Et In Celestia Ego
Musical electrofeminism from Flight 58, plus why I'm never leaving the internet
In response to my call for reader submissions to this newsletter a subscriber - somehow - intuited a niche musical genre I love and sent me a sample of her work.
On a personal note, this is why I’m never leaving the internet. The internet, and the cyborg age more generally, has so many dehumanising consequences, many of which I document at this newsletter. But the networks we’ve created also have an uncanny power to channel that kind of apparent serendipity.
This is what bewitched me about the internet, the first time I encountered its place-less space. That kind of serendipity by algorithms has, since then, been increasingly colonised by algorithms. But as this encounter attests, it’s still there.
This drifting, downbeat style of electro also manages to catch something of the two-edged, love/hate relation to technology, alienation, and longing that informs so much of my own work. Its creators, Jules and Cisco, tell me the tune is about porn and hypocrisy. Jules said: “We have long chats about tech, transhumanism and spirituality before we get down to recording”.
I’ve been thinking a great deal recently about how the only way out of our love-affair with the spirit of technicity is through. I’m certain that part of this is making sure we never forget the ghost in the machine is, in fact, us.
Anyway, here’s the tune:
You can find more of Flight 58 on their Bandcamp page.
Et In Celestia Ego
Dream on, quiet man.
I'll be on my way.
Forget me.
Dream on.
Understand,
I'm touching your hand.
This ain't about me.
Bright body, dark paradise,
Immortal mistakes are sticking to me.
Part folly,
Part ungodly vice.
I'm waxing apples in a window display.
It's just, problem is
I was never nice
In quite the right way.
You get me?
Fallen angel, reborn in rice,
Stalked by associates of other lives
Oh just..
Dream on, quiet man.
It's half my estate.
You took it from me.
Dream on.
Understand:
I'm the ghost at the gate.
Remember me?
Big blonde conspiracy scam-
But her period's late.
(It's that other guy.)
Payphone, furtively, "I'm in a jam!
Gotta get out on the road again."
It's just...
someone said you wanted a wife,
But your medicine's grey
and blackening.
Two cups flour and a buttered knife,
But never a cake.
It's sickening.
Dream on, quiet man.
I'm cancelling play.
You get me?
Dream on.
Understand:
Now you've had your way
And sighed your sighs
I'll be on my way
From a thousand eyes
I'll be on my way.
Dream on, quiet man,
I'll be on my way.
Forget me.
Dream on.
Understand:
Like the crest of a wave
Breaks and escapes
I'm touching your hand
I'm touching your hand
Forget about me
Et in Celestia Ego
Et in Celestia Ego
Et in Celestia Ego
Et in Celestia Ego
Forget me.
Well, I suggest you to listen again to a bit of Bach, Wagner or Pink Floyd, Duke Ellington may make the trick too. This is another absolutely banal repetitive simple chords without any deep on it. Not ugly is true, but nothing at the end. Orwell already talked about this in 1984 by the way.
It’s pretty. Enya overtones. I’d try another.