Month: May 1984

APPARENTLY ALL THE SAME

Buy at BANDCAMP

APPARENTLY ALL THE SAME

UNDER FOR
LP
MAY 1984
SAM (SAMLP01)

Apparently All the Same was the only album released with Under For. The title remains one of Martin Hall’s most significant releases during the eighties, a monolith of sound reflecting the melancholic zeitgeist of the era.

The album was one of the few Scandinavian releases given positive coverage in British music magazines such as New Musical Express and Sounds at the time of its release.

1 Imagine Focus (5:12)
2. Meanwhile (6:45)
3. Form (6:17)
4. Theme Remains Theme (5:50)
5. Less (5:00)
6. In the Prism of Evil (7:25)

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 crossfade 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

MEANWHILE

While origin thins and narcosis thickens
It’s so easy to be mistaken
Now and then so absolute
When I phase out in light

While I synchronize reality and drug
In just another move of make-believe
With life in close-ups, so deliriously true
But only allusions to help me
In this concept of illusion

Cool, shining, clear

FORM

Apparently all the same
Like never before
Hidden in the contrast
The distance, the pulse, the reflection
Such awareness in every move
The nearer the source, the purer the stream

Direct to the centre
Remember the thin lines
Why regret what something became
We’re all “fascists” anyway

So much earlier
In these ages
This fetish of time

The making of the swastika
The titles of the symbols
The force, the form, the love as the core
I need the power of understanding
I need the power

In bleached vision
Find it all again
But no nearer than the touch allows
And inside time, in the media
All weaved in days
The patterns seem so unreal

One single point where it all lies

THEME REMAINS THEME

Just like the trademark of nowhere
So careless, so tender
Please don’t forget it, but don’t mark your life by remembering
Crossing the past in these present decisions all the time
Failing to master the techniques of knowledge in my own life

And in this metamorphosis of love
Every breath I take contains it all, but remains formless in this life-synthesis
Once belief weaved me in the finest stuff I have ever known
But now the touch feels so graceless in this chemistry of fear

From the love

LESS

No longer there

In mantras of anaesthesia, as a sacrifice of these methods
Gone, but not forgotten
Hidden in the parallels
So deep within the doubt, in these shapes of hatred
From circle into circle
In the touch that never ends

In beginnings

So tenderly aware, in cover of dreams
In endless sequences beyond all the love
Just like nothing has changed, a moment ago
In the glow that deepens all shadows

Touching the light for the first time
The last time

IN THE PRISM OF EVIL

Another burst of desire in the privilege of a dying race
In this concept of fear, this misguided potential
The emotional anonymity reflects itself in vision, document and word

In this conjectured freedom, this intellectual pornography
It’s yours forever
It has been written and you’re the only one to know

In this framework of prostitution
Cynicism and self-hate intensify the emotional fascism
The one-dimensional sexuality of this culture
A survival that makes life historical but dimensions alone
In these sacred words of form
In this devaluation of the enigma

And while love crystallizes in the outline of the focus
In the diagrams of the scars
In the libido of death
This associated reality marks the difference
Between the soul and the language
Between the art and the artificial

After two thousand years of misunderstood Christianity
Into this final phase, the trauma of dualism
Where the dream of the free will becomes the torture of freedom
Where the taboo of fear becomes the monopoly of death

This is the art of desire
The art of decline
Understanding is decay
The terminal disease
The end of evolution

It makes me …

Berit Spælling: Harp
Lena Walsh: Harmony vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, drums, keyboards, bass, violin, tapes, horns
Michael Karshøj: Drums
Per Hendrichsen: Treatments, guitar

Design: Martin Hall

Apparently All the Same is recorded and mixed at Easy Sound Studios throughout January and February 1984. The mix was assisted by Freddy Frank. The album is written and produced by Martin Hall.

The 25th anniversary rerelease of the album in 2009 also contains the group’s infamous concert at The ISCM World Music Days in October 1983 – a violently noisy performance that stands in strong contrasy to the more rounded album.


GOD & GRAMMAR

BANDCAMP

GOD & GRAMMAR

ANTHOLOGY
MAY 1984
FORLAGET GUD & GRAMMATIK (ISBN 87-981633-0-2)

God & Grammar was an exhibition at Charlottenborg in May 1984. Towards this end a catalogue featuring the works of a number of the involved artists was released.

Among the contributors you’ll find artists such as Michael Kvium, Christian Lemmerz, Nina Steen-Knudsen, Christian Skeel, Peter Bonde, Henrik S. Holck, Lars Dan, Jette Debois, Eva Öhrling, Poul Jupont, Knud Odde, Morten Skriver, Lillian Polack, Lars Mathisen, Milena Bonifacini, Elmer and Martin Hall.

The catalogue was designed by K Grafik. The bottom collage is Hall’s contribution to it.