Psymon Spine
Dear Psymon Spine,
Where are you?
I was taken to one of your shows recently by my niece, Ana. Now I must admit, I'm not well-versed in the amorphous, genre-defying spirit of the time (which you so casually seem to channel). But I'm home now in my cabin in the Catskills, and I felt compelled to write you this note urging you to show yourself. Were you busy? Shy? Have you been dead for a while? The boys on stage seem to hold you in their midst like a séance. Indeed I spoke to all of them individually and, like your totems they are all well-chosen; each a figure of the ceaseless joy that pervades from your opening till the end of the party after the party you invited us back to.
They glide through the human verve of a barn dance, the esoteric channeling of electronic sounds I am, alas, so unfamiliar with (though Ana tells me your instincts are so correct as to already have stretched way beyond the pale of what the uninformed would call 'Ee Dee Em'). At times they sing together like sacred harps, evoking some ritual (I saw their fans at the front, eyes half-lidded, trancing, mouthing every word, even when they push those words through their strange machines). Other times they break into some elevated heartbeat of the future, like a gang, syncing up in the darkness of the stage but always in the light of the mind. The experience is rapturous.
Ah, I've digressed. You know, I'm not even sure that Psymon Spine exists; is it a code? An organization? PSY for psychedelic, MON for the harmonious way you hold each other musically through even the weirder turnings of your set, the snaking through modern and ancient, folk, doom, trance music. The SPINE must then be all of you together, and me perhaps - as a newcomer, that current below which mysteriously unites everything. If Psymon Spine does exist, please wish him well on the other side, or in whichever dimension he now dwells. Please continue, my friends, for the sake of all those I saw leaving your show drenched in sweat, smiling. The young and the old alike whom I saw forget themselves among your sonic fray. Excuse this scribble; I am sending it without permission of my niece, who insists the mystery is part of why we come. Tell Psymon 'thank you'. Tell him he's left his ghost in very capable hands.
In adoration,
An old man in a cabin in the Catkills