elijah jamal asani - ,,, as long as i long to memorise your sky ,,, - Vinyl LP (Black)

Tracklist:

1. goodnight in muav♭
2. stone 11, epistle 5: a tracing of our horizon
3. thirtyonecircles /// soft shoulder(s) confluence near second mesa
4. æolian shallows {{& before we even open our eyes,, the natural quiet sees us}
5. ~~~littleriverhypothesis•
6. one ear to the land ,,, the other to each whisper of a cloud (feat. Aaron White)
7. stone 7, notation 22: chorus of our immemorial dawn

in the summer of 2022, i spent sixty nights @ the grand canyon as an artist in residence. throughout my linger alongside the canyon, i followed the native wind whisper(s) until we found quiet, i mooted each theory re: how the canyon came to be, & realized the sky never falls asleep no matter how sweet a lullaby i play.

on the fortyfourth morning, i descended into the abyss, hoping to arrive as deep into the mesial as this body allows. as i reached the middle of the chasm, i was confronted by a long throated river; upon entering, my body found the bottom of the water before my eyes could, & my fingers encircled a Zuni/Ashwi emergence point at the basal of this river. following this touch, some dwelling muav stone became loose & met me at the surface, where we drifted back to the shore together.

that evening as the muav & i soften next to the fire, the sky slowly protruded with a new hue, allowing the last clouds to gently wonder “where is my lullaby?”. a shaded question that lie somewhere in between neveragainnavy & the tone of aftereveningamber; this particular hue reflected off of the wet surface of the muav stones & began to reveal sentiments engraved upon their fractures. with every fading saturation of this skies hue, the markings on each stone became perfectly legible. upon reading a few passages, i realized that these stones were epistles addressed to the river from the canyon walls and vice versa. each slate, less a stone, & moreso a letter of adoration confessing intimate details of the relationship between the river & the desert floor that would become the canyon walls. some were letters of love with spatter for words, while others were 'dear diary' entries engraved by a sharp yet bent tongue.

after turning on my field recorder, i spent the rest of the night placing each gravel sentiment where the water meets the sand; being sure that the rubble written by the river faces the walls & that each slab carved by the walls commanded a view of the river. before we could ask the moon, i fell asleep next to the memories // desires of a dream.

",,, as long as i long to memorise your sky ,,," is an audio journal comprised of the sounds & sentiments captured on that fortyfourth night inside of the canyon; an echo of the softness etched upon those muav stones; an aide-memoire on the long-lost creation story between the river, the desert floor, & all the elements in between that remain intertwined for as long as they decide, forming what we call the grand canyon.

- elijah jamal asani

music&art created by elijah jamal asani
excerpt 6 created with Aaron White
field recordings captured by elijah jamal asani & grand canyon science and resource mgmt
produced following participation in the grand canyon artist in residence program (2022)
sequencing by Scott Osgood
mastered by Andrew Weathers
design/layout by Francie Chang
AKP036