In the spirit of the Free Association series at our sister site self-titled, we recently asked Neil Lord to pull the curtain back on his latest Future Museums album. Hitting shops today through Holodeck, Rosewater Ceremony Part II: Guardian of Solitude finds the Thousand Foot Whale Claw/Single Lash member in top form alongside soothing New Age nods and Krautrock-inspired cosmic synth cuts. Stream it in full below, right alongside Lord’s complete rundown of the storyline that lurks just beneath the surface….
“CEDAR INCENSE”
A friend lights a small flame to ignite the incense in a dimly room. It’s dusk but the sun has left, and you both reflect on a day of creative work and collaboration. They offer you a beer but you choose tea, and feel comfort in their company.
“HOUSEWARMING”
You’re seeing someone’s new home for the first time. Where they placed lamps, paintings and photographs. Their stereo and record collection. Which corner they’ve placed their bed in. Did they fully unpack or are there boxes still in wait? You think about how well this experience translates your awareness of the homes occupants.
“CLOSED EYE”
Alone, shortly after an eclipse, the world still feeling heavy from galactic shift, you sit beneath a tree with your eyes closed. A deep red glow still pulses beneath your eyelids and you feel a harmonic resonance humming low all around you. You take a deep breath and have a heightened sense of the speed of the earth hurling relentlessly into nothingness while warm calm washes over you.
“POSITION THE INVERSE”
You and a friend do a quick tarot reading early in the morning. The coffee is too hot to drink, so you wait to sip, eyes still squinting from the light. You pull the first card, Death Inverted, and, without flinching, embrace the exposed challenges about to present themselves to you.
“PRESIDIO”
There’s a town at the edge of the desert. You’ve been there before in a dream, low dusty shrubs on the verge of flames, javelinas neighing somewhere unseen. You kneel down and pick up a stone you also picked up in the dream, and smile as you toss it and set up a tent.
“IF THERE IS, I’M HERE”
To find a home in another person, to be a home for someone else.
“THIN LAYER OF ICE”
The power has gone out during a snowstorm. It’s late and you walk outside to see if it has happened to the rest of the neighborhood. There are no street lights buzzing, there are no cars, and you feel a true stillness that you can’t quite remember ever feeling. Your nose and fingers numb as you lean down to examine tiny cracks in the ice on the driveway. They remind you of rivers and lakes as if observed from an airplane. As you reluctantly walk back inside, you blow a smoke ring with the fog of your breath.
