Songs hold spaces just like they hold notes. A breath, a beat, a vital emptiness between ascending and descending steps, and then nothing, and then swell, and then rest, and then revelation—it is the disappearance, and the quiet between, it is the unheard, which gives each note a shape. The so-called negative space in paintings, where the canvas has been neglected, left hollow, passed over—those undeveloped lots and unclaimed portions, where the brush never traveled, the solitary plains which are the dominion of lack and bareness, absence and want, these, I think, are where the oxygen lives, where the heart is given to wander a moment. The gaps between my fingers, the vital pockets of precious nothing in my lungs, the burning in my body between meals, the droughts between kisses—those pauses between words, between words, between words. And then nothing, and then feasts, and then loss, and then amen. It is the quiet, I think, which gives me shape.
Again, beautiful. And the untitled piece almost looks like a map of the world. Or maybe some ancient world.