The God of Gradual Abdication

Released at September 24, 2012

Release date:

September 24, 2012

Length:

5:27

Status:

Official

Lyrics

Late in the day he begins to distrust absolute knowledge, the absolute power once conferred on him. He has borne that burdon too long. The more he thinks, the lighter he becomes. At times he dreams of becoming so light that he can soar up to play with clouds. At times he dreams of shedding his large body and lying down to rest on a lotus leaf. He has understood that he can never reinvent the history of mankind. Never reverse it, never adjust it, never rectify. But he can show us unwavering love, and he can teach us to show love towards one another. He is a god, not a potentate. He would love us, not judge us. He sees that we need forgiveness. He wishes to convert us to ourselves. If we are guilty, he feels guilt for us. He knows. He has been through wars sieges bombings trenches nuclear fallout. Yet he continues to love us, and have faith. His greatest fear is a world where the grass grows without history, without us. He has come to prevent this. He is so happy and so unhappy. He walks in exile among men. He lets himself be dispersed into creation. He remains.

Uncommon Deities poem (Punkt 2011) on music by Jan Bang and Erik Honoré.

Music by Bang, Honoré, Endresen
Poem by Paal-Helge Haugen

Poems by Paal-Helge Haugen and Nils Chr. Moe-Repstad

The CD release of Uncommon Deities isnÂt a document of the installation, but a reinvention: the poems and Sylvian’s readings are placed in new settings by Jan Bang and Erik Honoré. The cofounders of the Punkt festival and close collaborators on the original installation, Bang and Honoré draw on new performances by the deeply sympathetic trumpeter Arve Henriksen and the startling, elemental singer Sidsel
Endresen. These improvisations join live material captured at last year’s Punkt events, in a production that’s spacious and atmospheric, somber and escapist, light-hearted and steeped in history – a recording as rich as the ancestry of the work that inspired it.

John Tilbury – piano
Jan Bang – samples part 2
Erik Honoré – samples part 1
Dai Fujikura – strings, strings samples performed by Zilliacus, Persson, Raitinen and Dornbusch
Arve Henriksen – trumpet
Sidsel Endresen – vocals
David Sylvian – voice

Henriksen, Endresen and Tilbury recorded live at Punkt 2011, Kristiansand.