Chris Petit - Museum Of Loneliness flac mp3 download

Petit wastes no time getting right into the marrow, commencing this inaugural proclamation with a series of character studies entitled Dead Drunks over the course of side one. From the eerie obsessions of Robinson's inquisition abusing paid "pick ups" in the basement of a warehouse to the rambling near shambling amnesiac wanderings of Angleton, the author brings us their lurid and squalid depravities with the sharpest of details. I particularly like how Petit gets the whole sexual angle of fetishism out of the way in the very first narrative he reads through. O'Grady concludes side one with a tale of youth lost, influence muted and to quote from the text "best behavior under the disapproving eye of Molly." That is O'Grady's sister in case you were wondering, the only one left who will take him in. Even when he knows he's in the wrong being late with the stench of drink upon him. This entire series of episodes serves to gently pull in the listener by introducing some of Petit's more curious observations on human behavior. I play with them, I pleasure them but I never fuck them... that's the spirit.Side two is much more direct by way of purposely intoning the phrase Museum of Loneliness to devastating effect. Anything could be this place, anyone could inhabit it without even realizing where they are and more tellingly who they have become. The detritus of modern culture is tossed this way and that, entreaties for dial up internet connections, forgotten books and DVDs, directionless masses of humanity blindly waltzing down the boulevard, mobiles pressed tightly to their ears so not a molecule of their own demise could possibly elude them. There is no beginning and no end to these projects which the spectral MoL embarks upon, sometimes getting no further than the proverbial drawing board with the implementation. It's the thought that matters; here we can begin to understand the mammoth task this self-proclaimed collector of calamitous, burgeoning social archeology has undertaken. No detail is too small, no flaw is an accident. Everything which has been before will no doubt come again and we, the owners of this occult tapestry, patiently sit before the glow of our screens knowing that for each grain of chaff we prize from life's torrential flow the unremarkable flood of beaten down eminently digestible wheat will frustrate our efforts the first chance it gets.In the edition which I acquired, a booklet, DVD, postcard, glossy picture and curiously inserted penciled in notes were included. Of these additional components, the most fascinating is without doubt the booklet. In graphic, overt detail, the manifesto and history of the MoL is revealed. Past projects are shown to have sometimes been completely ignored or as stated "filed and forgotten". Through the usage of text, Chris Petit shows us how easy it is to pass over the full content (the name of the most excellent film included also) in favor of what those bold words which jump off the page yell out. I found having to parse through greyed out words most intriguing because through their inclusion it became apparent to me how many people just take what is spoon fed to them, ignoring the deeper meaning because it would require too much effort to look up from their fast food culture of immediate satiation. The whole tone and direction of what the MoL is about could easily be misconstrued just by taking the synoptic route. Here is where Petit excels brightest as he confirms something I have long suspected about humanity as a species: the majority of us state the obvious and consider it wisdom. Those who make the loudest definitive statements are the first to take things out of context to suit their own ends.Having gone through all of this, I would be remiss if I didn't mention who is doing the most delicate of fine tuning on this record. The man who through the usage of gain, reverb and dynamics brought out the fourth dimension. Baron Mordant takes Petit's words and amplifies certain inflections whilst leaving others absolutely pristine. He upends the notion of merely scoring the music to this production, lending the proceedings a dank, MMusty tone. In much the same way a whiskey soaked bar table tells the tales of all who have been there before, so the Baron infuses these tomes of foul deeds and desperate straits with his own peculiarly morose love of buried cultural landmarks and discarded barely audible echoes of exquisite meditations on the inner cinema of the mind. Enthusiasts of the Travelogues series will hear shards of some of them cunningly inserted at particular points; listen even closer and you'll discern a fragment of his deviant, mutilated rhythmic exercise Olde Wobbely.To own this is to let it soak into your skin and infuse its gravelly voice into every single synaptic junction you possess. One does not collect this, it collects you. I know with the utmost certainty that the Museum of Loneliness is conscious, sentient and fully aware. Mull that one over for a bit and hope that some copies of the standard edition are left... As the Museum is so fond of doing, I'll re-appropriate something directly out from its oily black vinyl skin:Deep assignments run through all our lives.