Gorillaz - The Now Now (Kayfabe Review)

Parlaphone: 2018

It took long enough, but Stuart Pot finally got to make his own Gorillaz album. Yeah, he sneaked one out under Murdoc's broken-ass nose while they were on the Plastic Beach tour, but that was basically a solo album, with no input from any other members at all, much less a proper studio behind it. Makes me wonder though, how can The Now Now also be considered a Gorillaz album without involvement from the man who founded the band (albeit mostly through kidnappings)? Sure, three of its members are here, but without the demented brain-child of the band acting as its rudder, it's just a clutch of chummy talented musicians working together, feeding off the nostalgia of the brand to their own benefit.

It reminds me of when Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman, and Steve Howe joined forces for an album. Everyone within prog-rock circles felt this was as close to a classic Yes reunion as folks would get (until the actual reunion called Union), but lacking Chris Squire, it wasn't really Yes, not without the bassist who formed the band present. Maybe Murdoc's relinquished some of the Gorillaz licensing rights to the other members, letting them do as they wished so long as it benefited the brand in the long run. Would fit with his recent attempts at rehabilitation. Heck, he wasn't even that sour over his cousin Ace Copular replacing him on the subsequent tour.

Anyhow, The Now Now. As mentioned, this is essentially another 2D album, but with the full, proper backing of the band. It was also mostly written on the road while Gorillaz toured Humanz, so the song writing remains comparatively slight when stacked against previous records, almost no guest features on hand. And that's fine, something like this probably needed after the celebrity-stacked bloat that was Humanz. I don't even think Stuart could make an opulent record if he tried, his simplistic songcraft reflective of his simplistic worldview. That's not a bad thing either, music sometimes best served as a laid-back sweet indulgence, especially in the summertime.

The tunes definitely sound more confident compared to the ones from The Fall, which isn't surprise considering Murdoc's overbearing abusiveness was safely tucked away in a jail cell. If you don't feel a silly grin forming on your mug after the jubilant opener Humility, I dunno' how you can be alive, my friend. Tracks like Sorcererz and Magic City keep the peppy synth-pop vibes going, while tunes like Tranz and Lake Zurich offer some classy club-ready fodder. Heck, even moodier Hollywood doesn't lose a step in dancefloor fun, what with its Jamie Principle guest-croon (Snoop's there too, doing Snoop th'angs). A couple introspective pieces like Fire Flies and Idaho keep things somewhat grounded, but overall The Now Now is a fun little offering from 2D.

One of these days though, I'd love to hear a Gorillaz album where all the band members are operating as a fully-functional unified band. The stuff of dreams, I suppose.

The Orb - No Sounds Are Out Of Bounds

Cooking Vinyl: 2018

Yay, it's a Youth orientated Orb album! Those are always my ...favourite? Wait, am I certain of that? If I had to make a definitive ranking of Orb albums, I'd put records like U.F.Orb, Orbus Terrum, and Orblivion above The Dream. Yet Martin Glover has been involved in some of my all-time ace Orb tunes like Little Fluffy Clouds and Perpetual Dawn (among other, less known works). He's, like, the steady dub rudder of the group, always dragging The Orb back from too much weird experimentation, or monotonous techno expeditions, or over-hyped superstar pairings. I get why some folks think less of the Youth productions, what with them not being as 'serious' as other releases, but when have The Orb ever been regarded as a Very Serious outfit? The cheeky stoner vibe has always been part of the group's charm, and I've long enjoyed them more when they indulge themselves while providing an ear-wormy hook.

Still, even I must have my limits in how far this three decade old (!!) outfit tries appealling to an ever expanding collection of punters. I wouldn't blame old-heads in the slightest in writing off No Sounds Are Out Of Bounds based on the first couple minutes, opening track The End Of the End getting in on wub-wubs and trap hits (also: that hook sure reminds me of Dido's bit from Eminem's Stan). Never mind the fact the track settles into a more traditional dub reggae ditty by the end, it don't take much to turn folks away if they'd rather be hearing something else. And gosh, all those air-horns in Wolfbane? Who do The Orb think the are, Gen-Z YouTubers?

Okay, I think that's cleared out the naysayers for this album. Here's what you get if you're willing to hear all these sounds The Orb deems no longer out of bounds. The first half feels the Youth influences the most, plenty o' peppy reggae dub vibes and soulful world beat. Past Wolfbane though, things take a turn for the deep and downtempo. It kinda' comes off like a continuation of Chill Out, World, and no sounds are certainly out of bounds (Harmonica! Trumpet! Orchestras! Roger Eno piano! Jah Wobble bass! Thomas Fehlmann 'techno'!). It's also rather meandering though, and a stark contrast to the punctual pop overtones in the first half of the album.

Really, it all feels like appetizers before the fifteen-minute closer, Soul Planet. Plenty of calm ambient lead-in, settling into a jaunty soul-house groove with Andy Caine on the croon, and a dubby, trippy, minimalist outro session of all those non-bound sounds. Can I call Ultraworld-era Orb retro now? Because this sounds retro Orb, another shocker considering how blatant a trend-wagon jump the start of this album had. As mentioned though, that's always been the best part of Youth's collaborations with The Orb. He'll hit you with music unabashedly ready for the radio, but still takes you to those blissy downtimes that's kept a dedicated following of this conglomerate for so long.

ACE TRACKS: June 2019

So apparently all the original Final Fantasy soundtracks have made their way to Spotify. That's... really f'n awesome! Along with Dragon Quest, that franchise has been responsible for some of my all-time favourite video game scores, to such a degree I went out of my way to actually import Final Fantasy VII direct from Japan. Back in the '90s. From the internet. When I was still a teenager. Okay, technically it was my dad that put his credit card into the wild west of the old web, and was he ever questioning my birthday request back when, believe you me. Hell, I think it had to be ordered from a Japanese retailer, Amazon still barely a thing beyond a massive book store. These were the efforts one[s folks] had to do to get their jRPG vgm fixes. To say nothing of nabbing myself a copy of the holy grail of Final Fantasy scores, Final Fantasy VI. Oh, there was an ad for it in the SNES package (along with Secret Of Mana), three CDs of peak 16-bit musical perfection, but no way I'd get to snag me a copy of that along the way (much less pay an over-inflated collector's market import price).

But now they're all available on Spotify for me to enjoy to my heart's content. Not to mention update my Ultimate Master List with the appropriate tracks, no longer needing to rely on 'Local Files' for the task. Though it's funny that of all the scores I've checked out, it's the thirty-second loops of Final Fantasy I I've probably indulged the most now. Meanwhile, here's the ACE TRACKS for June 2019:


Full track list here.


MISSING ALBUMS:
Various - Hed Kandi The Mix: Summer 2004
Anatolya - Mirror Messages
SiJ - The Lost World
B°TONG - The Long Journey
Curve - Cuckoo
Sghor - Le Grand Mystère
Specta Ciera & The Circular Ruins - Mnemosyne

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 0%
Percentage Of Rock: 0%
Most “WTF?” Track: Nothing at all. Unless the concept of 'contemporary trance' throws you for a loop.

Compared to the cluster-foo that was last month's playlist, this one is remarkably consistent throughout. Probably helps everything comes in nice little chunks, a little house or techno/trance followed by some downtime, then moving back to the uptempo stuff. Probably also helps that the huge amount of ambient I did cover last month just wasn't available in Spotify. Makes for a shorter playlist (under three hours), but eh, as GZA once said: “Half short, twice strong.”

Cosmic Replicant - The Nature Of Life

Altar Records: 2013

This is about where I feel Cosmic Replicant truly came into his own as an artist, which is funny considering it, too, lacks much of style that initially drew me to Pavel's project. Who knew when I started digging deeper into his discography there'd be so much more to discover? He almost reminds me of another Altar Records alum, AstroPilot, in how diverse his various albums have been. Of course, in this early portion of his career, Mr. Shirshin is still playing by the usual psy-chill rules, but even here there are hints of the paths he'd later take.

For instance, the bleepy ambience that had me swooning over Mission Infinity pops up in the track Technological Era. Yeah, it's an appropriate title, definitely of a colder, harsher nature compared to the rest of an album quite fixated on the wonders of organic life. Where else am I gonna' get my acid fix though? Still, those expecting the sophomore effort from Cosmic Replicant to be more of the same as Future Memories had to be caught off guard by that sonic detour. Perhaps, but probably not so much as with Microscopic Structure, which dabbles in that trendy dub techno genre the lads at Ultimae Records were all on about. Hey, a one-off cut's not such a bad thing on an album clearly stretching beyond the norms of one's current scene, but a full record of it wouldn't fit well with the Altar manifesto. Just as well, then, he hooked up with Pureuphoria Records to scratch that particular itch on Landscapes Motion. Uh, nothing here suggests the pure prog-psy outing of his self-released Soul Of The Universe album though. Guess Altar wasn't having any of that from Cosmic Replicant one way or the other.

And now I feel bad because I feel like I've already run out of things to say about The Nature Of Life. What else can I say? As mentioned, it's Future Memories, but better. It has the bookened ambient pieces, the opener Somewhere Beyond more on a dub-drone tip, the closer Rebirth Of Nature opting for the Solar Fields happy feel-good bliss-times vibes. In between those you have the usual assortment of psy-chill (Living Particles, Molecular Compound) chill psy (Song Of The Forests, Morning Horizon), and whatever Sunnarium is. It almost sounds like it wants to be IDM, but just can't quite shake free of the psy shackles. Gosh, makes me wonder whether Pavel started exploring that domain in his more recent releases. Guess I'll find out soon enough!

Oh yeah, as with Distant System, I went and purchased the near-entirety of the Cosmic Replicant digital discography as found on Bandcamp. He's remained quite active since his last album on Altar Records, four items released since 2015. I suppose I could listen to them now and confirm any new developments in his songcraft, but I prefer savouring the anticipation. There aren't many artists left that make it worth my while to wait a little longer, y'know.

Harold Budd, Daniel Lentz, Ruben Garcia - Music For 3 Pianos

All Saints: 1992/2018

Whoa, I wrapped up that last batch of 'L' albums with a Harold Budd release, and now I'm wrapping up the 'M's with another of his. Does this mean the start of a trend, where each batch of letters will feature an item from that Budd Box bundle? Ah, no. Just a total coincidence. Besides, even if Budd's lone 'N' album was in this collection (too recent a release to qualify for the Budd Box), Nighthawks wouldn't even be at the end of the upcoming batch, three more CDs coming after that particular position in my alphabetical queue. Eh? Which albums might those be? Oh, something old, something new, something now now.

With a tidy amount of word count now burnt, I can reasonably do a tidy little review of this tidy little album from Harold Budd, Music For 3 Pianos. Well, not sure I can call this an LP-album, barely over twenty minutes in length. What's remarkable is this isn't the shortest 'album' in this box set, the earlier The Serpent (In Quicksilver) not even reaching that 'lofty' length.

While ol' Harold had no problem playing the piano on his own, he wasn't averse to adding fellow musicians into the mix. The obvious pairing was with Brian Eno, which immensely helped his profile among the niche market he already existed in. Along the way he paired with the Cocteau Twins in The Moon And The Melodies, but it wasn't until Music For 3 Pianos that Mr. Budd would truly unleash the collaborative floodgates forever after. Joining him on this venture was Daniel Lentz and Ruben Garcia. Lentz was a composer of some note through the '70s and '80s, though save his album Missa Umbrarum, quite opulent compared to the minimalist lane Budd usually traversed in. Garcia seems to have been a relative unknown compared to the others, this album his first Discoggian entry. He released a few more items after this, mostly obscure self-released ambient affairs, though did pair up with Budd on a few more albums before his passing half a decade ago. We got the instruments set up, the players involved introduced. Time to hear us some three pianist action, yo'! (stop sniggering, you)

And it's... surprisingly bare. Like, I should have expected it from a Harold Budd joint, but for some reason, I figured three players would involve more dynamic interplay, maybe on a jazz tip. Instead, it seems like more a 'call-and-response' thing going on, one player offering sparse tones while another adds their interaction, all the while allowing enough space between that you couldn't interpret this as anything other than Harold Budd doing Harold Budd th'angs. And I'm admittedly no expert on the intricacies of piano interplay, but isn't there supposed to be a third member here? I honestly can't tell.

Music For 3 Pianos is certainly pleasant in its presentation, but I can't deny being a little let down by what I was expecting, even for a Harold Budd album.

Specta Ciera + The Circular Ruins - Mnemosyne

dataObscura: 2016

Welp, the happy-funtime house music was a nice detour, but we must return to the regularly scheduled ambient dronescapes I clearly over-indulged in last year. Like, I thought I spread things out a bit from the Databloems and the dataObscuras, what with a Motech dive and sporadic other items along the way (Stacey Pullen! Pet Shop Boys! Sixtoo?). Not enough, turns out, with many more of these sorts of albums to come before I reach the end of the current backlog. Ah well, at least there isn't a huge pile of Cryo Chamber in here too, as in backlogs of before. Nay, that's for the next round of backlog reviews! Mwa ha-ha-ha!

At least this time, I'm not going in so blind. I've already touched upon The Circular Ruins; aka: Nunc Stans; aka: Anthony Kerby; aka: the dude that runs this dataObscura house. Specta Ciera is new though ...or is he? Apparently I have covered him as well, though under his real name of Devin Underwood. If that doesn't quite ring a bell, might I 'send' you to 'the past' Carpe Sonum Records in my archives? Eh? Eh...? Wow, tough crowd. I'm really dealing with the data-obscure with these artists, aren't I?

Anyhow, Specta Ciera has generally been Mr. Underwood's primary alias, and after releasing around half-dozen albums on his own, started feeling the collaborative itch with guys like Benjamin Dauer and The Circular Ruins. Seems an Arbee has become Devin's latest music beau, including releases on dataObscura and Carpe Sonum Records together. Damn, if they manage something out on one of Lee Norris' labels, they'll be, like, a pleasant ambient drone power couple! This scene could use more juicy gossip like that (and none of the 'label manager meltdowns' ...okay, maybe a little of that too, for the LOLs).

Mnemosyne opens with Preparations For Sleep. Ah, dang'it. Whenever I sit back to take in an album such as this, I often have great difficulty staying awake for the duration. That's not a bad thing, really, calm music easing you into a state of mental soothing doing its job at all. Letting me know that I likely won't have much of a chance against Mnemosyne though, that's just trolling me now.

All joking aside, the Specta Ruins (Circular Ciera?) pairing does make for an interesting contrast. Granted, I haven't listened to a tonne from these two, but enough to get a general idea of their styles, Kerby often exploring the minimalist spaces among field recordings and subtle drones, Underwood a little more musical in his layering of synth tones and pad timbre. There are some downright dreamy passages throughout Mnemosyne, where one can lose themselves in the distant melodies emanating from underneath burbling electronics and fuzzy drone. It takes a bit to really grab you, mind, but by album's end, I'm feelin' as chilled out as- oh geez! Why does final track Quandary have such a comparatively ominous tone to it? Harsh my mellow, man.

Various - Hed Kandi The Mix: Summer 2004

Hed Kandi: 2004

As I continue my curiosity-sating plunge into Hed Kandi's prime years (cheap used CDs help), one issue I've had with them is their unmixed nature. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having full tracks for my own music collection, but when you're dealing with double-disc compilations of very similar music throughout, it grows monotonous hearing all those obligatory DJ-friendly intros and outros over and over and over. And honestly, this is only an issue on collections like Disco Heaven or Beach House, where the selections are about as homogeneous as this genre can get. It all works well enough in mix sets, but the stop-start nature of unmixed tracks calls for variety, capitalizing on the freedom of breathing space between tunes. The more I listened to Hed Kandi compilations, the more I wondered why they didn't offer them in the form of DJ mixes.

Well lo', they did! ...after a time. There were occasional single-disc 'samplers' released, but by 2003, the demand was high enough that Hed Kandi officially dove into the overstuffed multi-CD DJ mix market. Only they kept things in-house, curator Mark Doyle doing the business, no major spotlight on some superstar mercenary jock stealing the shine from the real heroes of a DJ mix: the artists that make the tunes!

The Mix: Summer 2004 was one of the label's earliest forays into the DJ mix medium, and let me tell you, all those nitpicks about Hed Kandi I highlighted above, instantly solved here! Sure, there's no technical wizardry out of these sets, but who'd ever buy something from this label expecting that? You're first and foremost buying from Hed Kandi because the catchy cover art lured you in. Then, maybe distant second, the music selection intrigued you further. So long as there aren't any horrid transitions or tonal clashes, you're gonna' have a good time.

The two main mixes of this 3CD set remains consistent with Hed Kandi's breaded butter, CD1 featuring the garage and disco house, and CD2 getting in on those clubby anthems and *shudder* trendy 'electro' schlock. Yeah, Ferry Corsten's Rock Your Body Rock is here, and sounding way out of place even in track list consisting of Junior Jack's Stupidisco, Armand Van Helden's “I cans Daft Punk too!” Hear My Name, and Cicada's “Stadium Remix” of Deepest Blue's Is It A Sin. Can you tell I prefer CD1?

Of course, CD3 gives me the most endorphin tingles, an almost obligatory 'classics' collection of tunes. Well, 'back in the day' compared to the year 2004 – the upfront tunes of this release are now older than some of the classics were then! And while some may roll their eyes at seeing tracks like Ce Ce Peniston's Finally, Robin S.' Show Me Love, and Aftershock's Slave To The Vibe trotted out again, I bet you haven't heard them arranged in this order! Oh, you have. Well, I just have a soft spot for oldies from Morales, Humphries, and Knuckles, so there.

Utada Hikaru - Ultra Blue

Eastworld: 2006

(a Patreon Request from Philoi)

Now that I've gotten the boggles out of my mind regarding the juggernaut of a commercial success that is Utada Hikaru's music career, I can do a deeper dive into one of her albums. Eh, I left out her attempts at breaking through in America? For sure there was an attempt, almost immediately after the release of Deep Blue in fact. How could her brand not want to replicate that fame on this side of the Pacific? Surely folks in the U.S. of A. would look past her ethnic origins and appreciate the music- BWAHAAHAHA!!! Oh man, I couldn't even finish it! They certainly did all they could trying though, what with Island Def Jam getting Timbaland at the producer's console. I suppose Exodus debuting at 160 on the Billboard was okay for a mostly unknown foreign talent but yeah, small wonder she returned to Japan after this. For a 'foreign produced' record though, album did gangbusters in her native land. Obviously it did.

Ultra Blue is the Japanese album Hikaru released in the wake of her American expenditure, and boy are the English influences ever still present, a track list almost entirely in that language. In fact, of the twelve songs, only three use kanji. Another three do that funny Japanese thing where they capitalize the whole title (BLUE, COLORS, WINGS), as though they're so hype for the song, they just gotta' shout it at the top of their lungs. But yeah, the rest are all conventional English titles: Be My Last, One Night Magic, Keep Tryin', This Is Love, Making Love. Oh, and this CD is 'thicc', yo', one of the fattest jewel cases I've ever held. Nothing but the most luxurious booklet paper for Utada Hikaru!

There's also more English in the songs themselves, though mostly in the choruses, Hikaru often flipping between languages even mid-line. I remain dumb-founded that folks, of any ethnicity, can pull that off (work with some carrying conversations fluently flipping from English to Punjabi). Judging by the titles though, most of the lyrics deal with the usual love topics R&B and pop settle on, and as my Japanese remains pathetically weak, I've no clue how deep or profound Hikaru's words are. She's certainly emotive enough to carry a tune though.

And yet, Ultra Blue was apparently one of her weakest selling albums, with a slightly more electronic tinge to the music not quite vibing with her massive audience. Which is weird to me because this all sounds like the same super-slick polished pop cribbing contemporary influences I've heard from mainstream markets for decades. A little Latin in One Night Magic, a little trip-hop in 海路, a little... UK urban in COLORS? Okay, maybe not as indebted to American R&B as her earlier output, but not so blatantly Japanese as I expect of most j-pop either. Was it simply not enough of either? Well, if there's anything I wouldn't call Ultra Blue, it's vanilla. Now rose, there's a flavour that's apt.

Anatolya - Mirror Messages

Unknown Tone Records: 2016

Oh, why couldn't have this been my first Unknown Tone Records album to review? Then I could have killed off the obligatory word salad of background info here instead of Twincities' CD. At least there, I had some additional artist information to dig deeper on if I so chose. This Anatolya though, he's a giant ol' Discoggian blank, Mirror Messages his lone entry, save a single track contributed to the Unknown Tone compilation Vol. IV. At least the liner notes tells me the artist behind Anatolya is Brian Phillips, and hails from the Florida region. Not much else beyond that though. The Bandcamp page does send me to a link of his other artistic endeavours, including paintings, video, and sculpturing. It all looks bleak and macabre and very dark ambient, which makes me wonder how he wound up on Unknown Tone in the first place? Are there other morose music makers on the label I'm not aware of? That album titled Stay Out Long Enough And The Night Becomes Your Home from Lost Trail seems rather dark and gothic.

Anatolya though, I've almost nothing to work with, beyond the music itself. And I'll be honest, when I heard the opening harsh drone of Before You Were Born, I thought I was in for one of those experiences. Where the playing of a full LP is more an endurance test of sensory overload than letting oneself be lost in the vibe the artist has crafted. It's certainly effective in setting a discordant tone, the sort of sound you'd expect from the opening credits of a mind-breaking art-house film. Did I really want to hear such a thing on this nice summer day though? Heck, even in the bleakest of winter?

Fortunately, things turn to the moodier side of dark drone after, with creepy sounds and disembodied voices floating about a murky timbre. And gosh, The Nomad Flute actually feels a tad welcoming, in a warbly melancholy sort of way. Elsewhere, John Fire Lame Deer shows Mr. Phillips has a lighter side to his muse, even if its chipper piano melody remains buried in sludgy synth. Punctum finds him getting his experimental side on (such stretched oscillations), while In The Window and Lotophagi do the crackly minimalist ambient thing that jives with much of what I've heard from Unknown Tone's catalogue – there had to be a connection somewhere! It was almost enough to lull me into a sense of calm that I almost forgot just how confrontational the opening track was, but closer Eukurai reminds me that Mirror Messages had its fingers in the dark ambient side of things for most of its runtime.

So an interesting little album from Anatolya... Anatolya... Why does that name seem so familiar? Let me check something. *click-clack clickity-clack-clack ...BASS!* Oh, Anatolia, as in the Anatolia Peninsula. Y'know, watching a bunch of King & Generals videos will get certain locations stuck in your head something fierce. Lot of history in that region, believe you me.

Twincities - Memoirs: To Dust

Unknown Tone Records: 2015

Is this really the first Unknown Tone Records album I'm reviewing? I feel like I've touched upon them at some point before. Maybe a name-drop from an associated producer? I guess I technically covered the Lee Norris and Porya Hatami collaboration Every Day Feels Like A New Drug, though that was via a digital version offered by Mr. Norris, not the original CD as released by Unknown Tone. I can only assume that's how I came across this label the first place, after which I must have visited their Bandcamp, spotted a CD bundle deal, ordered a bunch of stuff, and ended up with a pile of albums I barely have any recollection of getting. Having reviewed most of my old collection, methinks this blog has turned into nothing more than a glorified record of how I'm getting all my new stuff. It's grown increasingly difficult keeping track of it all, what with too many options now available to indulge my weakest impulse. Why can't I be internet addicted to something more traditional, like gambling or porn?

Twincities is Fletcher McDermott, an individual that doesn't have much Discoggian presence beyond his work for this project. I assume he's done work elsewhere, just because he seems like the sort of chap who'd have plied his trade with a variety of indie or abstract musicians around the Long Island region. Or this project is just something he does in his spare time, his day job some mundane thing that's prevented him from expanding further into the domain of 'fifty releases in one decade' ambient producers. Wouldn't surprise me, given the state of living conditions in the New York City region. Music don't pay the bills like it used to there. In fact, did it ever? Maybe in the grimy '70s.

Mr. McDermott describes his music as 'noisy ambiance', though there's nothing terribly racket-inducing about his stuff. Nay, he makes very calm, minimalist droning material, with static and glitch treatments giving his sparse arrangements a lived-in feeling. It's not too dissimilar to Porya Hatami, come to think of it, which makes sense they'd both appear on the same label. And sparked my interest enough to spring for a few albums off them in the process. It's all coming back to me, guys!

Also, as the album's title implies, a hazy sense of faded memories permeates the mood, whether of wandering urban locals or sitting at home with some long forgotten classical music tugging at the back of your mind. He does have a few musicians contribute for those moments (Ysanne Spevack on cello, Tanya Lam on viola), but they serve the mood of the pieces rather than take lead in any way. Well, maybe at the end of A Stuck Bird, their soothing tones coming after the most abrasive stretch of static-drone Memoirs: To Dust subjects you to. Also, damn but does that steel-pedal guitar drone in A Flown Bird ever stretch to the furthest reaches of the horizon. Fly on, my son.