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Index discographique
0739
0741
Tracks:
Feathered Drums (3'28"), Point Judith (4'09"), I Knew You Would Leave (10'14"), Can I See Your Clock (2'50"), Wild Strawberries (6'00"), Forgive Me (3'57"), Hilltop Serenade (5'22"), You're The Best One (2'59"), Delinquent Words (3'42")
Première énigme : le titre. Fait-il référence au format photographique 6X6 - ou aux douze apôtres (6+6), ou à ‘nothing special’, ou à ‘we don’t know’ ? Deuxième énigme : la pochette. Le noir et blanc est sobre, et le visage de celui qui est censé appartenir à Jandek est trafiqué : les pupilles sont manifestement retouchées, ce qui a pour effet que le regard semble figé, légèrement menaçant et presque interrogateur. Avec tout çà, il ne faudra pas s’attendre à du divertissement.
‘Six and six’, c’est une guitare acoustique + une voix. A cela peut-être faut-il ajouter une ambiance sonore que je qualifierais de minérale - comme si la prise de son avait été effectuée depuis un vaste espace nocturne entouré de murailles de pierres - avec, donc, un léger effet d’écho. L’atmosphère semble en tout cas à la fois confinée, et ouverte vers le haut (le ciel et les étoiles reviennent souvent dans les textes). C’est aussi neuf mélopées quasiment atonales, et dont la structure échappe à la logique - accompagnées tantôt d’accords, tantôt d’arpèges tout aussi illogiques (du moins, au regard des canons de la musique occidentale). Peut-être pourrait-on dire que ‘Six and six’ est l’album le plus oriental de Jandek. L’un de ceux, en tout cas, où s’exprime le mieux cette forme de minimalisme hypnotique - et qu’on retrouvera plus tard, dans le tout récent ‘The gone wait’ (2003). Pour ma part, j’écoute ‘Six and six’, comme je lirais un vieux grimoire jauni - hors d’âge. Et je ne puis m’empêcher d’être saisi par l’émotion lorsque la voix - blanche, comme sortie d’une gorge qu’on étrangle - s’élève, et avec frayeur lance dans la nuit : ‘Crazy lights...crazy fights...’. Ou lorsque, dans un registre moins dramatique, mais plus profondément halluciné peut-être, elle s’inquiète dans ce presque shakespearien : ‘Ah, my hand - it burns’. Ce qui peut paraître extraordinairement dérangeant dans cet album, c’est qu’on a le sentiment que ces moments sont vécus en direct - sans médiation, et que oui : sa main brûle - et le ciel noir est empli de lumières et de combats terrifiants. A écouter dans l’obscurité, et dans un état proche du demi-sommeil : 'a journey to the stars'. (Phasme)

 

 

Feathered Drums
Thanks for all the thoughts
Came rolling in on feathered drums
I’ve been in jail before
Been let out too
Oh I am sure of where I am
Clouds came floating by
Have to hide something away
It’s what I’ve done
Print (?) you this, what comes I feel
Oh universe, oh beyond everything to never end
Oh back, oh wheel and tumble
Morning sights and streets of wheat
Oh fanciful and teeming waves
Oh universe and all the days

I Knew You Would Leave
The rocks crumble
Unto dust they die
Once hard stuff of mountains
Now soft powder among the sand
Who dares crush a rock
Oh rock, no rock
Reduced to the winds
Scatter your parts
You are not one but many
To those shall you succumb
Beast of time, you hurl your heavens sporadic
Falling in the great parade
March unto your death
And into what arms will you go
Surely not your own
Oh God, oh God, be you my hope
And all else ruffles in the winds
Magic carpets fly to your planets
You have no place on earth
Who is it creates sand soliloquy
Is it everyone
Nay, you are a heathen
Erupting words of pretense
Oh Lord let my hand be guided
Sometimes I know it not
As the air, no air is still
And the weary sounds refrain
Now the hyena cackles
His clutch has found my heart bleeding
And now you are gone
Where you hear it all
Wide awake from a long sleep
Myself on my hands
Tomorrow in the gallows
Trees in skies
Empty alliterations replenished
By the hand of one who would fall down
And make a light to shine somewhere
What is this
The cavalcade of misery
What depths
How could we think of distances
Ah, it is the gift of man
To live, the days long
The nights longer
Journey to the stars
They worship the sun
Come down treasures
And I like to see a smile
On your lips as we meet
On a journey to the stars
Can I See Your Clock
Now this one from the morning came to me
The piper in his high cloud sang to me
Listen, oh my brother, it’s time to rise
Thunder in the heavens of the sky
Free free, what I do is me
What you do is you, what you do is you
Have I, I have not (?)
It’s playin’ on a phonograph
Now listen gently to the call
Riding on the waves that fall
And rise to reach the sun and you
You’re living in a moon so blue
Wild Strawberries
Beachcombers in dozens
On raging walls (?)
Sun, salt, and sea
Walkin’ down the halls
I’m wondering where
The murdering town
I’m beating a hundred
From way down below
There’s a place you could call me
Out in Ohio
You’re down in the numbers
You’re listed forty-five
You heard and you answered
“I’m not dead, I’m alive”
You’ll walk on a tightrope
Wear the suit of a clown
You rear back in anger
Don’t forget there’s no answer
Watch your feet and where they’re goin’
Don’t forget you’re a dancer
Forgive Me
You know evil, know it well
The tree gave up its fruit at once
Ah! My hand it burns
Scarred with these prints
They will live when I die, that is a fact
The blood will drain
Infection will mix with the blue corpse
But you have it here
You see how it is like the wind
At your back and at your face
Leaves drop or aching branches creak
You walk alone down boulevards
I take you to the sky
Take you to the sky [3x]

Point Judith
Crestfallen and broken breast
I feel a full shadow
I see a spur digging
Snails on the rocks and it’s low tide and
There’s diamonds in the ocean
But if there’s a moth winging out over the waves
In the sunlight there’s
Two spiders meet on a rock but
They’re the same anyhow so...
It’s all so still here I...
Little waves spill over little rocks
You can peel off mica from the rocks
As it shines like smooth silver
But you know there’s more than this
’Cause you can see the boats sailing
And the gulls fly by fishing
And there’s a lighthouse in the distance, but...
It’s all so quiet that..
Why disturb the silence so
Go away in the moonlight and
Bring back a starfish
Settle back easy
Make up your mind to stay
I’ve earned a fortune and
There’s not much more to say
I’m livin’ easy
As smooth as silk these days
I see that you’re fearful
Haven’t changed your ways
Settle back easy and
Make up your mind to stay
[bangs microphone]
The country’s cleaner and
I’ve earned a fortune and
You don’t have to pay
Just settle back easy and
Make up your mind to stay

Can I See Your Clock
Now this one from the morning came to me
The piper in his high cloud sang to me
Listen, oh my brother, it’s time to rise
Thunder in the heavens of the sky
Free free, what I do is me
What you do is you, what you do is you
Have I, I have not (?)
It’s playin’ on a phonograph
Now listen gently to the call
Riding on the waves that fall
And rise to reach the sun and you
You’re living in a moon so blue

Wild Strawberries
Beachcombers in dozens
On raging walls (?)
Sun, salt, and sea
Walkin’ down the halls
I’m wondering where
The murdering town
I’m beating a hundred
From way down below
There’s a place you could call me
Out in Ohio
You’re down in the numbers
You’re listed forty-five
You heard and you answered
“I’m not dead, I’m alive”
You’ll walk on a tightrope
Wear the suit of a clown
You rear back in anger
Don’t forget there’s no answer
Watch your feet and where they’re goin’
Don’t forget you’re a dancer

Forgive Me
You know evil, know it well
The tree gave up its fruit at once
Ah! My hand it burns
Scarred with these prints
They will live when I die, that is a fact
The blood will drain
Infection will mix with the blue corpse
But you have it here
You see how it is like the wind
At your back and at your face
Leaves drop or aching branches creak
You walk alone down boulevards
I take you to the sky
Take you to the sky [3x]

Hilltop Serenade Part 2
Well your brain is weary and your manner rough
Well OK but that’s enough
Crazy lights, crazy fights
Cotton’s on the way hey
Walk along sing a song and pray
Mr. Genry on the label
Paint a picture of a fable
On a label a fable Mr. Genry
(repeat)

You’re The Best One
You’re the best one that I came to see
You’re the last one that I want to see
You’re one in a million, Lord I think I forgot to come
You’re the top of the mountain, the rest is on the way down
You know I think I could tell you
I think you ought to know
There was somebody new before you
With you I learned to know them all
And all that came before them
And all that go here from now
You go with them gently
With love on your mind

Delinquent Words
I always had a bloody lip, always
Those Cadillacs just float over the road
They don’t even know the road is there
How is it they know me well in the wine store
There is no question of it
It’s the blank eyed and boxed face that don’t understand
Age makes no difference
Shape makes no difference
I observe that all collects dust here as everywhere
The most whited things fade and emerge to no color
Dust enters into all being
And man who came from dust, to dust shall he return