2011’s Wicked Company/19th seating - Decimus 3 (Kellipah - 2011)

fireflies 
are 
magic

There's an illusion that it will carry on forever - you, me, us, all of it.  We know it won't, but illusions can serve us well sometimes; depends. If another piece of music is never acquired ever again, I'd still not get to hear all the great stuff surrounding me at this moment even once, and of course I'm only surrounded by great stuff, 'natch.  But I acquire regardless. The suspension of existential constraints persists and carries you, me, us, all of it forward. It’s most persuasively radiated – for me – in noise.

Songs possess fence posts, demarcations of beginning, middle and end.  Rusted Shut may not recognize that, but they’re the exception. More open-ended practices by contrast - improv, noise, drone, the collective whatsis of NNCK - suggest the road goes on forever. Arcs emerge of course, but tapping the stream at any point is as viable as being present at the start, if you can find it.  Private immersion in the illusory eternal loop of such whatis, I often find myself calmed, even when flaming. Tapping the stream designated by Pat Murano as that of Lord Decimus has enveloped me in unexpected washes of calm and wonder - like a nice, warm shower. As far as I can tell, there are eight Decimus releases currently available. I'm entranced by Decimus 3. Midday psych report writing, late night dishwasher unloading and staring out at the woods when visiting mom have all been deeply enhanced by the syrupy smears of Decimus 3. I have no idea how it compares with the other Decimi, even though a few have been downloaded from bandcamp, but I take them all to be of a piece.

So noise is the cosmos then. Decimus is noise. The cosmos is Decimus. Not the scorched earth analogue assail of Incapacitants kind of noise; more like a summer walkabout through a northeast woodlands of fx equipment and corroded sequencers. There are fireflies though, and as anyone who’s grown up in the rural northeast can tell you, fireflies are magic. At parts Decimus 3 chugs and wheezes like an old radiator, in other places synth washes drop in from the first Agitation Free record. There are even sections that approximate the ghostly marvel of Paavoharju.  How Pat Murano channels such magic out there in Red Hook is a wonder.  I imagine him during the predawn haze at the corner of Coffey and Ferris like an alchemist of old, toiling over a pot of herbs and garnishes. Decimus 3 is touching, powerful. It is love, live, life + 1. With this knowledge, illusory or no, I invite Decimus 3 as the 19^th seating of 2011’s Wicked Company.

You never spent a better $5 of discretionary income in your life

Can't stop, won't stop

Decimus at Facebook

David Keenan says, "Cut with enough wig to make it a trip."