Zapo’s sonic future song makes the top ten in some
Alien chart, played as unimaginable beings recline
Star/sunbathe and loiter, sipping blood and plasma
Outside of a Lucas dreamt Den or Bar. El Sueno Alpajarreno
Is balm to what has been burnt in past albums. It reflects
The poise of its player, as he sits back now from the world
And anticipates more, drawn from the darkness
He can still see despite daylight; from mountain breasts,
Mind-milk lavas, and is a potion of sorts, a spell hurled
Across the abyss and into abandon. The Dead Live Above
The Living and once more astral country has a flag
Of sound that’s unfurled. No River in The Rambla concludes
And carouses with crickets. A heavy chord glistens,
As a Lonnie Smith line charts a course across myth
As mood, scored by alien insects and also peace, so long
Sought for, as Zapo epitomizes that force that Science Fiction
Translates, and Eno, Budd and Sylvian search for.
Along with Shulze, Froese, and Fennesz, as we Coppola-like
Attain drift, along a river of sky, or whatever it is space
Is made from, as distant clatter like climate, caused by
The distruption of life brings the gift of incident
And intent; of chance, fate and fortune; of good or worse
Dispositions, as we cling like leeches to the slow spun rock,
Spirits lift to become one with the air, that can longer
Be inhaled by the human. As the sounds elevate us,
We turn in time towards those who will speak to us
Through the tone, or through the type of song Zapped
Before us. Return from this Rambla to the origins
That you, living narrow would not even want God to show.
Skin separates. Sound begins stitching.
The Mountain masks dissolution.
Our life dissolves.
The truth grows.
David Erdos 2.2.24
ZAPO