Tragic Epilogue: Physically it was before itself

In Western culture we look forward into the future. In some Eastern cultures, and in the world of logic, where one reads only after another has written, human consciousness looks backward as time marches forward. In a lecture and reading I attended years ago, the poet Li-Young Lee first acquainted me with this theme, which appears frequently in his writing (see: This Room And Everything In It).

Moving loosely from that idea, it occurred to me what a mess our perspective can be, and how hard it is to live in the moment, The Eternal Now. Many religions have tapped into this concept, and epiphanies, I believe, are a vertical, not a horizontal, when plotted throughout the plane we call “time.”

Moving very loosely then from that idea, I thought about the physical state of the body, and the matter that houses soul (which I take on faith exists) during the most infinitesimal of moments. As a movie is made up of multiple still frames of film, so are our actions and thoughts made up of still moments. What really comes first, second, and third, then? Especially in a highly intuitive mind, or in the instinctive and highly-skilled athlete, can we really plot out a progression of points?

I then thought of one of my favorite hip-hop albums of all time, Tragic Epilogue by Antipop Consortium. Lyrically denser even than this post, the combined forces of MCs Beans, High Priest, M. Sayyid, and Earl Blaize shocked me with torrents of science, metaphysics, human longing, non-sequitirs, and word disassociation back in 2001. I truly could not process what I was hearing. I still can’t. But I love trying.

This track “Disorientation” does just what it says on the tin. It starts out with a guest MC (uncredited on the sleeve; can anyone shed light on who she is?) brilliantly chopping her way through a dissertation on mic technique (both from the point of view of the performer and the listener) in a controlled stutter, and then hands it over to Earl Blaize (I think), who presents us with “fusion and fission in collision.” High Priest then casts the entire treatise in the context of war and dismembered bodies. All the while we are challenged to listen: “adjust your vision.”

Antipop Consortium: Disorientation

“Disorientation” is actually one of the tamer tracks. If you like what you hear, I ask you to do one or two things: 1. please comment on this post and let us all know what you hear in the midst of “Disorientation,” and/or 2. purchase Tragic Epilogue, and/or go further down the rabbit hole toward post-APC projects like Airborn Audio or Beans or High Priest solo material.

Airborn Audio: Inside The Globe
High Priest: Nostrand Avenue
Beans: Fearless Leader