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Kraina

by Anselm McDonnell

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    Shrink-wrapped 4-panel card digipak with CD and 4 page booklet. Pottery by Claire Kennedy Maker. Photography by Vincent McDonnell. Design by Anselm McDonnell.

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1.
Text by Anna A. Friedrich © 2022 Commissioned by Anselm McDonnell Thank you she said it like a question while we walked along ocean, creek, tributary — made no difference — our conversation was all chemistry — alkali and acid: elemental sisters warring, waiting — we their mediators. Taking my hand, she made me hold the life gone from a starfish, then took my arm and led me to Jennette’s pier, now decrepit? She took my eyes and told me I’d be fine in heaven blind — she took my eyes! — one in each enormous hand and chucked them in the sea so I might see the coral reef’s white bones she mused then left me on the beachrock shouting like Bartimaeus. My eyeballs floated in the flotsam before one sank in the drink; it must have been my weightier eye — serious, tireless, landing long after in a bathyal baleen whale fall. The other — my light-hearted eye rushed into a shallow current rich with a community of pink and purple plastic. Above the sea, the rest of me sat down in defeat. Soaked by unexpected waves — not tears, my eyes were lost, recall — I cried out with the seagulls Sorrow! Sorrow! until I sensed her presence — mercy, shame, again she said Thank you — her voice wide and deep inside a yawn. The tide came up to tuck her in to bring the night’s oblivion that makes the day’s woes bearable — its acid and its alkaline — she slept, I think. And I awoke.
2.
Text by Stanisław Barańczak © 1960s Jeżeli porcelana to wyłącznie taka Której nie żal pod butem tragarza lub gąsienicą czołgu, Jeżeli fotel, to niezbyt wygodny, tak aby Nie było przykro podnieść się i odejść; Jeżeli odzież, to tyle, ile można unieść w walizce, Jeżeli książki, to te, które można unieść w pamięci, Jeżeli plany, to takie, by można o nich zapomnieć gdy nadejdzie czas następnej przeprowadzki na inną ulicę, kontynent, etap dziejowy lub świat Kto ci powiedział, że wolno się przyzwyczajać? Kto ci powiedział, że cokolwiek jest na zawsze? Czy nikt ci nie powiedział, że nie będziesz nigdy w świecie czuł się jak u siebie w domu? Translation by Professor Magnus J. Krynski If china, then only the kind you wouldn’t miss under the movers’ shoes or the treads of a tank; if a chair, then one that’s not too comfortable, or you’ll regret getting up and leaving; if clothes, then only what will fit in one suitcase; if books, then those you know by heart; if plans, then the ones you can give up when it comes time for the next move, to another street, another continent or epoch or world: who told you you could settle in? who told you this or that would last forever? didn’t anyone tell you that you’ll never in the world feel at home here?
3.
Text extracts from Belfast. 99 ścian pokoju by Aleksandra Łojek (translated by the author) © 2015 She thought Belfast would be like London, Only smaller, of course, cheaper, greener. Sadly, further from Poland, Well… she’d never buy a house in London. So, she bought a house on the interface, Northern Ireland must be something like England. Only smaller, of course, cheaper, leaner. Only, further from Poland. And the house was attacked one night in the riots. All the neighbouring houses were attacked in the riots. Smaller, and there were riots, of course, cheaper, given the riots, bleaker. She never thought one day she would be sitting at a meeting, with representatives, Catholics and Protestants from the interface. She never thought one day she’d be the only person, Asking for the Peace Wall to stay, Asking for the gates to be closed, Asking for the kids to be separated, Asking to be left alone on this side (whoever this side is). She thought Belfast would be like London, Only smaller, cheaper, green...
4.
Text from Pielgrzym by Adam Mickiewicz © 1826 U stóp moich kraina dostatków i krasy, Nad głową niebo jasne, obok piękne lice; Dlaczegoż stąd ucieka serce w okolice Dalekie, i - niestety! jeszcze dalsze czasy? Litwo! piały mi wdzięczniej twe szumiące lasy Niż słowiki Bajdaru, Salhiry dziewice, I weselszy deptałem twoje trzęsawice Niż rubinowe morwy, złote ananasy. Tak daleki! tak różna wabi mię ponęta; Dlaczegoż roztargniony wzdycham bez ustanku Do tej, którą kochałem w dni moich poranku? Ona w lubej dziedzinie, która mi odjęta, Gdzie jej wszystko o wiernym powiada kochanku, Depcąc świeże me ślady czyż o mnie pamięta? Translation by Edna Worthley A rich and lovely country wide unrolled, A fair face by me, heavens where white clouds sail, Why does my heart forever still bewail Far-distant lands, more distant days of old? Litwa! your roaring forests sang more bold Than Salhir maid, Baydary nightingale; I’d rather walk your marshes than this vale Of mulberries, and pineapples of gold. Here are new pleasures, and I am so far! Why must I always sigh distractedly For her I loved when first my morning star Arose? In that dear house I may not see, Where yet the tokens of her lover are, Does she still walk my ways and think of me?
5.
Text by Peter Skrzynecki ©1978 He has grown tired of the clichéd pronunciation of his name— countering the inadvertent ‘How d' yer . . . ?' that humour or rudeness asks, a few vowels and tooth-grinding consonants that must be phonetically rehearsed alone or at night, to forestall jibes, embarrassments, false curiousity— the wasted time that a Handbook-and-Timetable devotee provokes. Yes, he would argue, there must be places in history where land or heritage asks no exile of the children it nourishes and helps to breed, where a name's not laughed at, reviled or twisted like some gross truth or as yet unnamed, imported European disease. So, he asks, Tell me of Strzlecki, count-turned-explorer— beside whose name a creek flows through the deserts of South Australia? Or why a mountain, peaked with snow, should resemble a tomb and be named Kosciuszko? Their eyes narrow, nostrils quaver— the seconds between them toll. Deeply breathing their mouths open darkly and groper-slow.
6.
Text by Andrew Roycroft © 2019 Open wide your heart, In these common places, To the deeper daily things, To the rarer given things, To the fire in the west of winter sky, The battle lost but burning still; To the queenie boats in Coalpit Bay Like tidal stars washed down-sky to here; To the hint of foxes on the journey home, Like conscience, taking cover out of light; To the pitiable edges of a loved one’s days Their shared and shattered weakness Away from all that calls for strength. Open wide your heart, In these common places, To the deeper daily things, To the rarer given things To the children’s treasured plastic jewels And staggering gait in mother’s heels; To the elderly woman with the baby doll In the common room, who once weaned All those who no longer call; To the cortège with its unravelling yarn Of cars, and flawless punctuation Up in the burial ground, To the later laughter over tea. Open wide your heart, In these common places, To the deeper daily things, To the rarer given things.
7.
Text extracts from Sea-bedazzle by Euan Tait © 2021 Commissioned by Anselm McDonnell “Stephen the archangel takes to the skies of the seas and sweeps all the souls from the deepest rocks and stills their weeping, their unjust ends, and sets them tenderly on the Strand to coo like sea-chickbirds and sing song-comfort to each other until the choke of their drowning is no more. Only shore-children, in their green-woollen hats, in the delight of seashells crunching underfoot, can see them; and their tender, amazed laughter is a mystery to their parents. All houses are made from the light drawn from human hands, brick dust dissolves as the brickie builds, and brother Keane will come back years later when he is old, afraid and in pain and cry out ‘see!’ And his windows will wink and his facades shimmy-seduce and his slates get blown upright in the strongest winds from the east, just as the lover he came home to, each built day, comforted him by ruffling his hair. Nothing can comfort Stephen. He has become the sea, and storms are his wings, the shattered heart who witnesses the sinking of the innocent in a great ship, a woolen doll floating on the surface of the December sea, the light as fluorescent as the flesh of houses. When Stephen hears an old man is dying, he knows that pain like mist burning from the surface of the bay on a day no one could have imagined could be this hot. The houses are long drowned when Stephen leaves the shore. But he is legend-rain every bloomsday. He is light following a dark shower of pollen, of blood, of seaspray.”
8.
Moving House 06:11
Text by Leland Bardwell © 1984 The house unfolds and straightens with relief. We’ve discarded the stone, the elephant, the Japanese parasol and the pile of unfinished poems - They are like rotten fruit – (might be a core worth extracting.) Are you taking the piano? – Yes the mice are nesting in the keys and sit with paws crossed like expectant choirboys. We are tired of this move and all the other moves we’ve made and tired of the people who are tired of carting memories around. The magic of summer took us by the neck and wrung us out like an old sock is it possible we’ve accumulated so much rubbish in so short a time? Let us go then quickly before dark in this way we’ll close the shutters of absence and find a new set of trivia and attachments

about

The second album by composer Anselm McDonnell, featuring songs on the theme of home and displacement.

credits

released February 23, 2024

Accordion - Dermot Dunne
Cello - Annette Cleary
Electronics - Anselm McDonnell
Piano - Cahal Masterson
Piano - Rachel Quinn
Soprano - Elizabeth Hilliard
Soprano - Rebecca Murphy
Spoken Word - Nicole Rourke
Tenor - Joshua Ellicott
Viola - Laura Sinnerton
Violin - Alan Smale

Mixing - Eduardo Prado
Mastering - Christoph Stickel
Pottery - Claire Kennedy Maker
Photography - Vincent McDonnell
Production & Design - Anselm McDonnell

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about

Anselm McDonnell Belfast, UK

Anselm McDonnell is a composer of Irish/Welsh heritage based in Belfast, who has composed over ninety pieces for orchestra, chamber groups, choirs, soloists and electronics. A diverse range of interests have led to the creation of work in collaboration with rap artists, lighting designers, theologians, poets, filmmakers, improvising musicians, fashion designers, dancers, and actors. ... more

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