01. Seastained
02. Red Morning
03. Socorro
04. Coba
05. US6
06. Carbon
07. Archer
08. Sound Vessel
ALBUM: Sound Vessel, Red Morning [ SPRING 2009 ] ________________________________________________________________
LINER NOTES
The overarching theme of this album is death.
'Sound Vessel' [as in a sturdy ship] refers to the ideal condition of a soul and 'Red Morning' is from the seafarer's adage, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning” So the question I ask with this album is, will my soul be a sound enough vessel to weather the storm of that final red morning of my life or simply fold back into the process unaware of the passage?
"With 'Sound Vessel',
Ross launches into his
most
deliberate, contemplative
music to date." —T.E. Knight
IN-STORE NOW
RELEASE DATE: 20MAR09
< Seastained (Kamen Ross on Piano) All that I see in the cardinal West
Is all that I found at land's end | Cat boat's sail shadow | Stretched to your port | Is all that I have left to send | And I'm waiting for
The Captain's call
This song is about that wanderlust felt before a journey. In Buddhism, the West represents movement toward enlightenment. In Ancient Egypt, the West was the cardinal direction in connection with death, though not always with a negative connotation. The Celts believed that beyond the western sea off the edges of all maps lay the Otherworld, or Afterlife. _________________________________________________________________
< Red Morning Today begins like yesterday | Don’t want it to go on | Seabird shouts as if to say, | 'You’ve got to carry on'
Red mornings are unending here | And reach before dawn | In the wake of this liquid year | I’ve got to carry on | Splintered masts tell the tales |
Of intrepid eons | Dreaming of my Lee-side girl | I’ve got to carry on
Once on a journey, after the excitement of the leaving and before the anticipation of the the arrival, comes a netherworld of doubt. This is where one's Dharma presents itself—one's righteous duty or virtuous path. A work ethic is achieved by a quiet self sacrifice of doing what you have to for as long as it takes to do it. _________________________________________________________________
< Socorro[Film Trailer]
Gun oil bleeds into the sand
Blue steel sizzles in my hand | Cracked Earth crumbles beneath my feet | Caked-on regret won't retreat | Toward the sun I must go | Runaway from tomorrow | Gun oil bleeds into the sand | Blue steel sizzles in my hand
This song and it's film offshoot are the result of one single tremolo guitar riff. It's a testament to the power of six strings, six notes and a 9 volt battery-powered tremolo effects pedal. It's (song & film) about the intrigue, drama and consequences that a single death [thankfully] still has on a population. _________________________________________________________________
While shooting scenes for "The Unveiling" at the pyramids of Coba, Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula, I had a fascinating, albeit translated, conversation with a local Mayan descendant named Samuu Carche about how common the belief is there that the Mayan king Pacal Votan was an extraterrestrial. Paleocontact theory has been an obsession of mine since I was a young boy and I believe part of the unveiling that 2012 will be is along these lines. _________________________________________________________________
< US 6 I chase a line red horizon
Drive 'til that line bleeds to night
I know that I’m on a lifeline
Drive 'til that line bleeds tonight
"Route 6 runs uncertainly from nowhere to nowhere, scarcely to be followed
from
one end to the other, except by some devoted eccentric." — George R. Stewart
For me, the story and map of US Highway 6 is a metaphor for life in that,
one can still get lost even while traveling in the exact right direction. _________________________________________________________________
< Carbon All I see, all I feel
All I have, all I give
All I see, all I feel All I have, all I give
All we are, all we have
Although it is our core element, Carbon is much maligned. We protest it, tax it,
demonize it yet crave it... a lot like sex. This is a love song to Carbon. It is a reclamation of ourselves and acknowledgement that it is not the Carbon that is destroying us, but our misuse of it's power. Like sex pollutes sensuality. This is also a meditation on the Tibetan Sidpa Bardo or "bardo of rebirth", which features karmically impelled and often sensual hallucinations which result in rebirth. _________________________________________________________________
< Archer(A Deist Hymn) Men of cloth their hands of snakestone
Temple templates for the Soul | But Truth is quiet and it’s pointed | Like an Archer’s Arrow | Deny the flesh then told it’s sacred | Is our most intimate treason | Those most sure are those most frightened | The miracle is Reason | No one knows what’s going on here | Embrace the elegant sorrow | Truth is quiet and it’s pointed | Like an Archer’s Arrow
Deism is a category of belief that assumes the probable existence of a higher power based on reason, nature and experience. This is a protest song against historical religions that have made humanity ashamed of their most basic nature in order to control through fear of a hell invented by these same men. _________________________________________________________________
< Sound Vessel ....[Instrumental]
Although instrumental, this song sums up the moment. The Red Morning of mortality. It calls up the imagery I suspect during the 1st state of the Tibetan Chikhai Bardo or "bardo of the moment of death", which features the experience of the "clear light of reality", or at least the nearest approximation of which one is spiritually capable. And the Chonyid Bardo or "bardo of the experiencing of reality", which features the experience of visions of various Buddha forms. _________________________________________________________________
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