mademoiselle miscellany

https://deathandthepoetess.bandcamp.com/album/lucid-lockpicking

We’re only two months into 2025, yet it can sometimes feel like we’ve already been insomniac-style awake, sleep-deprived in a much longer, dark, dystopian, anxious fever dream. If you’ve been feeling soul-wearily agitated, or doom-scrolling the news between jagged sleep bursts at night ~ this record is our ‘dirge wave,’ weirdeval musical offering for you. We wish to assist in profound rest, sacred release, and for you to feel safe and bolstered on The Journey.

I had surreal childhood experiences of night time and consciousness; lucid dreaming, hypnagogic light fractal visuals, and sleepwalking. With this EP I hope to share rituals, soothing/trippy tunes, and lightly intended sleep hypnosis induction/guided talk-downs –for grappling with the vulnerability of falling asleep.

There are some ‘Easter eggs’ from the songs my mother sang to me (check the track notes for “Dancing Shoes” and “Wolfy’s Song.”) We were influenced by The Brothers Grimm fairy tales, Ukulele Ike, Johnny Cash, Faun Fables, and the Victorian absurdist artist Edward Lear, whose poem “The Duck And The Kangaroo” we set to music.

On our prior five RPM challenge albums we’ve oscillated between acoustic, folk instrument compositions as well as making extensive use of synth-orchestra embellishments, and psychedelic, digital pedal libraries. With *Lucid Lockpicking* we have aimed for a natural, ‘in house,’ solely acoustic instruments' sound. We hope you enjoy the album, may you sleep deeply whenever you do, and may you wake rested for your adventures, the continued unfolding of The Great Mystery.

-jojo (March 1, 2025)

.

Illustrator Nell Brinkley and a little friend - 1908

Michelle Pfeiffer as Ellen Olenska in The Age of Innocence (1993)

Death and The Poetess chez Art Nest, being our ghoulish selves preparing many new treats! Warming up for RPM Challenge (writing our annual Feb record) and learning oodles of covers to play your outdoor/safe sprummer weddings/soirees, Pantheon willing! (–As our wedding band, Love Letters Tendered.)

I was writing a script for a modern adaption of R&J and these came up

REVIEW >> IfItsTooLoud.com: Friday Freebie: Death and The Poetess - Smelling Salts. by Ken

Thank you Ken/If It’s Too Loud… as always for your careful reading/listening and writing! It means so much to this Xennial x Elizabethan creeper!

.

It’s like this, dudes. Women in Western society are socialised to cooperate and compromise. Some men are socialised to get all their own way, all the time.  These dudes are incredibly dangerous to women their partners,* and the only way to tell them apart from the OK guys is to pay close attention to how they react.  If you’re one of the OK ones, this isn’t about you. Learn to take “no” for an answer, and you’ll be fine.

Actually, this post is doing the opposite. This post is telling women to be straightforward, and forthright, and upfront about their values and opinions.

This post is telling women, “I know you’ve been socialized and conditioned to nod and smile at everything a man says your whole life, since you were 4 years old and your grandma told you that little girls should be seen and not heard. I know that by now it’s second nature to you, and you probably don’t even realize you’re doing it half the time. You don’t even realize that the laugh that just came out of your mouth is a laugh of appeasement, rather than a laugh of genuine humor. ”

It’s telling women, “Force yourself to resist your conditioning. Consciously make an effort to be open and honest in that initial conversation, when you’re making small talk, about small things. If he says something you don’t quite agree with (and he inevitably will, because nobody agrees on everything), don’t smile and concede the point like you’ve been trained to do. Consciously make a point of vocalizing your real opinion.”