interesting what I will do

to pick a blackberry in a forest

will get my hand scratched time after another

take the little thorns out one by one

nothing will get me discouraged

sometimes the wound will start bleeding

and I will suck on it

take the risk to get my dress torn apart

calfs governed in red itchy lanes

last day of summer and I’m aching

It drives on the fumes of love.

You don’t want anyone to see, do you? You don’t want anyone to discover you’ve been feeding it so well. You’ve been taking such a good care. Shouldn’t there be some pride in it at least?

All that is is all that is not is not that that is is not that that is not that is all.

I cling into my white puffy hat as if it were a rabbit. It’s too hot to put it on my head but I took it with me anyway, just to feel better. It lives in the sleeve of my puffer jacket and I check if it’s there all the time. I run toward my gate but I don’t want to. Probably I want to be late.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like that though. It’s just this nonsense desire to be locked at the airport in forever-nowhere liminality. I guess I’m just scared of action most of the time. I prefer when things pass around me and I don’t take up space. It tastes so sweet, living without a self.

I arrive at the gate and see everyone still waiting for the boarding. Thank God I think.

A similar thing gets tempting on a train. It might be transit that awakens these. A woman next to me, she left the seat just as the train was stopping at a station, and I’ve realized she forgot her paper bag. Is she leaving? I looked back and it seemed to be the case. It’s not possible she would have left her shopping bag, it was right in front of her. Should I run and save her some cries over the items she’d decided to carry home? But doesnt it make me too overeager, I’m sure she will be back.

I looked into the bag gently and realized there’s a bottle of water I’ve been carving so badly. I have none and there’s three hours to go. Oh god, she needs to come back, I’ll feel so guilty! The train stops and I think someone will take over her place and then I’d need to move the bag and it would just happen to be mine. What else is she carrying? It would be nice to imagine these were my shopping choices, such different from my usual ones that I could abandon myself for a second and as I fantasize about it she’s back. Thank God.

The smell outside is pollution and bad perfume. It hits me everywhere I go and makes my mood shift radical. Not like a good one would make me feel another way, it would make me feel nothing at all. There are only bits of this fume that make my eyes swell a little, but it lasts too short to make me dwell. The sharp smell of boys in black tracksuits and perfect white shoes prevails. It makes nauseous to feel so close to their puberty phase.

At the kitchen table lies another lighter I haven’t seen before. There were so many of them, all the time. There is a certain type of life that lets you accumulate such a collection. It doesn’t necessarily grow; losing one or leaving one behind is part of the scheme. The change doesn’t matter whatsoever. I like my self suppressed and so I can obsess over the person whose presence I cherish.

What was that awakening within me? Why was I so extremely loving, you could ask?

The world is becoming me and I do, and I do, I’m nothing separate. The piercing qualities of sounds from elsewhere enwrap me so tenderly, yet they make me lose touch with vision. I’m having my eyes half-closed and flickering becomes my mate.

I just wanna live the LifeLite! If there’s any inconvenience, I can’t comprehend it anymore! I have the knowledge to make it happen, so why am I absolutely not able to? I wanna go through it all as smoothly as I can, but I also wanna spit and spill and push and pull.

I want you to hear me clearly, I won’t surrender! In the pursuit of it I’ll go far and beyond and forget it’s doomed to fail, my arms bent, my voice frail. My hands interlocked behind, as they should be.

Desertion might stay as a thought. Something on the horizon that won’t ever happen but is always so vivid in the fantasy. Balancing on a knife edge gets its appeal from what’s before it, the smooth and shiny surface.

Been finding some calm in liminal spaces

The breaks between the day and the night

Everything temporary promised to be back

Been feeling empty but it’s alright

All I know is that it’s not articulated well. The meaning swings and sways and swells… I say, give me a moment to vent, to break! The rhythm exchanges liking with the tempo, without each other they couldn’t live. Let me breathe, comprehend the leak. Cherish the weak.

There is boiling geyser inside of me and I don’t seem to be able to do anything about that. Every day I can hear another big leaf falling and making this quiet noise when it hits the floor, one after another, day by day. So I will pour the water down their throats with great force. And there is no pride in it.

The chandelier teases me though, and I can understand why it draws me so close. The piercing light that strikes me, this harsh promise that’s so sweet.

I refuse to sit with them, I keep my thoughts nice and clean. It means I suffer from many obsessions, because I’ll go to revolution against myself to be free. I can’t lie either, I mean, I can do it perfectly, but I never want to. So if that ever happens, I think I’m so ashamed because I can lie so perfectly. I won’t, though.

I often say that I don’t feel too empowered in the presence of the world. Sometimes I start to think that I just prefer to surrender. I won’t stand in the middle of the room, and if in the end I do, I won’t really be there. When I was a child, I remember always wanting to be an adult. Perhaps it was because I had to grow up early, and if so, I wanted it all.

So here I am, and I might feel as if walls have been squeezing and swallowing me, but I don’t resist. It’s a privilege to be alone yet calm. I ask for more and more. It’s a form of addiction. Is that all I ever wanted?

In my dreams, there are many rooms to visit, and I wander a lot because I don’t feel I belong to any of them. He asks if they are the same of different, I say, it depends. I say, you know, sometimes these are like tunnels or look almost like catacombs and then I get afraid he’ll think I’m trying to please him. I’m just under the influence of everything that he cherishes and admires and it crawls into my brain.

With each change of season and nature doing its cyclical dance, I feel the need to belong that persists, while passing becomes something gentler and doesn’t scare me as much anymore. There’s some sense of pride when I look at a flower, watch its growth and decay, that I am part of the same scheme of things in which we all feed one another. Some sense of pride in the fact that I’ll always miss you.

When all you see is loss, places once beloved now stripped of their magnitude, make yourself at home in the remains. Mourn and play in the same breath.

It’s been on my mind for some time now, and I tried to weave it into the music. The chandelier light, the quiet rooms, the feeling of belonging and disappearance happening at the same time.

Winged In Collapse is releasing May 15th on 7K <3

Pre-order and listen to the first single Hands Want To.

Dreams don’t take a break though. You can’t have a better rest than when falling into a hole with no stories to be told, can you. For some time now there have been only long corridors, unanswered phone calls, natural catastrophes.

So I look for calm in some dumb research. Number one will always be searching up salads I wish I could make but barely ever will in the end. Still, I like studying them and trying to imagine certain pairings, even though usually it’s not doable. Sometimes I’ll just go on Wikipedia, start with one term and from there go to another, and sometimes I’ll stumble upon some nice picture, and then put it on my wallpaper, to make a change for whatever reason.

I find some calm in looking up prices for chicken and comparing different shops. Or when someone’s bell is ringing on the staircase and it’s not mine. I find it in my long puffer coat which makes me feel like I’m pushing through the streets in a sleeping bag.

The more steps you walk a day, it’ll make it better. The more glasses of water you drink, it’ll make it all fine.

Sometimes I’ll wander around the flat and move things a few inches here and there so everything is in parallel. As the day falls into darkness, I can breathe easy as all edges of objects are softer again.

I used to turn the pots with flowers every time I couldn’t see the front side of their leaves. Now I let them face the sun and leave them be. It’s our joint sanctuary in the end.

All kinds of imaginary animals are here night and day, as the dogs above go back and forth, tapping their paws on the floor. This little, organic clatter. Different from the water dripping from the tap in the kitchen, which drives me crazy with how it repeats itself in perfect a manner. Sixteenth note, sixteenth note, sixteenth rest, sixteenth note, quarter rest. Anything with fixed tempo will bring to mind a machine. What has a soul will touch on a bit dirtier timing, in the sway of an emotional roller coaster.

A silk scarf hanging on the wall flutters gently, nearly invisible. The light spills on the surface of the coffee in the cup, waving time after time. There is so much movement in the illusion of stillness.

All this will pass, I say to navigate the nervous system. Everything else shall pass some day too, a voice says, but that’s too much to admit. There’s only this phantom pain, as if it was already done.

So I decide to dodge it all. Sorry baby, I’m too tired, can’t meet you tonight. She needs to go sightseeing on Google Maps using the UNESCO list. How disappointing, The Great Wall Of China is busy and stripped from all the mystery. But there is a nice hotel next to it, which looks quite peaceful. Well, as far as I know, there is nothing more peaceful than a good hotel. The one with a room that looks the same everywhere else.

It makes sense to look for the way out if you can. Passing of time is nothing else but good fortune, because it doesn’t accumulate. Imagine how unbearable that would be.

Luckily, the foreseeable future doesn’t extend much farther the moment of covering yourself with layers of protection tonight. First the duvet, second the curtain. Finally, spooning. You should be both in front and at the back he says, so I feel ultra protected.

Oppressive powers tend to prevail, that’s what evil does. It’s a purely physical phenomenon. Or is it other way around?

Am I wrong? I could always be wrong. I’ll assume that I’m wrong most of the time. What I know well though, is that we can’t fix this world. But I’ll be on the lookout for the holes to fall into.

How much she loved the silence.

It was almost like something saintly and I never wanted to interrupt it. That’s why I think from very early years I loved the silence too. It was a time of blessing. Watching her quietly or even being in a different room but still celebrating that it was there. It seemed like the most precious time we could spend.

I still appreciate silence and I never take it for granted. I still really love just lying down and listening to what’s happening around. That’s one of my favourite soundscapes: when I lie in my bed with the windows open and I hear birds, people talking, children playing somewhere far away.

I wish I had recorded it this summer, but I didn’t. I have barely made any music since I finished my new record this spring. That feels really awful and empty, and I hate to think about it, but it’s always like this and I don’t seem to be able to change that. I try to think it helps things to flourish before I can harvest. I decide to trust it’s all right.

I just don’t like thinking about it too much. As with many other things that arrive, as now, to sting me a bit. It happens so often that I forget the feeling.

Sunlight feels like bee stings1

I wish I could see fewer equivalent oppositions in every fragment of reality. It seems a wonderful idea to be able to easily pick a side. Luckily, most of the time I’ll choose to laugh at all this being relative and decide to act cheerful and silly. Because what do I really know?

I don’t know much and I never will, but I have this trust that holds a lot within me and ties it all together. I often have no idea where it comes from. It may be that the world turning dark (like it ever wasn’t, I wonder?) makes you search for clearer glimpses. It’s still all blurry though. The duality is a force with no fixed meaning, like when you imagine a knife tearing up the veil. Where soft meets the violence and becomes even more pretty.

Broken and stitched.

There are paths that you’ll be close to, but never walk through, and you’ll never get to know them. That tree you once passed close, but always saw from afar.

I wish we could look closer and with more empathy, on an equal level.

25.07

Every day this week, I felt like there was more to everything than what was actually there.

I was walking on the beach, following in the dog’s footsteps. Lost my key necklace in the sea.

A key to my heart, taken by the sea!

03.09

to ride with you through wet roads so that you can see what I see in you

13.10

I hate it when the radio is playing really quietly in the car. Feels almost as if I’m dead. Makes me feel like a ghost. It suits me well though.

He touches my knee very slowly and again I’m a little bit more present.

20.10

You all made me believe that nobody would ever let me in, and that I would only be worthy if I stayed at a distance. It’s all about staying far away and not getting involved.

Isn’t it strange how being distant can make you feel close to someone. It’s the key. The ultimate form of connection.

At moments like this, I think a lot about the cycle of things and how everything is reborn and returns, fuelled by loss and decay. Once again, I try to understand how the passing of such an innocent and pure existence could possibly make sense, but I find it hard to do so.

Life might never be the same again. Every day is a good day to say it, but some days it makes more sense than others.

I think a lot about how his snout fit perfectly in my hand.

How much does a body need to grow and harden, becoming immune to all destructive forces? They say, I love you body, you can do all sorts of things, and it sounds like a joke. All the body is doing is fighting to adapt.

Should I call the vet and tell them I won't pick up his little corpse today, or will not calling be enough of an answer? I should have done it right away, when it was still warm from living. I don’t think I’m brave enough to deal with its coldness, and I’m ashamed that I’m not. I remember going to see my grandfather in the funeral home for the last time and stroking his forehead as I used to do in hospital and how its temperature shocked me and how I had no one to talk to about it.

When I had to euthanize my dog about two years ago, I didn’t hesitate to have his body utilized. I just wanted to stop associating him with something physical - to let go of the idea of his body and imagine that he might be elsewhere. Maybe that feeling came from the fact that we were always moving and never really had one meaningful place to return to. If we had, maybe I would have chosen differently.

Today, I wish I could find the strength to take the puppy's body and dig him a grave somewhere nice. Plant a flower on it and watch it grow and watch it die again.

The night before his passing, he couldn't find any comfort, so I folded him into a blanket and lulled him to sleep. I stroked his cheek, and as his head lowered to rest, I gently took my hand away, little by little.

The loss itself doesn’t make sense. Only what comes with or through it can.

This pure, loving memory that I’ll cherish forever.

Well, at least I have a pretty good excuse: it's all the strings' fault! I've been so obsessed with their sound that recently I stayed in the zone of thirty violin samples I've recorded one day. I made a long form with them, and I made an album with them too (just spilling the tea, aka yes, it’s all in the pipeline), so am I free to let them go for now?

I was thinking, you know what, I'm gonna do a quick little autopsy on that piece I did with just four field recordings on Slowly Forgetting, Barely Remembering. That way, you can have some fun seeing how it’s all done, and I can remind myself how strongly I used to believe in simple sounds and techniques.

Let's jump into Speechless Lately.

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Here's a short list of a few objects that I wish to keep with me forever. This might not be easy as I tend to lose things easily, so I try never to take them out of the house. They either lie hidden in a drawer or hang on the walls. Each one possesses a certain power, evokes a feeling or comes from a particular memory.

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I’ve been finding language too flawed for some time now, and I keep turning to images and sounds instead - as emotional carriers. I treat words (here, books) more like companions, something I can hold onto. Paradoxically, they ground me in reality, the very moment of it. Reading encloses me in a little, lovely nest. And of course, maybe it’s just the circumstances of where the reading happens - some comfortable spot I find in the real world.

Writing, though, usually tends to unsettle me. Words often feel too rigid, too fixed to describe anything with. That’s why I wanted - and eventually started - to make music. I believed it would take the weight of the unsayable off my shoulders. And it did brought a lot of relief. As a listener, music often helps me organize the audiosphere - the city can sound so ugly, so I choose to cover it with something familiar, or at least something arranged within the frame of a track. That impulse, I’ve realized, extends to the visual world as well.

I used to take plenty of photographs every day because I loved how things could look in a picture - often more than in reality. But gradually I stopped, until I found myself unable to take photos at all. I no longer wanted to replicate what’s in front of me. If something meaningful happens and I want to keep it forever, I simply trust it will stay within me - buried, maybe, under layers of dust and rubble, but still there. I don’t believe a photograph can take me there anymore.

Still, I do believe in the power of photographs that aren’t mine. Ones where I don’t know who took them, or when, or where. Just a glimpse - and it feels like a glimpse of the divine. Those are the kinds of photographs I feel comfortable being inside, even though the images themselves are rarely comfortable - they’re strange, expansive spaces or extreme close-ups; they’re blurred, or lit harshly with flash; low-quality or sharply stinging. What they show carries something uncanny. And it’s that feeling I wish could last forever.

With that being said, let me take you on a journey. I’ll treat this series as a loose notebook - mostly without commentary - allowing the images to speak for themselves.

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The house has stood there for 160 years. Now abandoned, covered in spider webs. Left to fate, it’s a shelter to newborn kittens, hidden by their mama in the attic. There's something about the birth of animals that fills me with emotion. How they come into the world quietly, without much noise.

That tree in the garden that one day broke and nothing felt the same anymore. The other one, blooming with the most delicious cherries I've ever tasted. Bloated, blood-coloured. Yesterday, my mother took a saw and a ladder, dragged a big branch down, and we picked them together: one to the basket, one to the mouth.

The high grasses soar free, their cutting edges glistening at dawn as pheasants shriek their hearts out. In the morning, pigeons take over with their modest, hooting sound - I think my favourite.

While I write this, I have a look at the moon and my head is spinning. Again, I remember I'm just a little ant there. Honestly, once you come to terms with it it's such a joy.

There was a huge thunderstorm recently, my grandmother said. Branches were scattered everywhere, but the house left untouched. I wasn’t surprised; it had gone through so many before.

There is no fence, just trees surrounding the garden like guardians. I looked at it on Google Maps because I remember it being this green, fluffy square with a house in the middle. It’s been updated recently - my parents' house, which they built two years ago, is now next to it – but it doesn't look like it used to. The garden has faded, weakened. It might just be autumn and the trees might be bare, but it touches me anyway.

I turn around to see it in all its glory. I decide to trust what I see.

In other news, the video report of my residency at GRM Studio in Paris is now live. If you're curious about Suite for Sore Strings and the sound obsession that shaped it, I invite you to take a look. You can also listen to a fragment of the piece in the second half of the video.

The full composition will be released later this year - hope it finds its way to your ears.

Stay sun-kissed,

M

A little figure from divine. It's true - what would I do without you? The orders to hide keeping my survival instinct always intact. All the time.

Anytime!

The problem is… my thoughts are often like rabid dogs on a leash. A moment of inattention and I end up on the floor - it’s all gone. From seed to truth they say and I mindlessly follow, but there is nothing to be uncovered. There is nothing to make sense.

My mind is a cemetery for all kinds of days. My phone gallery is a collection of graves. Every time I visit, they illuminate. Made from stainless steel light, they possess what one only desires. They'll never vanish, no! Proudly labelled: the very last to be gone.

A demon is there. It has to be fed. The more tiptoe walking, the stronger it gets. Notice it! Destroy it with attention! Peel layer by layer - slowly, surely. Let it giggle to death!

It brags and brags without any consequences. Ready to fight, I lie down on the grass and focus on hearing whatever else. I've never realized how beautiful sound birds can make, when they fly back and forth. This quiet, gentle sough.

Everything becomes a bit slower. I open my eyes and the blue sky above turns into a pulsing mass. The movement of tiny glitters in the air.

So now it lies down, satisfied and neat. The demon is fed.

The demon is me!

Everyone say, happy birthday you silly goose.

See you tonight in Bordeaux!

Kiss,

M

I was out on my usual run when I paused for a quick stretch - and there it was, a trace of children's game. At least, that’s what I assumed. You'd have to be carefree, almost reckless, to leave something like that behind, exposed to the mercy of fate! Otherwise, you'd tuck it between the pages of a book, preserving a memory. Or at least throw it into a …

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I came here to write something along the lines of Dear Diary... but I always have a hard time confirming my point of view. Pa…

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Sometimes all we need is not to seek, but stay in the comfort of what’s within reach. Open the door wide. There is something quite beautiful about gates and their purpose to say welcome. Things can get ugly pretty fast though when its function is to divide and mark.

Here I am, finding this little draft post as I come back to this space, thinking, well, maybe I should try to open up a little bit again. To make it even more interesting, as I'm writing, I’m in the same place where these two photos were taken. This sweet cat is just much bigger now, and it gives me a feeling of how long I have been waiting to share something in here.

I’ve had it for a while now, that I don’t note or keep as much as I used to. I don’t take photos anymore, I don’t record anymore and I start to wonder where all that impulse went. But I realize, maybe it’s because lately I’ve found some comfort in just living through. Maybe it’s because I used to share too much… but in what sense do I think that? We’ve been going through some CDs in the car, so these lyrics from Blood Orange’s Jewelry are ringing in my head: She’s doing the most, or he’s way too much; But, like, why would we want to do the least?

Well, I don’t have any answers to that and seems like I’ll always have a battle in my head between being and not being out there.

The days spent here are always so lovely and I hate to leave. Yesterday was the first warm evening of the year. It felt good to sit on the ground at last. We worked in the garden until dusk. It rained hard last night so all the new life was drinking like mad.

We'll see what happens.