Emily Hall - "Embrace". "Embrace" is the apex of a modern opera composed by Emily Hall, with a libretto by the Icelandic writer Sjón. It is the sound of a man climbing. Scaling an electrical pylon, hand over hand, into a clear blue sky. That climb - reaching, straining, stepping closer & closer & into the space that he wants. An answer at the top of a silver tower, a deluded fulfillment. And throughout it all you can hear the ground below, the windy ground below and all its movements. All its deadly facets. The singer is named Allan Clayton. He is a tenor singing at the edge of his range. He sings at the edge of his range and yet he sings as if he is at home in it, at rest in it, so totally safe as he clambers higher and higher toward oblivion. [buy/listen on bandcamp]

All Dogs - "That Kind of Girl". Physical objects hang together in the air. They exist in space, molecules fastened in a row. You cannot deny their presence or their force - not as a boat nudges through the water, not as a spear is pushed through your side. A song is not a physical object. It is not a boat, a spear. And yet it hangs together in the air. And yet it is a presence, a force. A song is not a physical object. And yet it is a boat, and yet it is a spear. [buy/listen on bandcamp / thanks Hamza]

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