Spoiler alert: descriptions below include excerpts from the manuscript of O.D.
Beautiful Tomorrow by Mahalia Jackson:
I’m considering performing this live at the book launch in nipaluna/Hobart, with a band comprised of musicians I have worked with locally.
Prelude in C Minor BVW 999 by J.S. Bach by Janos Sebesteyen:
‘I stand in the doorway of his room. Screens from floor to ceiling are amassed in front of him. He is swiping at them, darting from monitor to monitor, hammering code into them, trilling fingers of concert pianist dexterity.’
Piano Concerto in G Major M. 83: II Adagio assai, by Maurice Ravel:
‘The car door opened, she swung her legs out automatically, Italian shoes crunching designer gravel as she strode toward the house. The grass either side of the path stopped slouching, stood straighter. Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, Adagio Assai, lingered amongst the bonsai conifers lining the way to the front door, warm light seeping from beneath dense petticoats of pine needles as she passed.’
UFOF by Big Thief:
‘There’ll soon be no proof that there is no alien…’
Peace on the Rise by Chad VanGaalen:
The beautiful tragedy of Zack’s lonely childhood. ‘Slip into the same old dream every night… Interstellar space got broken in…’
Genedigaeth koring-bato by Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita:
The sublime, all-pervading nanobot microbiome lies alongside all life, working underneath to lift the fantastical worlds above into being.
Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Bennie Maupin, John McLoughlin, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Dave Holland and Harvey Brooks:
The ultimate experimental jazz supergroup with one of the all-time greatest albums of any genre. Serpé Travay, the magnificent, sexy Haitian warrior technologist and CEO of Everything Corp, the world’s largest corporate entity, releases the impossible culmination of her life’s work.
O.D. is dedicated primarily to two inspirational people in my life, my uncles, Ed and Jan. I first heard Bitches Brew thanks to Jan’s gifts of vinyl to my father through the ’70’s and ’80’s. These formed part of the soundtrack to my childhood. Jan ran the United Nation’s jazz club in New York throughout this period whilst working as the UN’s Chief of Communications, hiring artists including Miles Davis to perform.
Nancy from Now On by Father John Misty:
Serpé Travay names her firstborn.
Enchantment by The Melody Mates:
‘A shadow fell over the room. A cruise liner passed slowly by them, bewildered faces at the windows. Their holidays cut short; they’d soon be back on Earth with all the other occupants of vessels running Everything operating systems.’
vi (almost equal to) ix by Akira Kosemura:
The unfolding life on the lunar surface.
The Enchanted Sea by Martin Denny. Fantasy Moonland:
‘Travay launched from the water, soaring over her city, wings outstretched, brushing the tops of the palm trees, their resident monkeys chittering excitedly, somersaulting amongst the fronds.’
Suite in B-Flat Major, Georg Freidrich Handel, performed by Seong-Jin Cho:
Longman Su surveys the plants who will replenish an Earth void of humanity.
Club Intro by Mild High Club:
Zack and Louis mile high on a flycycle to Antarctica.
Sea, Swallow Me by Cocteau Twins:
Beneath the great wave.
Barbacoa by Guantanamo Baywatch:
Let’s go surfin’ now, everybody’s learnin’ now, come on a tsunami with me.
Eleggua, Ossie Remix by Daymé Arocena, Ossis:
Travay, Our Lady of Assumption, riding the seven-headed beast of abomination.
Are You With Me Now? by Cate Le Bon:
Ellen rallies the troops.
Duty to the Last – Throwing Snow Remix by Neil Cowley Trio, Throwing Snow:
Boyd the Metal holds the line alone.
Kalimanku Denku by Yanka Rupkina and the Bulgarian State Television Womens Choir:
In the wake of wholesale slaughter.
The Garden by Brad Mehldau:
The ultimate triumph of nature.
Always Forever by Cults:
‘Something beyond myself, the thing that has a life of its own. I have known it was out there, and I am right. I set out to find it, to reach it, and I have. And here I am, inside you now, where I was always meant to be. I’m inside you. I’ll be inside all of you.’
Find Yourself by Jacco Gardner:
We’re leaving. All of us.