Sublime eclectic mayhem. That’s been my playlist project and musical life, one that begins with The Muppet Movie soundtrack and later involves performing hymns, death metal, surf, and bluegrass. I’ve played in theaters, tents, and basements, for multi-stage festivals and squirrel rodeos. I’ve written and recorded music for The Drunken Odyssey. Sublime eclectic mayhem. A warning and a welcome for joyous noise, for those navigating what Beckett called “this bitch of an earth.”

(From a series of cut-ups using a page from each of the following: Soulbane Strategem: Diabolical Subterfuge That Threatens to Destroy Us by Norman Jermundsen and Gas City by Loren Estleman.)

III. Apparent Defeat

Spitting for the melted robe, the noise and reports could be a city. Stumpy piece, his boiling checks, the open pulsating around a slice of bologna. He oceans up in the derrick as a recreation center warms filling months. That fellow can’t figure out how to bite or climb the industrial grade shelving that you got across the street. A correspondent in the way, but I didn’t have any time. She drips at spheres, her slacks in crevasses. Her thoughts are black obsidian ruins. So many side streets heard telescopes of the soul. Who shifts the bodies? What a way to say happy birthday. Even Hugh fed a reaper head. Not madam, but I need her office. Two slacken like removing a string. I have a half-dozen watery sunlight seconds. The pour robe, the goldfish bowl downstairs, gray marble, his boiling service, the extra Acheron. Then imaginary again, not seen when I arrived. 

Black Obsidian Ruins

Listen on Tidal. Listen on Spotify.

1. “Theme from ‘King Kong’” – Lalo Schifrin
2. “Amor de Contrabando” – El Cholo Barral, Modesto Pastor, Rolando Vento
3. “Gravity” – Lyra Pramuk
4. “Rat Fink” – Ron Haydock & The Boppers
5. “Garang” – Takkak Takkak
6. “March nr. 3” – Maria Faust
7. “La limpieza” – BambiKina
8. “Music For A Found Harmonium” – Penguin Cafe Orchestra
9. “Eaffin’ And Surfin’” – Ron Haydock & The Boppers
10. “Chicken Strut” – The Meters
11. “There He Is Again” – The Hues Corporation
12. “Time Ring Rattles” – James Holden, Waclaw Zimpel
13. “Barrier” – Defacement
14. “Fantasy Is Reality/Bells of Madness” – Rob Wasserman, Carnie Wilson, Brian Wilson
15. “Paladin of Sound & Circumstance” – Joe Armon-jones
16. “Fight to Survive (End Title)” / “Streets of Siam” (on Spotify) – Paul Hertzog
17. “I Wonder” – Cecil Gant

Stephen McClurg (Episode 473 & 666) composes and improvises in Serenity Dagger, The Abdomen, and other projects. Along with session work for mid-Alabama singer/songwriters, he frequently collaborates with musicians across the state adding bass, guitar, and synths to friends’ recordings. He currently writes reviews for Horror DNA and is the substitute low end wrangler for Mobile-based punk rock band Future Hate. You can find out more about his work here.