Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

THE IRREPRESSIBLES – MIRROR MIRROR – 2010

Let yourself be charmed by this lascivious voice, veiled, blurred, vacillating, looming high or distant and deep. The voice is the key to the feelings, the emotions and the passions, the voice in its constant high jumps and other wide stretches is there to express the fullness of the feelings and the sincerity of the sentiments. It is also the mirror in which you’ll see the treachery of the other, the treacherous truth behind the lies of the lover. Welcome to the truth philter of this bewitched vocal performance.

This young man displays the art of repeating some words, some phrases ad nauseam or ad aeternum vale, farewell in the vast variations of this vale of sighs, whispers, lamentations, echoes and reverberations. We are mesmerized and we can hear what we want, we can hear the echoes of our desires and we totter between Jo, or is it Joe, and we do catch “her heart on the sleeve” and yet we are surprised by that unique and sole mention of any femininity in that world that sounds so “gay” as he says as opposed to “sad”, true enough, and yet that sad gayness has little to do with any gaiety of some famous theater in Dublin.

In fact most of the time we are far beyond, the singer is in love with the image he sees in the mirror, an image that is not himself but the truth that shines beyond the lies. Love is the only thing he wants but it is too often just holding, hugging, when it is not crushing him on the anvil he is for the angel he is enamored with. Haven’t you been told that the angelic seraph is nothing but the sweet side of the punished and deadly saraph, that bronze serpent that can kill just on sight?

So what’s left after having been hammered into the metallic anvil by this smashing golden goose of a guardian lover? Nothing but rain, and rain again shining in the mirror of truth that tells lies are lies. Mirror, mirror on the wall. . .

All the James of the world will shudder and tremble when the singer calls his Jamie to come and be his dream reigning high on the throne of bliss. We feel what is important is not so much the other than the storm that is exploding inside his skull, the tempest that burst high and low, blow up and down in his body, recessing, accessing, invading. And Jamie, the other, is nothing. The call is his name, the image of the other he sees in the mirror when looking at himself. And this dreamlike love in a mirror is imagined coming to an end and he gets really exquisite bliss in imagining his Jamie gone.

That’s when you start reflecting on the music, this introspective music that climbs up and down the range of his voice from chest to brain and back down to his toes, and the rainbow of his feelings after the rain that followed the loved desires that were exquisitely enticingly so intense, the rainbow is like a flag in the landscape that calls for some pride march of the relinquished lovers longing for the return of the departed, the for good gone lovers.

He is able to put upside down all symbols and when the phallic knife penetrates his chest looking for the heart he feels he has a wife in him. He has lost all sense of sexual orientation and he only knows love in all its fiery exhilaration. And the end, the final end, is “that we love who we love” and no one has the right to declare war against the lovers they may disagree with.

“my message is clear

I’ve come here to smear and smudge the rules

And prove you fools.”

And there is a cruel sadness in his desire to let go of his lover, that boy that is with him. His desire to let go of him, to get rid of him, to erase the face of that boy forever imprinted in his burning mind. But he can’t. A tide may come to wash him away, a wind may blow to fly him away but the boy who may be taken away by the tidal world of censors and the windy public opinion of bigots but the boy’s face will never leave his mind.

There is in that instant a sadness that fascinates the heart, that hypnotizes the mind, that mesmerizes the senses, that captivates the brain, that smites each feeling, that besots every emotion, that infatuates all sentiments, that bewitches and terminates every single desire of ours. Oh! When will we get that boy in our embrace, our hugging arms, our clutching heart forever?

And he accepts the simple fact that he will have to let the boy go without letting go of him, hence keeping him in the soul of his mind, as the soul of his mind. And for two minutes we are lost in the ocean of that music, in the sea of that love that reverberates blindly against the walls of the law, society, the tasteless, colorless normalcy of here and now against what’s deep under and dark behind.

And though the rainbow is gone the man is lost in that rainbow of his and his boy lover who may be Jake. The rainbow has entirely invaded him and the shirt the boy has left behind is that rainbow of burning desire surviving their bereft satisfaction. And the lover is revealed, Jake is in his touch now he is out of touch. The boy he is in love with, the boy that has gone away, that is gone, and yet he hears him calling his name in the rainbow that has vanished and is yet living in his heart.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

THE IRREPRESSIBLES – MIRROR MIRROR - 2010

The Irrepressibles: My Friend Jo

My Friend Jo
Was a crazy bitch
Wore her heart on sleeve
With an ounce of kitch
How we cried that night
For the moon and stars
And we laid so still
With our hands on hearts

Give me shine
Give me finger tips
Give me light I'm blind!
Give me rain drenched lips
There's a pain in you
There's a pain in me
There's a change come through
To a vein in me

Gay I am
With an ounce of sad
And to be here now
Oh we must be glad
That we cry at night
When our dreams take hold
And we lay so still
And pretend we're cold

My Friend Jo!
My Friend
Jo!
My Friend Jo!

The Irrepressibles: I'll Maybe Let You

I might like to be in love with you
I might like to dance
I might like to

I see your face
On my pillow case
In my secret space
I see your face

I might like high
I might like low
I might want to go
Or put you in my show

I'll maybe let you into my dream
I'll maybe let you
I'll maybe let you into my dream
I'll maybe let you

The Irrepressibles: In Your Eyes

I rose into the sky imploded within myself
I burnt the alibis, I did it for my health
I see it in your eyes, the way it looks in me
Although we wear disguise, we'll never be that free

Hold me now, tell me that it's in you
Hold me now, tell me that it's true

Been chasing clouds today, so I'm tired
Hold me now and say, I love you
You've never held me like I've never dared to do
We're lost in endless lies, the truth is in your eyes

I've never seen the rain the way it looks in love
I've only felt the pain in hope of finding you
Are you not who you, who you seem, the dream it fades to gray
The world did never mean to be as in my dreams

Hold me now, tell me that it's in me
Hold me now, tell me you're the same

Been chasing clouds today, so I'm tired
Hold me now and say, I love you
You've never held me like I've never dared to do
We're lost in endless lies the truth is in your eyes

The mirror shows the change but never holds the truth
The world we'd rearrange if I could talk to you
But so alone we wait our destinies unknown
'Cause there's this hidden fate in the way in which we're grown

Hold me now, tell me that it's in you
Hold me now, tell me that it's true
Hold me now, tell me that it's in me
Hold me now, tell me you're the same

The Irrepressibles: Anvil

When you come and find me I'll be lost in reason
You'll be like the apple of it
You'll be like the apple of it
You'll be like the apple of my eye

When you come and find me I'll be lost in reason
You'll be like the apple of it
You'll be like the apple of it
You'll be like the apple of my eye

When you were my angel I was like you're anvil
When you were my angel I was like you're anvil
Please let me down now
Please let me down now

When you come and find me I'll be lost in reason
You'll be like the apple of it
You'll be like the apple of it
You'll be like the apple of my eye

When you come and find me I'll be lost in reason
You'll be like the apple of it
You'll be like the apple of it
You'll be like the apple of my eye

When you were my angel I was like you're anvil
When you were my angel I was like you're anvil
Please let me down now
Please let me down now

Rain, raining away, it's so hard
Please let me down now

The Irrepressibles: Forget The Past

You'll be the way to begin
You'll be the the water on stain
You'll be the call in my name
Jamie, Jamie
Youll havent once kill
All of my fears in you spell
Into me all of your world
Find me
My love

You'll be the essence of fire
You'll take all of my desire
You make me bold and inspired
Know me
You'll be the eye of the storm
You'll be the lectures of warm
You'll be the dreams and the throne
Know me
My love

Find me inside the calm of the storm
Where our lovers desires might come with the dawn
We sit on the grass wait for machines
And forget all the past

You'll be the way to begin
You'll be the the water on stain
You'll be the call in my name
Jamie, Jamie

The Irrepressibles: Knife Song

Baby, it's such a shame, you aggravate me
Will this all be in vain?
Maybe, I can't be sure of anything you say
You're devious and vain

Don't treat me like the fool, I'm not
I'll miss you when you're gone
Oh yes, I will, oh yes, I will
Oh yes, I will, ooh

Jamie, it's such a shame, you disappoint me
Will this all be in vain?
Maybe, I can't be sure of anything I say
I'm insecure and vain

Don't treat me like the fool, I'm not
I'll miss you when you're gone
Oh yes, I will, oh yes, I will
Oh yes, I will, ooh

Rain falls glazing my face
It hits my lips a bitter taste of what I might become
Train pawn, takes me away to etherness and otherness
There's madness on my tongue

Don't treat me like the fool, I'm not
We'll miss this when it's gone
Oh yes, we will, oh yes, we will
Oh yes, we will, ooh

The Irrepressibles: My Witness

Bury me with a sword, with a chain and ache
I'm alive with the flyers, with the flames at stake
To be gone in a thought that's arranged by you
To be formed by a shape that's innate of you

I will wake from the rain from the light of you
Take a knife to my chest, I'm alive by you

Ooh, ooh, ooh, my witness
Ooh, ooh, ooh, my witness

Make the fall, take the fire
Fuck the law nicely
Tint it all with desire
Shape the form I see

I'm alive with a knife, with a wife in me
I'm a crane looking out at the hypocrisy

Ooh, ooh, my witness
Ooh, ooh, ooh, my witness

Take the sting from the sky
Make their love in an eye
Take the sting from the sky
Make their love in an eye
Take the sting from the sky

Ooh, ooh, ooh, my witness
Ooh, ooh, ooh, my witness

Take your wars of your faiths
Of your bitterness, please
Take your wars of your faiths
Of your ignorance and leave

I will wake from the rain from the light of you
Take a knife to my chest, I'm alive by you

Ooh, ooh, my witness
Ooh, ooh, ooh, my witness

Take the sting from the sky
Make their love in an eye
Take the sting from the sky
Make their love in an eye
Take the sting from the sky

The Irrepressibles: Nuclear Skies

You see it in black or see it in white?
You know it all, you fucking know it all
You put us in boxes like cute little foxes
We'll watch you fall

Stop before another dies
Stop before a lover dies in these nuclear skies
We love, who we love

Fixing my heart you've ripped it apart,
Your vicious aim, you state your claim
So bitter and scared
The future you starved out of moral shame

Stop before another dies
Holding on another's eyes diving into

You'll find me dancing with the light
Dancing with the light you'll find me
Find me dancing with the light
Dancing with the light you'll find me
In these nuclear skies with these nuclear lies

My message is clear
I've come here to smear and smudge the rules
I'll give you a chance
I'm counting to ten I'll tell you

When to stop before another dies
Holding on to all your lies, missing the truth
That we love who we love

Stop before a lover dies in these nuclear skies
Nuclear skies

You'll find me dancing with the light
Dancing with the light you'll find me
Find me dancing with the light
Dancing with the light you'll find me

Find me dancing with the light
Dancing with the light you'll find me
Find me dancing with the light
Dancing with the light you'll find me

My message is clear
I've come here to smear and smudge the rules
And prove you fools

My message is clear
I've come here to smear and smudge the rules
And prove you fools

The Irrepressibles: Splish! Splash! Sploo!

Splish, splash, sploo
How the rain falls through
There's an aching pain
From a darkened room

Take my hand
Take my whole life too
Oh, 'cause I can't help
What I do to you

Aah, aah, aah

You, your game is the same
As who had the same game too
Is the same as you

Aah, aah, aah

And you put it away
And you put it away
And you put it off
And you put it away

The Irrepressibles: The Tide

When will I let go, of you
That boy, and me, That boy.
When will I, Let go, of you.
Let go, Let go.

Oh the Tide, kicks you out, to sea.
Tide, the Tide, rushing over me.
Rose the light, of how your gone,
Now your gone.
When, will I erase the face,
That secret place, I can't erase.

When will I,
Go on, go on.
Go one, go one.

Go on, go on.
Sad to know, of the wind tonight,
Lay the sheets with the soul in mind,
Be the end of the pain.
Now you are gone.

Oh the tide takes you out to sea,
Tide, the Tide washing over me.
Rose in my ending,
Now you are gone.

When will I let you go.

The Irrepressibles: Instrumental

The Irrepressibles: In This Shirt

I am lost in our rainbow, now our rainbow has gone
Overcast by your shadow, as our worlds move on
But in this shirt, I can be you, to be near you for a while
In your shirt, I con be you, to be near you for a while

There's a crane knocking down all those things that we were
I awake in the night to hear the engines purr
There's a pain, it does ripple through my frame, makes me lame
There's a thorn in my side, it's the shame, it's the pride...

Of you and me, ever changing, moving on now, moving fast
And his touch, must be wanted, must become, through your ask
But I need Jake to tell you that I love you, it never rests
And I`ve bled everyday now for a year, for a year

I did send you a note on the wind for to read...
...our names there together must have fallen like a seed...
...to the depths of the soil buried deep in the ground
On the wind I could hear you call my name, I held the sounds

I am lost

I am lost in our rainbow, now our rainbow has gone
I am lost in our rainbow, now our rainbow has gone

I am lost

THE IRREPRESSIBLES – NUDE – 2012

First of all we have to speak of Jamie McDermott and his composition. It is a vast open-space music evoking open plains combed by some strong and yet light breeze, not quite a wind, but that can develop some strong and powerful gusts now and then. The violin and the piano are used as atmosphere building instruments and they are at times sad but mesmerizing in their way to drape us in long notes or sequences of harmonious clear and both separated and tied up notes.

Then there is the voice. Jamie McDermott uses two different ranges. A rather simple tenor voice that does not take any strength, any muscular force because it is the back base of the singing, the place where the singing finds its rest, respite and starting impulsion. But from this tenor range another range emerges regularly with power and elevation. It is considered by some as a countertenor range and probably is. It goes up into the high pitched range of human voice, not too high though but just enough to be associated with the power of flying up and up into some musical sky. This soaring countertenor voice is like the suffering, the desire for liberation and the conquering impulse of some sentimental, emotional and physical freedom that cannot be achieved otherwise.

This countertenor flying up into the soaring impulses of social liberation, the alighting emotions of sexual freedom is perfect to evoke what is beyond the edge of normalcy, on the other side of the edge of conformity and it is mostly some love for men, some passion for other men, for one other man, for one man he loves in his longed for nudity, in his craved for muscular force and mental power, the power of that nude body endowed with a human mind that speaks to the mind of the singer, of the man impersonated in the song who wanders in his soft tenor voice and then goes beyond the barrier, the frontier, the strand just before the open sea of his countertenor elevation, assumption, ascension too. He is in love and cannot escape it and he alights into the chasm and soars over the great water falls merging his vision with the cascades of some stream going through and down some big cataracts and yet he remains the eagle flying, gliding over the maelstrom of his love, being a part of it, and yet high over it and enjoying his love-scape.

There is also the text, the lyrics of these songs. Jamie McDermott writes his stories as some vast myths that do not go beyond simple sentences in succession. His style is the concatenation of successive strokes building some more global picture if you impressionistically step back and let the strokes caress you mentally one after the other without any end. Let yourself be hypnotized by these small utterances that prompt you forward into a sensual vision of sensuous abandonment. This lyrical style is in perfect agreement with the music that in the same way brings one small musical phrase after another of clear separate piano notes, at times repetitive in the minimalist way, at times crisscrossed with another sentence from the violin that wraps it up in tied up longer notes. The piano is like the body and the violin either the clothing he discards or the desire he cultivates and realizes through his caressing fingers on the keyboard of the desired skin.

He is the libidinous arrow that penetrates the body of the desired body and enjoys its embedding in the throbbing and bleeding flesh. He is the body that receives this arrow and enjoys his being thus martyrized by the love of the other, the love he experiences in the deepest inside territories of his carnal fire. He is the youth that is bound to the sacrificial pole of the Aztecs of older times and who is sacrificed to the god of the tribe with the arrows of the warriors that penetrate his body with no intention to kill, with the intention to make the arrow ordeal last as long as possible for the youth to enjoy the exquisite and eventually lethalm pleasure of being wounded and penetrated by these bolting darts.

Yet he can say what he wants he is not a clown. He is a lover who is seen as a buffoon by the normalized society around him. But he is the one who can shed tears because he has a heart, because he is in love, because he does not care whether the one he loves falls back into the ruts of normalcy or not since he will go on loving him and desiring him. He is the one who can see what is over the moon, on the other side of the moon, the other side that is beyond the edge of standardized behavior. Is there an opening on that road or is it a dead end? The answer is in the cello and other string instruments that supports a very repetitive piano with their own repetitiveness. The opening is beyond the simple repetitiveness of that minimalist sensuous life we are obliged to mould ourselves into.

And the adventure can only come to an end which is the begging for a second beginning because the door closed itself and the windows banged shut and the lover of the other side of the cliff edge has lost his lover but is still animated, haunted by his love. Let yourself go into that sentimental journey and this edge-bound philandering.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU