← more from
In a Circle Records
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

I Will Learn To Love a Person: 5. Are You Ok?

from Christopher Cerrone - The Arching Path (ICR021) by Christopher Cerrone

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Digipack, beautifully designed by Timo Andres; includes program notes written by Jennifer Gersten.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Christopher Cerrone - The Arching Path (ICR021) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 10 days

      $15 USD or more 

     

about

I Will Learn To Love A Person is a setting of five poems by the writer Tao Lin, a sort of early poet laureate of Logging On, whose work attests to the banality of overconnectedness. Lin often ponders the contradiction inherent to life in the digital age, how it is possible to feel at once overexposed and unnoticed to the point of vanishing. Like Whitman, Lin’s speaker sings himself—but his “i” is lowercase, flattened by the weight of an overbearing universe.

Cerrone’s setting amplifies the sites at which feeling leaks out of Lin’s guarded prose.

Here as in other movements, the soprano’s line is often echoed by and split between different instruments, suggesting how one’s own head can constitute an echo chamber.

In the last movement, “are you okay?,” the speaker, rendered practically immobile by thoughts of his declining relationship, dreams that he returns to his lover’s home in New York City: “then i went to your room and crawled under your sheets from the end of your bed.” Cerrone has the soprano and company repeat this line with seemingly gnashed teeth, revealing its angry, even menacing subtext. But then the voice relents, sweetly reformed in the key of C major, having “crawled to your face and kissed you.” The movement concludes with an interval that first sounded mid-movement, now flung into a piercing register—the resounding slap of a vision manqué. The high is fleeting, and the music begins its descent to the movement’s starting note.

lyrics

i don’t think telling someone ‘don’t feel sad’ will console them

you need to do whatever you can to make them feel better

whenever your actions make them feel sad

and not stop until they feel better

read my text message and think about it

you just never seem happy with me anymore

even if i make you laugh

i think the damage i’ve done has become irreversible

i’m surrounded by endless shit

i can’t move

where are you

i just had a dream where i came to nyc but i didn’t tell you and i took
the subway

to your apartment and waited for your roommate to come out so i
could sneak in

then i went into your room and crawled under your sheets from the
end of your bed

and crawled to your face and kissed you then pet and hugged you

and we fell asleep

happy birthday

i drew you an ugly fish comic
will you visit me today?

i want to hold you

and kiss your face

i miss walking with you at night

credits

from Christopher Cerrone - The Arching Path (ICR021), released May 21, 2021
Timo Andres, piano
Lindsay Kesselman, soprano
Ian Rosenbaum, percussion
Mingzhe Wang, clarinet

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Christopher Cerrone image

Christopher Cerrone Brooklyn, New York

Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984) has been commissioned by Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, and the Cincinnati Symphony, among others and his opera Invisible Cities was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize. He was nominated for 2020 and 2022 Grammy Awards. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. ... more

contact / help

Contact Christopher Cerrone

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

Christopher Cerrone recommends:

If you like Christopher Cerrone, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Saxophonist Isaiah Collier chats about his new LP and the influence of Pharoah Sanders.
listen now