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“Reflections On An Inland Sea” is the 2nd of two compositions by Taylor Deupree for David Sylvian’s abandon/hope photography installation. The first piece, “Too Close To Being Far Away From Everything,” was released on a playbutton MP3 player as part of the Setouchi Triennale 2013 art exhibition in Uno, Japan. Visitors of the exhibition could rent the playbutton and explore the city and the art while listening to Deupree’s music.

“Reflections On An Inland Sea” accompanies the two-book hard cover, boxed-set show catalog for Sylvian’s abandon/hope exhibition which concluded in the Spiral Garden building in Aoyama, Tokyo.

The title for this piece is inspired by the geography and history of Uno, Japan where abandon/hope first began to be shown. There are ghosts in the music which listen in on the fragile and dusty sound whose slow, melancholic loop stretches like the sundipped horizon across the water. But as the music continues across it’s 17+ minute arc the sounds brighten, freshen, and a glimmer of hope is instilled as the sun drops quietly into the sea.

Too Close To Being Far Away From Everything.

“Too Close To Being Far Away From Everything” was composed as a sound installation/soundtrack to David Sylvian’s abandon/hope photography exhibition as part of the Setouchi Triennale 2013 in Uno, Japan.

The sound installation is devided into two sections – a composition by Taylor Deupree, titled Too Close To Being Far Away From Everything, which can be listened to on a playbutton (fully customizable mp3 player in a wearable button) and the reading of various quotations by several famous philosophers which can be heard from the speakers of the audio automobile kiosk.  The playbutton was distributed to the audience from the kiosk and features the photograph “Paradise” by Nobuyoshi Araki as the cover-art for the button.

“Too Close To Being Far Away From Everything” is music both without time and existing at multiple points in time.  It is about ghosts and futures and the quiet overpowering of nature over man.

In the distance, they thought they heard a noise. This sound, that lay upon the hum, that those who lived here incessantly heard, crept into their consciousness as their breath slowed. The search was drawing on, time was becoming physical.

The landscape was brown, a reddish brown, dusty and warm, and the smoke that was always somewhere off in the distance was still not far enough away. The noises of everyday always seemed like layers of different lives sounded off by the people. Each voice a mystery, yet vital to the whole, but most knew nothing of the lineage. Sometimes the voices called louder when the sun was high, making them long for the cool earth beneath the soil.

Memory forgets small details, it fades into now, and you can see that in their eyes. Each step to get here was felt; the earth under foot, and each breath taken was part of the price to pay.

Tomorrow will bring another experience, another mystery. But even the tiniest of ideas will set them out again; a hum, a crackle, a reflection. This is where it will continue as they search for the origin.

Origin is the latest album from long-time collaborators Savvas Ysatis and Taylor Deupree. Released as a 12” LP Origin sounds quite unlike anything they’ve done in the past after nearly 20 years of releases together. Cryptic, noisy and warm, Origin searches for details in the layers.