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Justin Hyde Down Where the Hummingbird Goes to Die (The Guild of Outsider Writers Press/Tainted Coffee Press, 2008)"I'm just a bullet/resenting/its purpose." from "To My Coworkers"
Purpose is tricky thing, the path that we may think we are one, the purpose we may feeling we are being forced to serve may in fact not actually be our true purpose. To find purpose we must travel through dark alleys, through trailer parks, through the war torn village, through fear and panic and helplessness of the working poor, to find purpose we must live. We have passions or interests that we toy with from time to time, but never intend to develope. However, to fulfill a purpose that you do not resent you must act on those passion, you must do what love and love what you do.
Every time I read a Justin Hyde bio, it lists a different job he has held in his life. He has artificially inseminated pigs, has also been a bicycle mechanic, day laborer, pscyh ward patient, bank examiner, claim's adjuster, and so on. Today, however, above all else Justin Hyde can call himself a writer. His words cut straight to the center of American life, telling tales of shelters and trailer parks, suicide and store clerks, he puts a certain clear and vivid order to the chaos and pain of life.
Down Where the Humminbird Goes to Die is Justin Hyde's first chapbook, and the winner of the Jack Micheline Memorial Poetry Contest. It is has one of the best chapbook covers I have seen in a long time, and contains some of the purest poems you may ever read.
Last week a cd arrived in the mail, and I pull it out of the enevolope. Looking at the back of the album I notice their are only four songs, the case is black with rainbow writing. An ep, I turn the album over and there is a note on a pink heart-shaped post-it, "Thanks Jason! This will blow your mind". Knowing nothing about the artist or the sound I press play and wait to be blown away. The album starts out slow and fragile, delicatly floating in and out of focus, ambient and builting. Gradually, reverse guitar loops begin to whail and echo and the sounds continue to evolve. Soon it becomes clear that this is one continious piece of music split into four fluent pieces. As the drums build and the tension mixed with freedom begins to bleed through my speakers, the lone but powerful vocals decend, "I'm sitting all alone/Sitting in my bed/Singing in my bed/Singing all alone". Simple words cutting through the complex soundscape that the Sudan native known as Sinkane has now stirred into a frenzy.
Ahmed Gailab (a.k.a Sinkane) is the son of a freedom fighter journalist/Politican who at age six fled to the United States with his family. This multi-instrumentalist learned the ropes from the basement (literarly) on up. He has created a masterpiece filled with modern rythms mixed with elements of jazz, rock, and cascading ambient music.
Color Voice
For more information on Sinkane please visit his website.
1 comment:
Yea, Justin is great isn't he. His new chap is one I'll definitely have to pick up.
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