A moon. Static. A static moon. A static moon held in the bass drum at the heart of the universe. A moon of reflected light out there in the dark of the vinyl void.

The centre of the universe is struck. The moon hums. The moon distorts. The moon puddles with vibration, reassembles, puddles, the vinyl void stretching with waves as the strikes progress, form a groove, a rhythm of strikes.

~

a groovy wave
the way the groove
is a wave as space
in the groove is played
the way the moon 
guides the waves
automated
the camera steps away
free form float
of the observing eye
out of time
out of space

~

The drummer is revealed – the drummer plays at the heart of the universe. Which take is this? How many versions of this solo recorded? The drummer understands the process of playing like it’s the first time, playing again with the fervour like it’s the last. How recording is in tension with the spirit of live drumming. How repetition can lead to automation. Not here. The playing is new, the groove is new, it’s a new moon at the start of the tape.

~

The camera orbits the drum kit like a bass orbits the groove, as if counterpoint as the moon is counterpoint to the Earth. Quantum rhythm section, an ancient pattern, a cycle while the rhythms of life play out. All the boredom and random happenings, all the sure and freak accidents – they are what the drummer brings to the set as they practice, this primal ritual of rudiments, grooves, sticking, all chasing an unheard, automatic music.

~

The drifting camera focuses on the frames, the rims, the bolts, the structures containing air between membrane. Where sound is held. Where resonance waits. The edges of elements to strike are still. Anticipate. This automated orbit brings us to the temple hardware and its fiddly screws that buckle and bind vinyl, wood, sound together. The drummer brings them to life through play and precision.

~

If you are not seen, only heard, are you the drum kit or the sound?

~

All elements resonate. The body of the camera and its operator resonates with each stroke the drummer plays. 

As the drummer plays, every element of the kit resonates. 

The room, the white box, possibly a studio in the mind of a star, the space, resonates too. If the kit was situated in a garage or underwater these same resonant elements would all sound different – yet the originating source, the drummer, the beginner of sound, remains the same. 

A drum kit is a quantum resonating object. The camera notices.

~

A single shot. To strike a drum once is to begin the series of strikes continued for one’s life as a drummer. The singular stroke is a measure of time and a measure of your control. You can’t control the moon; you may as well play against its elements.

~

As Tony Williams put it, a drummer is working against gravity. ‘The hardest thing the drummer does is lift the stick’. A drummer is working against the simplest, all-governing resistance. Lift the drumstick up. Bring it down. Challenge the moon.

~

The anti-gravity of the camera is an automated pattern of noticing. It notices how the edges of a struck cymbal blur with vibration. It notices the snare springs shivering. It notices the switching grip as the drummer moves from stick to beater to the galvanised brass of the cymbal. It notices where the drummer goes, trained on their intent.

~

Repetition is key to learning and automation. The moon’s cycle is predictable. Its effects are playful. This predetermined drum solo is learned and automated into glorious play.

~

Out of frame, out in space
the drummer is the beginning 
of all sound. You call space 
in a groove, pocket. You call 
the push of time, feel. You feel 
time as you play on, rushing, 
dragging, as you train moons
to dance through the grooves
preloaded in your being, reacting
to vibration and resonant patterns
alive in your automated meditation.

~ 

A camera noticing the gaps, the pockets in the flow of the image – we’d call it syncopation. If you ever felt in sync with someone who moves at another time than you do, you’re in syncopation. Pass like ships in the night – syncopation.

~

Practice is the return to the automatic.

Are you playing what you are expected to play? Find the heart and the two-step synchronised pattern of walking – we’re dancing. Call it 4/4. 

Play in free time – your heart’s a mess. So is the moon. How beautiful the mess. How practiced the mess of free time.

~

Drummer, you are the automaton most prone to error, the fallible clock, in this alien room, jamming in tandem with the rigged moon, your drum strokes unfaltering in their tempering of wild music.

~

Your grip of time is slipping.
Match grip to trad. grip,
stroke switch from rocksteady
to bombast to rapture,
pushing time to truly free.
Out of grooves, you are slowing
to the spatial gaps in play.
It’s in the silence the listener
notices the quiet of chaos
the moon, the receiver
of all vibration resting once again
at the heart of the bass drum
at the heart of the universe.

~

Once the drummer empties themselves of their grooves, they tend to slow. They embrace space. Busyness and flair traded for calm in spacious resonances. The drummer chooses when there is silence, when there is space.

~

A renewed space forms. The automated orbit of the camera rests in the vinyl void. The static moon returns. 

The drummer out of frame, in control of silence, of pause. 

When the drummer stops playing, all orbits are on pause. Sound as time on pause. Play paused.

~

The moon waits to dance again.

~

The drummer, resting automaton, waits to play again.

--

Antosh Wojcik is a poet, drummer and cross-disciplinary artist. He produces music as /weirdtoday and is a member of the collective FWRDMTN.