Morph Dwarf' - The PsychoNautilus Unfurls (2011)
In a time before streaming media ruined the concept album, The PsychoNautilus Unfurls composed its story through impressionistic lyricism and astral-orchestral psychedelic rock that shape-shifts through a myriad of styles and genres.
The project was piloted by Benny Langfur and myself.
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Like a frameless film, it tells the story of the light from a distant star taking human form. Awakened in the garden of the psyche, it is tasked to map its experience, but becomes overwhelmed by the challenges it faces in holding fast to the memory of its celestial origins, while coping with its purpose on earth in the face of change.
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Below you'll find a track by track breakdown of the story's chapters. Full lyrics and downloads available on Bandcamp.
In chapter 1, "Traveling Light", a star is forged from spacetime's rippling rainbow grid. It sends forth light that travels dreamily through the corridors of space. As it touches onto and enlivens dead matter along the way, it becomes aware of its own existence and the sense that it is being drawn, prophetically, by its narrative destiny towards the undying sun of souls, the living dead, to be spilled upon the earth to lead a human life.
A luminous vision of his celestial origins reflects before him, setting star-seeds in bloom.
The forbidden fruit: the flowering mind.
But the vision is too bright, blinding him. The shadows collapse in on him, his mind invaded and his garden raided.
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In chapters 3 & 4, "The Fall" and "Earthbound Ships", the last morsel of the forbidden fruit is ingested, and visions arise: Venus and Saturn align, the undying sun eclipses, intergalactic spores arrive: earthbound ships. The wind sings through the vibrating strings of the garden's harped gates and lifts Adam out of his body, out of the garden of the psyche, into the astral realms of his luminous origins.
Dazed by dazzling sights, he neglects to document a single monument along the way.
The bottom right of the illustration reads:
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he got away
with a single serving
of the secret stash:
a currency more current than cash
more potent than hash
here in a instant
gone in a flash
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In chapter 7, Faces, Adam faces the natural world, where the rocks, the plants, the river--his surroundings--speak to him of a reality underlying all change, of the races and species that preceded him, extinguished by the fatal sweeps of time, though their sensations persist, taking on new forms.
What of all the sensations we became?
We'll recollect them by someone else's name
You may suspect them to be one and the same.
Struggling with the weight of the entirety he realizes what he must do:
to synthesize the flowering mind!
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In Chapter 6, Concentrated Doses of Psychosis (Administered Through Mitosis Hypnosis), Adaman returns from his sojourn in space and finds the garden of the psyche has been transmuted in his absence into a metropolis of intellect. He's lightyears ahead without a clue of how he got there, because he neglected his purpose of mapping the way. With no more magic flowers left, he loses his mind.
Where are the flowers that compressed
eons into hours I've repressed?
In my isolated tower where I rest
they gave us magic powers as a test
And am I truly blessed?
All the cards I'd been dealt
I thought I had them under my belt
but the view that I held,
helled the heavens above,
corresponded to lies
that outlive what they love
In the 8th and final chapter, "Heavenly Cacophany", the hero becomes "galactivated" as he fully remembers and realizes his celestial destiny, in effect bringing heaven down to earth.
Now's the time to serve your purpose presently
through rapid shifting circuitry
that, branching off ecstatically,
form infinite diamond tapestries
this heavenly cacophany
of manic-all-epiphany
Come down it's time to serve
Come down it's time to serve
Come down it's time to serve
...your life sentence on earth
The "life sentence" refers to his DNA's one-liner that chains him to his physical form, like living, fleshbound scripture written in blood.
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