TESTCARDS 1994–1997
MARTIN HALL
DB-CD
OKTOBER 1999
TEST (TEST2)
Testcards 1994–1997 er en dobbelt-cd, der indeholder 26 demoer og live-optagelser med Martin Hall indspillet i den givne periode. Titlen blev udgivet i et begrænset oplag på 500 individuelt nummererede eksemplarer.
Disk 2 indeholder yderligere de samlede Ceremony of Purification-indspilninger, en højt skattet midnatskoncert med ham der blev afviklet i Hellig Kors Kirken i december 1994.
1. Touch and Go (4:46)2. Wherever She Is (5:26)3. Tangerine Girl (4:41)4. Palladium (3:53)5. Tears in the Rain (4:16)6. 80 90 Nothing at All (4:36)7. Second View (3:58)8. Lyceum Girl (4:41)9. Animal Heart (5:20)10. Alas, Again, Encore (3:58)11. Salt of Your Skin (4:16)12. The Other Side of Her Face (7:42)13. Untitled (4:01)14. Single Melody (4:51)15. Premonition (Just a Feeling) (4:21)16. Burning Sugar (4:06)17. Nocturnal Mood (1:03) 18. Leathern (5:23)19. An Attempt of Interruption (6:15)20. Another Chapter (8:40)21. Worlds Apart (6:56)22. Imagine Focus (6:46)23. Winter Sun (6:04)24. Synthesis (9:56)25. Paraphrase (16:51)26. Titles (8:32)
TOUCH AND GO
Fading seasons under the sky
Summers turning gold again
See the air bleed
It’s sweeter than anything
Like the sweat within the rain
You hold on
You don’t want
To believe in any feeling
It’s all you know
It’s touch and go
The night turns
Your skin burns
But it’s just another feeling
It’s all you know
It’s touch and go
Spreading in you
The thinnest of air
All this time you never knew
There’s a thin line
Broken a thousand times
And it’s breaking once again
You hold on
You don’t want
To believe in any feeling
It’s all you know
It’s touch and go
The night turns
Your skin burns
But it’s just another feeling
It’s all you know
It’s touch and go
If only I could
You know that I would
That I’d heal the wounds inside
But all of this time
It seems you’ve made up your mind
Such a long, long time ago
WHEREVER SHE IS
Sand paintings of me and her
When the symmetry’s breaking
It’s closing the doors
To the emerald sky and the emerald sea
Still spinning round on the medicine wheel
Michelangelo’s gold
It shines in her eyes
I guess it’s time for the saddest goodbye
Just a handful of dust that’s spread in the air
Now she’s everywhere
Wherever she is
Wherever she’s hiding
I want her to cool this feeling
I want her inside of me
Feeling somewhere in between
Taking walks on the floorboards
They’re rice paper thin
Running down avenues on Titanic feet
The mirrors turn
Never know who’ll you be
Singing songs to the moon
To the carpet of stars
They’re shining down and they’re shining quite hard
They’re the comfort of strangers you get on the streets
And it feels so sweet
MY TANGERINE GIRL
My tangerine girl
She’s the star in the films of my mind
She’s turning my world
Like the sun and the zodiac signs
The blue of her eyes
Makes me feel like I’m drowning
Her Mephisto smile
So exquisitely blinding
The sweetest of wine
Can’t compare to the taste of her lips
Her poetic sighs
And the stardust of her fingertips
On midsummer nights
When she imitates heaven
The moon in the sky
Looking down, feeling jealous
My tangerine girl
I’ve been writing her name in the air
She’s all of my world
She’s the face that I see everywhere
She hangs from the sky
And she fills my horizon
The look in her eyes
God it’s so tantalizing
The things that she says
She means everything to me
She makes me forget
Undesirable feelings
My tangerine girl
She’s a child of the wildest of winds
The face of the world
She’s a story without any end
The blue of her eyes
Makes me feel like I’m drowning
Her Mephisto smile
So exquisitely blinding
PALLADIUM
Never thought I’d ever be myself
Thought I was within my prison cell
‘Cause the windows gave the view
That all to know was what I knew
In this Palladium
In this Palladium
And I know you’ve seen it all
In mirror-mirrors on the walls
Sharing weaknesses with so-called friends
In a game that’s called “it never ends”
Had to leave it all behind
And face the sentence of my mind
TEARS IN THE RAIN
Like tears in the rain
They’re fading away
No eye shall absorb the tear it cries
Each tear is a stream that purifies
Fade away
If just for a while
While these days melt into mind
Never thought it’d come to this
Heart and soul
Never thought it’d come to this
Like tears in the rain
They’re fading away
No eye shall absorb the tear it cries
Each tear is a stream that purifies
Tearing the pages out of any book of reason
Tearing the pages out of any book of days
Never believed that I would ever see the reasons
But all of this time
I must have been have blind
80 90 NOTHING AT ALL
80 90 nothing at all
Watching you come and go
Such a cinematic feeling
Signing off and kissing goodbye
Leaving it all to you
All for you girl
I’ve been watching your face
I’ve been watching the way you’re always hiding
Drawn in pale and in grey
You’re the face of the age
For a while
Like a kite on the sky
The shortest of nights burn for you
Tear the heavens apart
The moon and the stars shine for you
80 90 nothing at all
Watching you come and go
Such a cinematic feeling
Signing off and kissing goodbye
Leaving it all to you
Too good to die girl
80 90 nothing at all
Watching the days go by
All the time now
Hear the next millennium call
Leaving it all to you
Just for you
Easy come
Easy go
All they want you to know
They’ve waited just for you
Leave a trace in the rain
For those who came in your way
Walk on streets made of gold
Of heart and of soul
For a while
Fingers running through sand
The palm of your hand open wide
SECOND VIEW
Rain falling like the seasons
Falling down on me again
No melancholy feeling
Is gonna take these days away
All this time I thought I knew
What to say and what to do
Like a sea of ice that breaks
Try to keep it all away
Rain falling like the seasons
Falling down on me again
No melancholy feeling
Is gonna take these days away
I never wanted to
I never needed you
I’m gonna keep it in my mind
LYCEUM GIRL
She’s been hiding away any world of tomorrow
She’s been reading the writing that runs down the wall
She’s been living inside me
She’s been trying to find me
She’s been playing the same scene
Shedding light in my sleep
It’s the pale and the grey
Of the lyceum girl
Turn my night and the day
In this lyceum world
Interfering my nights like the sweetest distraction
Interfering the heart and the soul of it all
‘Cause she’s breathing inside me
Everywhere, she surrounds me
Like the sky and the blue sea
Falling all over me
It’s the pale and the grey
Of the lyceum girl
Turn the night and the day
In this lyceum world
A little sweeter
A lot a little sweeter
A little nearer
A lot a little nearer
ANIMAL HEART
You carry the world inside you
You carry the world within the air
With all of your heart shining through skin
You’re shedding your light like angels
You’re shedding your light as make-believe
With all of the sky torn apart where you’ve been
You’re all that I ever wanted
You’re all that I ever did believe
You’re all that I ever needed
Count a thousand stars in my animal heart
Throw them out in the open
See them turning around
See them all coming down
Feel them fall inside you
Light a thousand lights for a little while
Make it all I’ve wanted
Keep them under your skin
Keep the world in a string
Keep it all inside you
You carry the world inside you
You carry the world within the air
With all of your heart shining through skin
You’re shedding your light like angels
You’re shedding your light as make-believe
With all of the sky torn apart like a need
ALAS, AGAIN, ENCORE
I’ve been walking in the rain
I’ve been falling down again
Thought I heard you calling
Like a kite upon the sky
Going up and going down
Don’t you know how it feels when you’re losing the feeling?
And in the night the rain keeps on falling
And in the streets the silence keeps calling
Keep on calling
You’re in my blood
You’re in my mind
You’re everything I feel inside
The world inside me keeps on falling
It keeps falling
You’re in my blood
You’re in my mind
You’re everything that spins around
The world inside me keeps on falling
It keeps falling (inside me)
Kiss and tell and make-believe
Suddenly it’s river deep
It’s the strangest feeling
Crossing fingers in the dark
Hope it’s only really started
Seems like everything’s hidden within the air I breathe
SALT OF YOUR SKIN
Lovers will come and lovers will go
Leaving a name that nobody knows
Spread like the stars at night
A handful of days
I’m closing my eyes and I’m watching your face
The blue of your eyes
The blue of the waters
You’re in my blood
And you’re in my mind
The salt of your skin’s
Been burning inside me
All this time
Memory lines all over the sky
Telling the tales of whispers and cries
Calling inside of me
The trace of the hurt
I’m sick and I’m tired and I’m losing the words
THE OTHER SIDE OF HER FACE
She whispers me
So tenderly
She stills the rage inside me
The summer sky
The crimson nights
She comes and goes inside me
Coming in like the tide
Running into my mind
Shedding light like angels
See her turn away within the night
Hide away her reasons
Hide them underneath the open sky
She’s all that I’ve wanted
She’s all that I’ve needed to believe
The cutout moon
A silent view
She holds her hand against it
The light that rains
Upon her face
It falls like lines upon her
Light is running like sand
Down the palm of her hand
Shedding light like angels
See her turn away within the night
Hide away her reasons
Hide away her face to close her eyes
The shadows keep falling
They’re running like water down her face
The shadows keep falling
They’re hiding away one side of her face
UNTITLED
I don’t know what I feel
I’ve been trying to find out
Been trying to see what you see
The same thing always shows
Maybe yes
Maybe no
I don’t know what to do
I’ve been running in circles
Been running around like a fool
I feel hot
I feel cold
Maybe yes
Maybe no
The world’s turning around
Falling down like a mirror
That’s breaking inside of my mind
It feels so long ago
Maybe yes
Maybe no
And it’s stranger than fiction
It’s way out of hand
It’s a feeling that’s out of control
Guess you know how the story will end
‘Cause it already shows
See it run like a river
And rise like the sky
See it falling down on me again
It’s a feeling inside getting on
Getting high
Getting low
Maybe yes
Maybe no
SINGLE MELODY
Logic at the end of its tether
Feeling slightly under the weather
All the time
In my mind
Helter-skelter losing my shelter
Just another secret agenda of its kind
Of my mind
I’m chasing the blue sky
I’m chasing the sky within your eyes
Take me to the forever fields of your mind
Take me to the forever needs you hide inside
Take me down the rivers wide and deep
The mountains high
The forever fields
The forever dreams
Floating like a leaf on the water
Turning over things that I’ve thought of all my life
For a while
Images keep falling like feathers
Hiding somewhere under the layers of my skin
Whispering
PREMONITION (JUST A FEELING)
Silver lining inside me
You’re adapting my every word
Such an eloquent silence
Feeling hurt?
Still you’re moving so lightly
Like you’re hanging within the air
Seems it’s your way of saying
Couldn’t care
It’s just a feeling
Another feeling on the sky
It’s just a feeling
Another feeling coming down
The silver lining
You’ll see it run into the air
For just a moment
Another line that disappears
Guess it’s all second chances
Getting used to the sights and sounds
With the greatest indifference
Running down
All aesthetic behaviour
Still I’m watching your every move
Sugarcoating the daylight
With a view
BURNING SUGAR
The memory lines that run down the sky
Running like streams of reason
The story is told in silver and gold
No words ever tell the tale
I believe in all that I see
In all that I know
In all that I feel inside me
I know that dreams will come true
If they’re burning
Burning sugar
Burns inside me
Burning sugar
Burning so sweet
The things that I’ve seen
The places I’ve been
A secret that stays unbroken
The sheltering sky
It’s high as a kite
Cooling my every need
LEATHERN
Edges of speaking
Outlived of hatred
Could I forgive at all?
Or could sigh be further
Than I reached always
Light died, -ly pregnant
Up, killed in your words
Sheet-minded loving was
Respect as given thought
Of hairy swine-like
Hours of nameless
Of this penetration
Could I still cry for sad?
Tell friend and leech apart
The fall of the fallen
Unnamed or misused
Lethal hate given
Word castles built in vain
Salute nugacity
Could I feel guilty?
The leathern tenderness
Did you cry lustful?
I can now nevermore
Give what I wanted to
To feel so leathern
Cry of the stone tears
Kiss of the unsaid
Without these arms to stretch
Like passion for unseen
I seek the guiltful
To feel so leathern
Emotionally leprous
AN ATTEMPT OF INTERRUPTION
The nurseling and the tendon
The naked responsibility
Unexisting possibilities
Like long gone friends
Infectious ideas
I kept your sins
Sincere to the end
And I concentrate on remembering your face
Your eyes
But the noise from the second day’s party wipes it out
Sentimental warfare
Days of life
Seconds of love
Hours of sin
This could be as heart-known
Lust-dead in deed
Vulgar to feed
Holding me down
You could be forgiven
‘Cause I’ll lie for you
I’ll die for you
I’ll do anything
‘Cause I’ll lie for you
I’ll die for you
I’ll do anything
To be forgiven
ANOTHER CHAPTER
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust
A fantasy world of omniscience
Heavens and ambitions in showrooms of the mind
In another chapter of forgotten time
Faces disappearing in memory and mind
But you, you know it all in your identity design
So twentieth century
Things are what they are, no matter what we feel
Endeavour is the key, not the mastermind ideal
And if you don’t agree
Well then you don’t agree
So come on little playtime Hitler
Forget your intellectual parades
There are no final solutions
Only final denials
No need for vain display
I’ve seen your religion and I’ve seen your holy water
But my spit is more sacred than all your inner borders
‘Cause it’s of flesh and blood
I’ve seen your religion and I’ve seen your inner borders
But my spit is more sacred than all your holy water
‘Cause it’s of flesh and blood
It’s my flesh and blood
WORLDS APART
Somebody told me that love never dies
It grows silent
But once every often
It takes on the form of indifference
Child of northern light
You’re lost at winter stations
You always cried for change
Now you keep the same locations
Year after year
In a world of cards you kept looking for a future
But all you ever found was your isolated nature
Reflected in dreams
The fire and the gold
All the stories that you told
Never seem to set you free
The innocence is gone
But the shadow hunt goes on
In a night without end
In a heart that pretends to believe
In worlds apart
In worlds divided
You breathe the air
I breathe the silence
The moon is turning gold
As the stars are shining silver
I can’t recall this room
But it feels like I have been here
So long ago
A season without end
It cuts the sky wide open
Another line of thoughts run into the distant ocean
Of sheltering blue
We used to never part
Guard the secrets of our hearts
Underneath a nightless dream
But stories always end
And they don’t begin again
When the eyes go to sleep
When the eyes go to worlds out of reach
In worlds apart
In worlds divided
I hold your hand within the silence
The darkness drowns the light
Spitting shadows in our faces
It’s making you forget
It’s erasing all the traces
Except in my heart
The night is turning red
As it’s running through your fingers
You’re bleeding heart and soul
As you give up
As you surrender
The last breath of life
Breathe the light
IMAGINE FOCUS
Just a touch of lost
Burning as always
As it was
As it is
And eventually
Just in trust
Nothing more
So suddenly
From beginning to end
While this centreless present reflects itself
In inverted moves of an obsessional stage
In a stream of light from unreachable marks
Something long ago in everlasting terms
In a cross-fade of untitled reasons
What it turned out to be
And occasionally
Everything in my hands
So totally
In the heat of the touch
Like the way we were
Beyond love under will
Suddenly away in these only words
By mistakes again into changing links
In this compromise of dependence then
Stage by stage in exposure
Still so timeless in this life release
Nearness hidden in casual moves
Watch the changes and recall
Touch through another focus
Mark perfection twice
With or without purpose
Still tons against tons
Carefully mistaken in retrospective fear
Restrain it all while I imagine focus
As I lie down
As I lie
WINTER SUN
It’s like a winter sun
Shining with a cold light
It’s like a moment that’s frozen in time
Shining with an afterglow
Like a deserted dream
I’m watching from a distance
I see a sky full of thunder above
A face within the sudden light
But then the face disappears
Hidden in the sea of the night
Until the sky catches fire again
I see your face within the light
It’s like a winter sun
Shining with a cold flame
It’s like a moment that’s frozen in time
Shining like the light of day
When the sea runs dry
When the stars burn out
When day turns the night
You’ll see the winter sun
See the winter sun
Feel the winter sun
SYNTHESIS
To my love
Wherever you may be
I’m with you
United in spirit
My life lies in your hands
All power ever been
All power yet to come
Is here now
This instant
Around us
Inside us
“Bedre end nogensinde; nærværende og indhyllet i storladen patos … Konklusionen må blive, at Martin Hall med Testcards 1994-1997 leverer et indblik i arbejdsværelset og giver hans lille (voksende) skare af lyttere en samling smukke, skæve, (for)underlige og dristige stykker musik. Testcards-pladerne er ikke noget, man skal erhverve sig, hvis det drejer sig om et første bekendtskab med Martin Hall, men er til gengæld uundværlige for dem, som kender ham – og det er dejligt, at nogle kunstnere ikke holder alle tonerne ind til kroppen, men åbner op og lader os andre lytte med på alt det andet, der foregår mellem de officielle plader. ”
( * * * * * )
Boot – Peter Krogh (2. november 1999)
“Martin Hall har netop udsendt sit andet Testcards-album. Denne gang rummer dobbelt-CD’en ikke tidligere udgivet materiale fra årene 1994-1997, og ligesom forgængeren Testcards 1989–1995 rummer de to CD’er masser af guld fra den musikalske troldmands skatkamre … Blandt perlerne er Martin Halls demo til ”Salt of Your Skin”, som siden er blevet et hit for Hanne Boel. Sættets anden CD er helliget Martin Halls midnatskoncert i Hellig Kors Kirken i 1994, og også disse optagelser understreger hans format.”
( * * * * * )
Jyllands-Posten – Uffe C. Forsberg (9. november 1999)
“Bedre end 1’eren … Koncerten er – kort sagt – et konglomerat af det bedste af Martin Halls virke gennem to årtier; en sammensmeltning af stor højpandet patos, det mest smertelige nærvær og ekstremt ambitiøs sangskrivning.”
( * * * * * * )
Blender – Mads Brenøe (december 1999)
“På Testcards 1994-1997 kan man konstatere, at det ikke er uden årsag, at Martin Hall har ry som en perfektionist grænsende til det ekstreme. Kvaliteten af demo-optagelserne er tæt på en ordinær udgivelse … optagelser fra en midnatskoncert i Hellig Kors Kirken fra 1994, hvor Halls sans for det excentriske til fulde kommer til udtryk.”
Gaffa – Jan Opstrup Poulsen (december 1999)
Henrik Marstal: Cello
Iben Teilmann: Bratsch
Kasper Söderlund: Guitar
Martin Hall: Vocals, instrumenter
Signe Kjærsgaard: Bas
Torben Engberg: Keyboards
Design: Peter Graabæk
Baggrunden for udgivelsen af dobbelt-cd’en og det begrænsede oplag forklares af Martin Halls daværende hjemmesideredaktør, Peter Engels Ryming, i udgivelsens indledende skrivelse:
”Disk A præsenterer lytteren for en række private Martin Hall-demoer indspillet i 1996 og 1997. På det tidspunkt er hans fokus tydeligvis rettet mod kortere, mere ligefremme melodier end i den tidligere periode (Testcards 1989-1995), og materialet kulminerer med Dog House-demoerne til tre )Adapter)-numre indspillet sammen med Thomas Li. En af kuriositeterne på denne disk er Martin Halls første version (ud af adskillige efterfølgende) af “Salt of Your Skin”, et nummer der i løbet af 1998 blev et stort hit for den danske platinkunstner Hanne Boel i adskillige europæiske lande.
Disk B indeholder indspilningerne fra Halls allerede legendariske midnatskoncert i Hellig Kors Kirken i december 1994. Lige siden begivenheden har vi fået henvendelser vedr. muligheden for at udgive koncerten, og det er derfor med den største fornøjelse, at vi nu endelig kan gøre dette. Som en bonus afsluttes den anden cd med to instrumentale værker, ”Paraphrase” fra 1995 og ”Titles” fra 1994.
Motiverne for at udgive Testcards-serien er at gøre det muligt for Martin Halls hardcore-samlere at få fat i numre og indspilninger, der ellers ville være gået tabt (størstedelen af de inkluderede sange er aldrig blevet genindspillet på nogen officiel udgivelse). Grunden til at materialet bliver udgivet i et begrænset oplag, skyldes et krav fra Mind and Media og Hall selv, der ikke ønsker Testcards-cd’erne lanceret som større anlagte udgivelser.”