of the Myth of Black Oil,

The Magical Slickness

Movement Suite

by Jordan Deal

published in

–pre- / post- Vol. 2. No. 1. (2025)

openworks journal:

Music, art and scholarship in the midst of temporal disorder

[The Magical Slickness of the Myth of Black Oil: Second Movement: Score for Music Performance]

Abstract

The Magical Slickness of the Myth of Black Oil, Movement Suite explores the subversive and disruptive slick nature of a concept I am developing called chaos force. The piece is divided into three movements. The first movement is a short, poetic written manifesto contextualizing the current of chaos force as it exists in Black sonic temporality. The second movement is a sound score, followed by the third movement—a sound piece that spans twenty minutes.

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Epigraph

My proposal is that Blackness, similar to oil in its natural state, is a force that disrupts and interjects beyond boundaries and borders. When channeled in temporal performance, both maintain an uncapturable spirit. In this work, the text, language, and the sacred remain in a state which is slippery, unconstrained, and abundant. In fusing oil and Blackness, I aim to channel an entity that preserves the spiritual interiority in performance that reveres my (and its own) rowdiness and refusal.

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SOUND PIECE: THIRD MOVEMENT THE MAGICAL SLICKNESS OF THE MYTH OF BLACK OIL


The Magical Slickness of the Myth of Black Oil

First Movement: A Manifesto

there’s a liminal space involved

composed of

what doesn’t mix.

the condensation of matter-lessness composes articulations of a world that exists within the

anomalies of space.

like between

THE LOVE WE MAKE

BLACK ANGELS WRESTLING GOLIATH

QUANTUM MATHEMATICS & QUEER SEX PARTIES

Its own legibility offers us new worlds

 

It is in this black void the accumulation of this leftover spills

a requiem that absorbs and intertwines itself with her, THE LAND.

 

this current can only be used for

DISPARATE IMAGINING

so here’s a mantra to self:

 

Be amongst it / wet / dry sea / wet / how does it feel when you plunge into dirt?

Be within it / though we are folded outside of its touch

Breathe it / but only sips,

            as the smoke enters your lungs to retrieve the grief,

as you dream about dropping ass before the judge.

before your neck bends at the base of their foot,

Before you hit the joint yet another time,

            cause due madness comes in swift moments of,

            a silence.

            a silence.

 

And BE LOUD ABOUT IT!

 

reverb < rever < reconstruct < reconcile < reduct < reshape < rebound < reject.

reform < refine < rethink < rejoice < redundant < release < refuse < re-risk it.

retake < redefine < relearn < redundant < refine < to find < to be of reimagining.

To lose it < to lose self < to lose rights < to lose to loss < to lose land < to lose nation < to lose mother < to lose sovereignty < to lose the sense of sovereignty < to be in love with the illusions of borders < to be of boundaries < to transform boundless < between you and madness < you see your other. you see yourself.

 

 

The Magical Slickness of the Myth of Black Oil

Second Movement: Score for Music Performance

 

[transcription of image score]

 

Open with bowed guitar to set rhythm.

 

Both piano and guitar provide additional rhythmic layering, but only if buried in the ground, to charge.

 

Add othering instruments after. Voice becomes a horn, turned into speech. Speech becomes the vital beat that brings ferocity and consciousness to the realm’s creation. Fire and earth molded into a single instrument, that is. Ruthless and driven with fierce compassion. An astrological and alchemical mixturelessness, that cannot be touched. Like black as oil, washing over and making known to other matter its unbearable uniformity, its ‘slickness.’

 

this sound can’t be recorded, so distortion is inevitable.

this sound can’t be heard, so comprehension is not expected.

 

I must become oil, and swallow its distortion, breathe fire, and render its complexity to silence. in camaraderie with the force of chaos.

-

as the dust settles, and the particles part…

(sound performance picks up from end of first movement)

 

it’s after the end of the world,

don’t you know that yet?

calling all the slick hoes

(slick hoes! calling all the slick hoes!)

after the end of the world!

(the end of the world!)

(calling all the slick hoes after the end of the world!)