Time is personified, chemicals drip from the moon, the breeze carries a tune and arms become kits for mingling with crows in the sky – Destruction Unit guitarist Jes Aurelius dreamt a veritable psychedelic epic in the Basque Country and luckily jotted it all down. With its synaesthesia and sudden leaps of imagination, Aurelius’ dream is a porthole into the imagination of an artist producing words, images, sounds and events with the collective Ascetic House in addition to his crucial role in Destruction Unit. Liz Mahoney, vocalist of the bleak and menacing Sacramento death rock quartet Screature and tarot aficionado, deciphers Aurelius’ latent thoughts on the rat-race and annihilation, but determines from his dream that the future bodes well. Mahoney also susses an affinity for Salvador Dali. Her interpretation is dense, pointed and substantial. I don’t want a reading.
DESTRUCTION UNIT GUITARIST JES AURELIUS’ DREAM
Zarautz, Gipuzkoa Province, Basque Country – 08/01/12
Orange liquid latex drips from the moonbeams and pavement radiates heat like a brick stone oven. A television set is on in the corner, with a crowd of people opposite. I'm sitting next to a lady wearing nice perfume. “There are camels alive in Arabia, like the ones I'm smoking, that will never see Mecca. And there are spirits alive at Arlington, like the ones I'm drinking, that will never see the end of battle.” Everyone in the room keeps talking like they've got someone's ear while time quietly sneaks out the back door. Outside, it is not ruins. Rather, ruby red fields of ash, burned bridges rebuilt to precise specifications and the floating rock is at the end of it all. I can hear the breeze singing, begging for one more night and two steady hands. Time stops at the first bridge, waits for me to cross, and catches up. It's hoping I will fall, so it can stop counting, but the moon is guiding now. Rats ate my feet, so my arms become kites. As the crow fly, so do I, with time. The breeze still singing, now carrying me as well, I survey the landscape looking for a soft hedge. Yet the breeze won't let me down, or give me my feet back. Instead, it sings… when all I want is silence.
SCREATURE VOCALIST LIZ MAHONEY’S INTERPRETATION
The colors and animals in this dream represent initial hope and joy breaking into discomfort and stress. [You’re] definitely not afraid to die and find life more annoying than the idea of an afterlife. There is an assumption that everything is annihilated, almost as if there is no way of controlling anything anymore and being irritated at the rebuilding of pointless and endless journeys. The constructive ticking, the calculative chopping up of the flow of life is seen by the dreamer as a waste of energy. They prefer the waves and spirals of a reality buried inside a culture that is all too chatty and focused on boxes. The dreamer has no idea what is coming next in life. Not only can the steps not be taken, but it is as if there are zero options from being completely exhausted by the rat race. Fortunately, from the darkness within and even out of the most annoying human habits, the dreamer can now rise above to efficiently and swiftly achieve new goals and outlooks. I'd also be very surprised to find that they had not done a shit ton of psychedelics or at the very least have a strong passion for Salvador Dali.
Destruction Unit's Deep Trip is out now on Sacred Bones. Sceatures's self-released LP is available to stream and purchase on Bandcamp.
