Get all 8 Sephirot releases available on Bandcamp and save 15%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Below Loam, The Book of Wonder, Coronal Loops Vol. 2, The Charged Emptiness at the Centre of Things, Coronal Loops Vol. 1, Tezeta for Shepp, A., Vilna, and Suite in D.
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Ophanim
06:32
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3. |
De Leon's Palimpset
04:56
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When he returned to the book that night the words were gone
a faint sound upon the air
not of music, or speech, but perhaps just an intake of breath
drawing them inwards and out from the page and into the world
nothing remained of what he had written
perhaps his wisdom did not sink its roots as deeply into Leon’s soil as he had imagined
for this had been intended to be a great work,
one to be poured over for many years,
fragments of Rashbi flowering into new branches of gnosis
consonants forming a flowing exegesis commanding the reader’s attention like hypnosis
but now who will know this, only scratches on the page sit where once ink had quickened the senses.
He dropped his head into his hands, for naught, perhaps not even prayer could mend this,
all those moments of creation blotted out in an instant.
Then, a sound, initially almost beyond the edge of perception like the last rays of the sun on the lip of the world,
unfurling, peeling back layers of tone, a chime in the darkness not heard but felt in his bones.
Shimmering like a bell as it passed through him as a shiver, dragging his eyes once again to the page,
and there, where letters had marched together lockstep, an inky channel growing from the spine now flamed,
a torrent, mixed with his tears spreading liquid wings across pages once tamed
wild but for an instant and then slowing, now seeping in rivulets, glistening softly like oil on water becalmed.
And as Moses watched, tributaries formed, delicately meandering across the page
deltas and floodplains narrowing to form slender letters, at first a crawl but now speeding across the paper like an arrow.
Lifting the pages he sees black veins and capillaries sinking into every one, even those whose shores he had been yet to cast upon.
Words, phrases, sentences, whole ideas forming, thoughts he’d once tried to grasp in the moment between inspiration and writing, or sleep and waking,
these now stride across the leaves like Nephilim, whole sheaves alive with marks, symbols, and devices, already drying in the heat of the sun.
Suddenly, it is done, and in his hands sits the infant, no twin of his first writing, but a thing new in the world
Who is he, author? redacter? vessel?
These questions twist and fray before collapsing into nothingness
What remains is the book, once his, but now only briefly in his safekeeping, to be passed hand to hand with the rustle of its leaves in the wind.
This will be fruit of new knowledge, an orchard for those sages that sit with it, long after the soil in the garden closes over him.
Closing it he sees a new title emblazoned, radiant like a flash of lighting, brightening his eyes as the sun, dawning, rises in the heavens.
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4. |
Garmizan's Star Chart
10:17
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5. |
Trembling Dance
05:13
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He’d been staring at the pages for hours as the rain had continued its drumming on the thin roof, and now words swam,
blinking, it suddenly became clear that this was no trick of tiredness or the candle’s guttering, it was real,
graceful strokes began arcing and bending, spreading out from open pages to embrace the air around him.
A summoning, a quiver of the ink as it floated as if upon breath alone or a breeze
he had thought this but a book, but this was a wonder of its title he had not guessed at.
How long had it been slumbering before he, a chance reader, had incanted aloud a single page upon a mere whim,
as the Maharal before him had cleaved mud and rent life upon its form now he too felt power lacing its fingertips between his
waiting just under nails, as whole oceans of potential, it could, in a rush, leap and rend the material of the world around him at a command issued in the form of a sacred name.
Yet to how control it, how to harness this well that even now felt close to brimming over, close to breaching the gossamer that kept the worlds apart .
He was too young to control this bolt, that, as if rushing from the heavens to split a mighty oak, had rent the defences of his mind, and stepped into his body.
Mind and soul felt underwater, bowed by the weight that had come to settle upon him, as a huge bird upon the branches of his slim shoulders
older than anything he had felt in the world before, he hardly dared to breathe, lest such a movement would cause the unfurling of its wings and an ascent skywards from which he might never return.
This was why the riches of middle years and its attendant wisdom were recommended he now realised with a sigh of scorn at the impetuousness of his youth,
And yet, he could not open his mouth to bring a clarion of a call into existence and bring others rushing in, so that with the intricate weavings of gemmatria’s letters and numbers he could be freed.
Unexpectedly, as if electricity charged blood and muscles with fire he stood, his back ramrod straight, but legs trembling slightly with a harsh tension that he felt in his thighs and calves.
For a moment all he heard was the rain, and then it came again, a drum beat opening his eyes wide with a force that sent his body rocking forwards and backward, his back a small craft in the squall,
almost thrust to his knees before being jerked to stand tall, tendons thrumming and muscles coruscating with a life like the taste of blood in the mouth,
his trembling dance was a desperate davening, with the dveykus of a Tzadik Nistar, as irises misted and stars sang across eyes that bulged wildly as they swung their glance around the empty room unchecked.
Was it the book or the shekinah herself, this marionettist with a vigour so vicious it threatened his sanity, as his seizures of supplication renewed themselves, clamouring into his spine and head with a clangour.
And then with a bang on the door it was done, the memory threatening to fade already, from dust to dust, and he was in the chair, the book of wonder not even on the table, if it had ever been, the moment past and the voice calling him from the hall back from the sublime to the sublunary, forever changed, and yet unchanging.
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Sephirot UK
Artist and musician inspired by a long history of Jewish culture and art.
And lo-fi beats and ambient
music.
And Leonara Carrington.
And Murcof.
And Arve Henriksen.
And Hamlet Gonashvili.
And and and and and and and and and and
I love hats.
And lists.
... more
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