So, I woke up yesterday to the uncomfortable realization that there was no way I was going to finish any of my articles in time to post on Monday. Naturally, I resolved myself to rectify the situation in an unorthodox manner, so today we’re going to be doing something a little different. Hold on to your hats.

As I was drifting off to sleep the night before, I was listening to an episode of one of my favourite podcasts, Radiolab. One of the hosts (I’m not so sure about the other) was extremely enthusiastic about a band he had recently discovered, Dawn of Midi, a trio based in Brooklyn, and he proceeded to win over our allegiance and get us into the groove.

I was also ominously inspired by their music’s peculiar combination of tedium and trance. The speakers seeped technological blood with a human plasma. So, when I opened my eyes early Sunday morning and saw all around me the echoes of human civilization without any humans, who were all asleep or otherwise indisposed, I decided I was going to make a film. What you will find at the bottom of this page is a ‘music video’ of sorts I set to one of Dawn of Midi’s songs from their new album, Dysnomia. Here we go.

I awoke early Sunday morning to a world of suggestions

Suggestions of humanity lay on the ground
Ran through the pipes
Scraped the door handles
Were embedded in the walls
Lingered in the air

Yet I pushed forward
Extruding minutes and seconds into membranes of automotive propulsion
Stretching as in yawning
its atonal tentacles

I heard the narrative of life on the boombox
waxing and waning
Swerving and bending
Soliloquizing and proselytizing
to everyone and no one
It is mostly silent

In the beginning and in the end
A primordial soup of nitrogen and paint
These morph into our tones and our rhythm
The ghosts of our machine
Evident in our technological brethren and kin
Precipitating our drive and our fuel
A coffee
A light switch
A button
Turning us on to our day
Proposals of life

All I could see were suggestions

Inheriting the rhythm of life

In the dawn of midi

The song is “Moon” from the album Dysnomia by Dawn of Midi (Dysnomia is also the name of a real life moon). All rights, copyrights, and privileges remain with the original creators.
The above video was conceptualized, filmed, and edited on the day of October 20, 2013. All video was captured with an iPhone 4S using the built-in camera app. The film was cut in Adobe Premiere. No video effects were used.

Here’s the episode of Radiolab concerning Dawn of Midi.
Here’s their homepage where you can listen to and buy their fantastic music.

UPDATE: The video I created to go along this post was taken down from YouTube due to a copyright violation notice from a music conglomerate. I doubt the original creators of the music instigated the takedown, however, I will respect the copyright and not repost the video.