A brick, does not have to be a brick when it's home to a ghost. An alleyway, doesn't have to be an alley way, if it's home to a spirit that will eat your children (although if you're polite, you can reckon on things going your way when you're in this part of town...only please be kind). A building is a building, only if we deny it's rightful place as a member of our family and forget that it, like you, has needs that must be met. A canal is also an artery and life bustles and crowds alongside it.The life alongside it, is in turn, an ecosystem in the same way that a park in Longsight can breathe and notice you, if you notice it back. The air is thick with forces that are in partnership with us, if we grant them the dignity we grant to our own (or ought to grant).
If you call a river mother, then you should not murder her. If you call a forest brother, then you should not cut him down. Every single thing in this reality is linked in an astonishing fashion. Even now, we cower in our homes, hiding from an invisible connection that we dread with every fibre of our being. Suddenly the game looks exactly like a game (and the rules are undergoing a hard reboot whilst we do our bit and do, well, nothing). We've been fed this materialist thing for years,
and wherever we sit politically, left or right, our position of 'enlightenment' permits nothing we can't see in front of our own faces..that cannot be touched or heard. Perhaps it would behoove us to recognise and seek these connections for our own mutual benefit.
Easier said than done, so you might say. But I vehemently disagree. This is where we are all artists, all have a responsibility to tell a story about the people and places we love. When we're in somewhere like The Peer Hat or The White Hotel or The Golden Lion, we must contribute to the tales within the walls. We are literally the ecosystem, the neural clusters, the nervous system, the very heart and soul of the place. The health of the system is in the wealth of the tales we tell. Every aspect is waiting for you to uplift it...like the difference between sipping from a glass of wine and making a toast to the party.
We strongly suspect that it is the role of the artist, within these communities, these living systems, to act as the mirror, to summon up the fantasies of context and make them real within people's imagining. This word imagination, is what we thrive on. It's all in your head, but then....what isn't?
Karl D'Silva
Karl is the focus of today's examination of the populating forces within The Peer Hat. He's a musician we've had the pleasure of hosting on at least three separate occasions, his audience slowly but surely building. If we like somebody, we bring them back, mainly because they're contributing to the site vibration. Karl's music is an otherworldly, gate warp into a kind of science-fiction/gnostic megacity, just at the edge of a dream or nightmare. At the same time, his music is punishingly honest and heartfelt and sports monster hooks. Whenever I see him perform, I get to witness somebody re-imagining the pop star, within a localised context. In fact, the stuff we'll be featuring here, is overwhelmingly that (if not the pop star part, definitely the bit about context).
All these ideas that Karl brings to The Black Stage remain and form something of it's spiritual self. It's a realm within a realm, a memory that paints the air of the imaginal. I talk with him here, for about an hour and a half. You'll forgive the clumsiness of my questioning, my blocked nose and also the sheer eagerness I display when it comes to talking about something that excites me. These are electric times and this was a deep dive into Karl's world. He remains an excellent human being and an exceedingly unusual thinker. I hope that comes across in the following interview...a sound in an undecided space.
PS
Keep sending your ideas to nick@thepeerhat.com and we will attempt to realise them. That's why we're here. We've got a massive job on our collective hands. Hit the 'follow' button on the blog also.
Pretty soon you're going to get it: the community is everything... literally. 
You must be signed in to comment