ARCTURUS
The Sham Mirrors (2002)

1. Kinetic
2. Nightmare Heaven
3. Ad Absurdum
4. Collapse Generation
5. Star-Crossed
6. Radical Cut
7. For To End Yet Again


THE INSTITUTE OF COMMON OBLIVION:
TRICKSTER G. REX: VOICES OF GHOSTS AND MONKEYS AND GENERAL
MANIPULATION
STEINAR SVERD JOHNSEN: FUGUE KEY FIGURE
HELLHAMMER: DRUMS AND FLAMES
KNUT M. VALLE: HIGH GUITAR RIDER
DAG F. GRAVEM: LOW GUITAR RIDER
STARRING:
IHSAHN: SPITTING VOICE ON TRACK 6.
MATHIAS EICK: UBU'S HORN ON TRACKS 3, 4 AND 6.
HUGH STEVEN JAMES MINGAY: LOW FREQUENTATION ON TRACK 6.

Recorder on various spaces, times and formats from 2000 to 2002.
Sound recordists G., Valle and Johnsen.
Mixed by Tore Ylwizaker at AMBASSADEN, jan. 2002.
Music by Johnsen, Lyrics by G. except tracks 4 and 6 by H.
Produced by G. and Phantom FX.
Mastered by Tom la Bomba at STRYPE AUDIO
Design, photos and manipulation by Marius Renberg (Subtopia)
and Kim Solve Madsen (Kaaessemm. Band photos by G.
The title for track 7 is lifted from Samuel Beckett.
Sleeve quotes from the pre-surreliast play Ubu the King by Alfred Jarry.



1. Kinetic

Welcome
this transmission
from a fallen star

Light has departed
from this black sun
But please put us on
to bring darkness down
from your head and home

Our enterprise a success
as return is no option
our eyes were removed
for our own safety

The distance too great
for you to hear our cries
nevermind take this lamp
we are beyond light

We learned so little
of inhuman culture
before disappearance
went right through us

The mothership
boarded by fools
we escape space
in order to reach
our destination

And if you are listening
please tell us about the time
where and when we exist
no more

For when you go
we go with you
via wormholes

2. Nightmare Heaven

The subjects of sleep
Their faces once awake
on sodomy and death
and smoke and laughter
their feet no longer
underground

The snow hides the traces
never set in a first place

This negative kingdom
hey horrible and white
the angels all stone
passing their years
hoping to be saved
from oblivion
...by oblivion

And the miracle is that
nothing has happened
nothing has a history
or a name

Only the voice
of falling snow

3. Ad Absurdum

This dead orchestra
play on instruments
strung with the fibres
of my mind

And skeletons dance
they have no voice
and no complaint

But I am still flesh
and will not serve
you vampire fools
bringing you life
by invoking dead

I'm tired of telling stories
with this ghostvoice of mine
so you can say you don't
believe in ghosts

You drink me animal
wasted on my madness
leaving me blank and empty

But tonight
I'm Houdini
Gonna kill my shadow
penetrate your sanctum

See your loss
through your eyes
and laugh as two
you not knowing why
and wanting to die

4. Collapse Generation

Time is on trial

Generation and collapse
inside the space of things

Series of inertia
A trial and a time

5. Star-Crossed

We-
organic images
dissolving earth

Our future children
sure at us unfixed
from a residence of stars
in their sidereal ships
ho sailing beyond within

Their eyes
black in kingdoms of gold
like the rocks of this desert
where we wander in circles
tails up the ass of time

And our vision
goes backwards
the traces we see
after something
ot even existing
beyond the prints

All dreams end here
where our cries began
resounding to museums
of a world we believed
neverending

And we stop
exhausted
beginning
not again

And the panic
like the light
of some star
exploding

Flashing in black holes of not knowing
if we ever made a away out of this mud

6. Radical Cut

Spit white speech
the voice is mine
the skin of the slit
cut cigarette size

The butt size head
voluptuous white
cum cigarette slit
the spitting line

The cigarette skin
white head in line
the voice is white
erasing mine

Skin the white
the radical line
the cigarette butt
head radical skin

7. For To End Yet Again

Full of frequency
an unintelligible roar
of everything ever lived
or altogether avoided life

A storm of voices
and backward thoughts
through deserts of sand
through gutters of shite

Drums and flames
our bodies in ruins
and I say my name
without my voice

Speed increases
fucking all up
in a whirling wind
tearing all order apart
in order to rebuild order

Police, police, police
please stop the Euro
from binar bin Laden
Io paramount Pan
Io Paradox Pan

Don't fight it, you'll only
whirl up all mass hysteria
in your thousandfold self

We lost eachother
we slide unnoticeably
in hallucinatory orbit
around the sun
the black sun
oh black sun