the burghers of France

1.
La belle epoque was according to mystics and historymakers a period of positive moods, greiflessness and a belife of better future to come. The conception is roughly translated into the good ol’ days. If the days actually were good or not - we’ll never find out - what matters is our idea about this period of time in history. Nevertheless the the burghers of France were sipping on the sweet nectar that a long time of peace and prosperity had given them. You imagine that the burghers were taking their Sunday walks on the boulevards in their white linen costumes and strawhats - just to sit down at some random café and quench thier thirst with a fine wine. In such a climate, when survival no longer were hanging by a thin thread, there was time for contemplation and self-fulfilment. One started to question one’s place in existence here on earth, the meaning of life if you so want it. To mitigate the monotony that comes with spare time and find a meaning in existence people turned to art – for it’s beauty and surperficial values. Soon people realized this was perishable and they turned to the hazardous green absinth instead – and so a world of denial. Much of the following chat must therefore be regarded as pure bullshit.

01.35 am, close to a century after this moods reached their definite peak (some consider the shipwrecking of Titanic as the point were the uncritical belife of a better future finally was buried, some the outbreak of World War 1) they re-appered through a revengeful french zombie on a dj-set in the insignificant town of Gothenburg.

2.
Killed in a car crash back in 1986, Kavinsky is now a zombie in need of revenge. His records are the story of his first steps in the world of the living dead.

The plot is a necessary element of conceptual music such as this. Kavinsky is telling his story – a story from a zombie-perspective. He has returned from the world of the living dead to perform a playful dance with the contemporary world’s Faustian autoerotic automobile fetish. And by using song titles like “Testarossa Autodrive,” he begins his tale with one of the 1980’s most easily recognizable symbols of cultural status, technology, mobility, and the need for speed: the Ferrari.

01.00 am. Standing in an apparently neverending queue to and old and respected jazzclub – which after midnight is transformed to the most hard-core house/techno/electro-club you’ve ever seen. Pulse, beat. Smoking a cigarette, thinking of better times. The cool hipster-kids on the balcony has put on their most scornful smile, thinking – I’m inside, you’re not. Later on - twenty or something minutes later – even I was let inside, however having a different kind of smile on my face.

The dancefloor pulsating. Very soon this pulse is in my veins, I’m feeling every inch of it. It’s an undescribeble feeling. In the middle of this drunken haze a familiar tune is reaching for me. A hundred and twenty something beats per minute, “Testarossa Autodrive” starts in epic 80’s cop-movie style with only a beat and the arpeggios that flutter above before a quick move of the synth’s pitch shift fakes a whammy bar and everything explodes. It smells like burned rubber from a red sportscar and a rotten zombie in a collegejacket, it’s an excellent fragrance.

3.
As I take the tram home to my student-appartment I realize that I’m living in la nouvelle belle epoque and tonight I was trying to find some kind of meaning of existence in art. Did I just touch it?