"Bard's Woman in the Cool of the Summer Breeze" Update: "Mighty River"

I wrote "Mighty River" in December 2006, and dedicated it to my dear friend Annie. I think I included some versions of the tune on various A.J. Kaufmann albums, but to be honest I don't remember on which and if at all... anyway, this here version is the "final one", recorded 2022 by Patryk Lichota (who captured my voice and old acoustic guitar for 10 songs in less than an hour, a brilliant producer...) with further instrumental parts added by the great Ralf "Gypsy" Bevis today. The song was inspired by traditional sea shanties, and was also performed live at Statek Kultury (a barge docked in Cigacice, in the middle of the Oder river) with Michał Joniec, Smyczkowe Wdzięki, and Friends back in May 2017.

I hope you enjoy the track, and my eternal thanks go to Gypsy for taking my simple drinking buddy song to another level.

The album "Bard's Woman in the Cool of the Summer Breeze" now has 11 tracks completed. I guess there will be 16 tracks on the finished album.

I also started talking with my labels about possible vinyl or CD release in 2023.

The photo I included here is from "Second Hand Man" (my debut album) rehearsals. I look silly on it, so I have decided to share it.

The Strange World of A.J. Kaufmann · "Mighty River" with Gypsy

"Welon Weroniki" - Gypsy & A. J. Kaufmann out today!

The new album "Welon Weroniki" by Ralf "Gypsy" Bevis and A.J. Kaufmann is out today. It reminds me of the "Western Lands"-centered album that Material did with William S. Burroughs.

In 2008, when I wrote the poems I now read on our album, I was heavily inspired by Burroughs. Those Polish poems were never supposed to be published or even read. They were sketches for my first American chapbook, "Siva in Rags" (June 2008). "Siva" is of course written in English, but the notes were in my native language, Polish.

I am happy with the album, we worked really hard on it, and even if not as good as the Material/Burroughs classic (legends are untouchable after all!), I am proud of how it came out.

The old poems have been given new life and animation thanks to the music. The words are rough, raw, and abstract, and they touch on same urban/loneliness/spiritual/trance/wit themes as "Siva in Rags". I never supposed revisiting this wasteland 14 years after its creation would be so refreshing. Or maybe the wasteland has been eternally there. I am glad the manuscripts survived.

2008-2014 were really crazy years, and the album "Welon Weroniki" is the freshest document on that poetic madness of the moment, when alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, women, friends, all night all week parties and depression were my fuel.

I guess everyone has their own Western Lands.

Check out Gypsy's work at http://arzathon.bandcamp.com/

The artwork is by Gabriel von Max (1840-1915).

The music is by Gypsy, but I added some electric guitars here and there - mostly abstract, psychedelic "noodling". I like noodles.

Hope you enjoy the album, it is now your album, not ours. Cheers.

"Welon Weroniki" - Gypsy & A. J. Kaufmann - New Album Alert!

I've got some super news for you guys - Ralf "Gypsy" Bevis contacted me recently and asked if I'd be interested in a collaboration. At first I thought he was thinking of the "Bard's Woman" album, but soon it turned out he had something completely else in mind...

So, after exchanging messages, Ralf motivated me to record some poetry in Polish (which I did for the first time in my life - on a lazy Monday morning at home sipping tea). I chose poems from my old 2008 notebook, which was inspired by my life, and my city, Poznań, and the people I met there. Those poems have been gathering dust for 14 years. I never thought their time would come... anyway, I recorded 20 poems out of 40-50 or so, and sent it all to Ralf.

Ralf soon started adding his wonderful music to my readings, and asked me to add light traces of electric guitar, as electric guitar is my favorite instrument (even if I am not a great guitar player).

So, I did that, and as of today, Wednesday April 27 2022 we have an album in the works, and 2 tracks ready and available for listening on soundcloud.

We have decided on the title "Welon Weroniki" for our collaborative album. Ralf also chose cover art. Here is the music and words we have so far for you to enjoy, and a bit info about Ralf (taken from the great Prog Archives) for those who are unfamiliar with his work.

The Strange World of A.J. Kaufmann · Gypsy & A. J. Kaufmann - "Szprychy Słoneczne I Dom W Ich Rozpaczy"

The Strange World of A.J. Kaufmann · Gypsy & A. J. Kaufmann - "Lustro Odautorskie"

ARZATHON is Ralf Bevis, born in Germany (Dulken). Ralf has been active in the underground home taping scene since the early 80's, where he recorded and released albums under the moniker Gypsy, in addition to starting his own label, Rodent Tapes, which is still active today. Today, Rodent Tapes is to be found on the Internet Archives site (Rodent Tapes Backstage) where many free downloads are available, such as Radio Edits of tracks from albums available on its bandcamp page.

These days Ralf is active as ARZATHON, an experimental electronic project with many releases, a lot of them collaborations with other artists. The sound of ARZATHON varies, not being restricted to one area of EM, having elements of drone, Berlin school, dark ambient, abstract and more. ARZATHON's sound is usually extremely psychedelic and very entrancing soundscapes for fans of mind melting music. He also releases projects as Heavy Metal Vampires on Nuclear Waste / Trolls on Acid / Dreamtime Troubadours. Some of the artists he has collaborated with are: Don Campau, Franco Falsini, Kristianne Gale, and many many others.

"Jolly Little Rocker"

"Jolly Little Rocker" was written back in 2007/2008, but recorded only recently. It's a song about a dealer, inspired by Velvet Underground's "Waiting for the Man". I hope you enjoy the track.

The Strange World of A.J. Kaufmann · "Jolly Little Rocker"

LYRICS

The city is bored with you, boy
The city is sleeping now
Wishing on a sugar pill
Dreaming of a satellite
So easy to find it
Don’t have to know the address
Knock two times at midnight
Kill your lonely mess

Here comes the jolly little rocker
With his jolly little pills
And he says I’m sure you wanna
Don’t you wanna make a deal
You see this jolly little rocker
He’s got everything you need
Little portion of his magic
Sure to satisfy your greed

The city is a graveyard, boy
Full of moving tombs
Leave it all behind you
Jump back to the womb
And you’ll see the city smiling
Blowing a happy horn
And you’ll see how everything’s small
Before you get born

Here comes the jolly little rocker
With his jolly little pills…

The city’s paved with stories like these
You know it’s nothing new
Find yourself an easy mountain
Get a worthwhile view
Come enjoy the spectacles
He’s got everything
He’ll make your soul a Jumbo Jet
He’ll make your body sing

Here come this jolly little rocker
With his jolly little pills
And everything the man touches
Turns to gold and/or steel
See that jolly little rocker
In this jolly little hole
Resurrecting colored spirits
From his weary sinking soul

"Bard's Woman in the Cool of the Summer Breeze" Update

Well, the album has grown beyond the original 10 songs captured by Patryk Lichota.
It now also includes "Delilah" and "Das Mädchen ging zum Küken" recorded early April 2022.
I have also decided to include "Constellation", first written and recorded in 2019, but on the album it will appear in a brand new rendition captured live April 7 2022.
"Shamash" will be a bit of a surprise track, but I think it fits the mood of the album nicely, and having been recorded April 6 2022, it's as fresh as it gets, and as folk psych freak folk vibe as I could possibly do.
I have also re-visited recordings with the great Kacper Wojaczek (keyboards) - and "Moog Tribe" recorded as early as 2015 will be on the album too!

Speaking of working with the great Sound Animal (Berkeley, USA) we now have 4 tracks recorded together for the album - those are "Aurora", "Harry Haller", "With the Sun in Your Belly" and "Patricia (Gypsy Caravan Rollin'". Sound Animal will be quite the featured artist on the LP! I consider her input into the tracks recorded by Patryk amazing, and she perfectly captured the mood of the songs - I feel blessed working with her!

And speaking of feeling blessed, Blessed Studio from Indonesia did a great job with "King of Kreuzberg", which was released as the first single from the album, and we might work on more tracks for the LP soon!

Here is "Patricia", as performed by me and Sound Animal, recorded by Patryk Lichota and Sound Animal!

The Strange World of A.J. Kaufmann · "Patricia (Gypsy Caravan Rollin')" with Sound Animal

"In Homage To The German Pioneers" - For all those who brought avant-garde into pop culture and rock'n'roll.

Adam Majdecki-Janicki · "In Homage To The German Pioneers"

Where is the German Composer? (An Interview)

There is no one there
I am alone with my cup
here or there is no composer
the composer is in
Berlin
Munich
Vienna
sounds going dream when I future
is he even
elsewhere?

is there a composer?
where is the composer?
there are no composers
there is no one here
there's voice in the quiet field
sculptor of voices
voice of peace
there is no peace
no voice
no sculpture

violins shrunk the atmosphere
just echoes inside flag leaving
but where is the composer
is he busy
composing?
is he composing
business?

is he here is he there
or is he a she or she a they
or are they stoned again
where is the German composer?

feedback
feedback in the room
rooms of feedback
existence hell the stay
my
just distance to napkin

suit and cowboy boots
grey beard and scrapbook
is he in Munich?
where is the
composer?

only future and waves know the out-shined catch.

6 song poems 2016

Low Rise

Mask to task
illusion to confusion
break to make
intelligence to fragrance
flowers puke
pollution of their dukes
punks on speed
and rape on summer seeds
test to blast
death rising on horizon
mushroom shape
of children saved too late
do you stand
with orchestras of doom
on one too many plated
teacup afternoons
taste to waste
my bloke to telescope
high rise block
cold future aftershock

Ozma

She's a free zooming bird
zoo specimen
destruction dust devil
on routes to zones well damned
when she passes death's tune
to tongues twisted young
Chimaera and the Hydra
trapped in monastery gong
she's a cage ripping plant
double sunrise cry
creation fluke tornado
flake-fall of dry skies
I tried to air her frequency
got gagged and judged so cruel
before I crashed my aura
and drove my pain to school
I portrayed endangered species
trapped in ambers of her eyes
and then the sunset radio
cut off everything that's shy

Grandma Universe

Yesterday's beat
corpse on concrete
tomorrow's soul police
revolution piece by piece
atomic fireplace
to burn your nuclear chairs
escape the incident
provoke the accident
saint of karma sleeps
with cyborgs on his knees
dead rats and radiation
electric current action
you're wasting time perfectly
bohemian repainted Elvis
you've entered church of lice
the monks sing vile mice
release the upper hall
give grandma space a call
just treat the current well
and wait for rainbow spells

Astronaut's Intuition

Yellow crayon margin
notes on Berlin cool
doves and dandelions
fill the writer's pool
there's only one waiting room
you're waiting out of turn
a psychedelic mirage
that makes Africa burn
years of LSD attempts
there always was one chance
but your brain doesn't want to return
and your body's just a stone sculpture
where your frozen head
wrote the last letter home
from a journey of its science-fiction
it's astronaut's intuition
seeing stars explode in fruition
yellow carbon coffin
a narcoleptic oven

Kiddo Demigod

Window lover
dawn dawns turning
punk rock kiddo
writing „sure thing”
spray-paint heroes
gone drifting forever
sewer tastes much better
when it's shared
so, dear kiddo, you should care
wind up the pure love level
collecting raindrops in spades
milky space
expects no answers, brethren
accepts no credit cards
when it's time for you to die
future's demigod
escapes in Dada fog
to anywhere's home bog
on the corner
and the winter's suddenly warmer

The Rider

Voice of the morning
on palm suite island
breath of adventure
under the wild hand
and sex wind and jazz bands
play carefully on
into the damp dawn
with tropical aura nearby
we're asking you to be polite
flutes approaching warm sands
here where lotus kid stands
and rider deathbed listens
to everything that glistens
a peaceful celebration
of love above the nation
in candy rivers rolling
through countries fresh but falling
nobody wants to drive her
oh she's the fateful rider

"SYMBOLISME PSYCHEDELIQUE" originally published by KSE, 2009/08/16.

One of two paired chapbooks for August 2009, both dedicated to the late SKY SUNLIGHT SAXON, this eight-poem, eight-page suite of poems is Volume 47 in KSE’s “Sound Library Series,” inspired by the incredible “symbolisme psychedelique” sound library album from early 70s France by Gerardo Iacoucci, a combination psychedelic-lounge-electronic series of film-score cues that is legendary among library music collectors/beatheads. I sent AJ a copy of this album in the spring of 2009, during a period when we were both also listening a lot to the further-out 70s/80s music of Sky Sunlight Saxon and Ya Ho Wha, so with Sky’s visions of “Universal Stars” in his mind, and fueled by the SYMBOLISME album, A. J. produced a work that, like an abstract painting made up of recognizable pieces, is both familiar and disquieting, and which can be re-constructed by the reader in a number of different ways. Using a shorter line than in his previous KSE chapbooks, and using lines that can be connected with their neighboring lines in multiple ways, all of which make “sense,” A. J. is taking his poetry to a new and more profound level…the only comparisons I can make are to the poetry of Piero Heliczer, some of Jack Spicer, or the visionary private writings of John Wieners that have come out after JW’s death, but of course AJK has created his own poetic aesthetic independent of any outside influences. Each poem contains a series of whirlpools and spirals of poetic lines/phrases that reminds me of taking the back off a pocket watch and studying the different wheels and springs and balances spinning and connecting and stopping and starting. Imagine being inside that watch, lurching forward and pulling back, through a series of funhouse mirrors containing alternating blurry and overly-sharp images of hairy hands, muddy sheets, echoes of rust, London stones, intimate sails, and side-table whispers. Shoot a monkey, grab a place to stand at the Taint Funeral, and score a copy of SYMBOLISME PSYCHEDELIQUE as soon as you can.
(Bill Shute, Kendra Steiner Editions).

TAINT  FUNERAL

Taint funeral
long passengers tasting their smoke
other hand birds
follow September districts
commentators
gaze
at panic stuffed rooms
shoot the monkey
the breath and crown
relative answers
fog blaze stairs
coconut church-bells
port of slunk days
bullets in bargain
turn attention to cottage reporters
sat to music
time tools past
up loudly
taint funeral
undiscovered eyelids
innocent-minded
pistols

UNTIL  THE  BLACK  SEAS

We heard murder
whispering wig roads
soliloquy
chill curiosity
another dead man
numbers swell
village hell
to be found in the crowds
stepping up to the empty
garden jeweler
sitting my stream
speaks in fire
guttering candles
roar
weeping glass
bleak business
the open town
a dozen loose-heels nights
back to the first voyage
holiday
tobacco
until the black seas

RARE  LUNCH

A story beyond rehearsal
outshone the blood-stains
thoughts blowing
slices of fact
caught broken

a heavy kick
pushing and pulling the world
foreign faces
jury of scarecrows
passed defense

heathens laughing
ragged hole in moments
grab your flutes
lifted dreams
sound of restaurants

the rare lunch awake
makes the night laugh

A  MATTER

Performers wore black
quietly turned clerks
side-table whispers
shook
drawing
people of broken light
Latin women – the opposite
army
singing for soldiers
in verse

hairy hands return to the morning
avert
crash dawn
drinking-bars
hollow, much passed

the sky whistled of a garden
murderer serpent
Saturday night
live longer, empty
just what is enough
memories screamed:
a matter!

BOOK  CITY

my first given time
hurried
stolen
try comfort
scared
considering against
book city
in love w/
book city
assent terrible soil
down step
alone
back to your shelf
the curious
moorland
of mind
sit beyond hope
book city
coupons
processions
a different angle
sit on your shelf
book city

NIGHT  MINUTES

Sentimental turned undecided
lodging sharply places
we path emotion
flower of chance
whitewashed hurry
far morning pallor

wear your cuts
sip money
thought and a bottle
round to the swollen god
question speaks for itself

leant behind
the kitchenette
wild sun
invalid ground
out of taken windows

puffing the token, crying
illness sinking him
living, knocked to her depths
lying night minutes
aware

ECHOES  OF  RUST  &  OF  ASH

red color hanging
rust & ash
calling their screams
learn in the street
loom on their smile
like a leaf
dread awake
crash face
instant
sky flute pass cold
hated minutes
come
in desperate doors
search silent
carnations
coughing roads
pavements
crazy
muddy sheets
night-tale cathedrals
echoes of rust
echoes of ash
taste into their cold
red color hanging
again

STALE

Damn your hearse
hear the chimneys
branches awake
sour tears of night

a funeral,
drum comfort
soundtrack for murderer’s
path

repeating after the devil
dropped beyond
the working class conscience
fallen chances
burn ears

London stones
intimate sails
sheets living
burning towards the flag
weaving at memory

known empty
shivered, rising
known stale

"The Horizon Dillema" (New poem, 2022/04/11)

Blissful raindrop swings on my neck
regular fellow
tight dancer from the cloudless sky

I am sound-and-vision
soul materialist
soul zero
soul mathematician
dreaming of Venus ventilating
skulls

there's a kingdom of love in the forest
just two steps away from the city
city always wins
the decorative monster
but you can walk away
from the soulsucking supermarket

sausages or cigarettes?
it's for you to choose

yes
I see,
positive matters are murmur of the rain
while negative thrones
are whispering death
and the sky is nothingness
on pastel freight train watch-towers

on them sits a glorious goddess
toying the light-proof rabbit
running naked on hair dawns

once you make a choice
there's no turning back
no matter how many people tell you
there's time

my neck is now full of raindrops
my coat walked home
my dog is dead
and the teeth won't return
wonderment of life
passengers
stiff days of bourbon

tropical leaves on solarium neons
in colored liquids
I wake up, the horizon dillema

"Bard's Woman" - another new track, update 5.

Since me and Sound Animal enjoyed working together on "With the Sun in Your Belly", we have decided to join forces again for "Aurora". Sound Animal is a brilliant artist and you should definitely visit http://soundcloud.com/soundanimal or simply the website http://sound-animal.com/

So, the album will definitely contain 2 collaborations with Sound Animal - "Belly" and "Aurora" - and maybe even more - we'll see!

I have also decided to record more tracks at home - "Constellation" will definitely be on the album - I am unsure about "Shamash" and "Deep Space / I Am Atom", but for now they are on the album's work-in-progress tracklist.

There are 2 additional tracks too - "Delilah" and "Das Mädchen Ging Zum Küken", both recorded especially for the album with the help of a good German friend who prefers to be uncredited.

Here is a soundcloud playlist that contains all 8 tracks completed. I might also include "Moog Tribe" recorded with Kacper Wojaczek (keyboards) - but I'll see if the track fits the album concept as soon as I have more material recorded/ready.

The Strange World of A.J. Kaufmann · "Bard's Woman in the Cool of the Summer Breeze" Tracks completed so far.

Massive thanks go to Patryk Lichota for recording my voice and old acoustic guitar in Poznań, Poland. "King of Kreuzberg", "Aurora", and "With the Sun in Your Belly" are from this session. There are 7 other tracks remaining, and they will most certainly find their way onto the new album. If you wish to help with "Harry Haller", don't hesitate to contact me. Here is the demo:

The Strange World of A.J. Kaufmann · "Harry Haller" (DEMO 2022)

Thanks for reading and see you soon with more updates as they appear!

Finally, "Aurora" lyrics:

Aurora was the girl of ages
Reading from the golden page
Of futures bright and people laughing
In a world without no graves
Or borders, walls and misconceptions
Gods and kings and useless rules
Stepping out of crystal fountains
Savior of eternal youth
Aurora, Aurora

Aurora sprinkled deep in sunrise
Sunset waits for fertile hands
To lead our star to future mountains
Himalayan thinker's path
Where none intrudes the waiting hermit
Making love to summer skies
Orchids bend and tulips whisper
Of their flower beaded bride
Aurora, Aurora

Another time, another victim
Of this pretty game called life
Aurora lifts the fashion curtains
Sings a song of pure surprise
On darkened ears her sweetened tones fall
Like a chime of foreign bliss
Now the shadows lose their meaning
No one's dying on his knees
Aurora, Aurora
Aurora, Aurora
Aurora

3 song lyrics 2004 / re-edited 2022.

Celestial Mirage

She was like the morning dew
A beauty of strange kind
A premium pastel woman
Simple men could never find
Stumbling through the clouds
In her cirrus minor world
Celestial little lady
She picked the accurate chord

She was just like blowing wind
Limitless and everywhere
As gentle as the striking sun breeze
Essence here and body there
Goddess on the beach
Looking straight at me
I’ve just got to be with her
She's just got to see

Echo in the Mirror

Steel mirrors in distorted sun
Arrhythmic applause in the haven
Faces drop and distantly liquefy
On my arms two corpulent ravens

Exodus into desert plains
Landscape calm and silent now
The notes are drifting really slowly
While you stare and ask me “How?”

I tell you why you should ask me “When?”
These are plains of mystery
Seven hundred people scan the land
In search of unexpected prodigy

Bird of Paradise

From red to green
All dies in yellow
When the paradise bird
Sings in the primary forest

If you have the time
You also have freedom
The tower in the window
The tower in the window
Gone

Call upon the bird of paradise
A beauty in violet, on her way to hell
Beautiful lady, hands of light
Her eyes run sad, how could you tell

"Bard's Woman" - another new track, update 4.

I wrote and recorded "Delilah" on April 2 2022 - but I was not sure right away if it should be included on the new album. However, as the creative process goes on, it suddenly appears that some things just fit somewhere nicely, and since "Delilah" is about a woman, and the sound is something I'm really happy with, then why not include it on the new LP? Maybe "Delilah" is the bard's woman, and she certainly sounds like the summer breeze. In this track I tried to put all my current inspirations together. The lyrics are improvised, and the electronic sitar sound appears to color the track psychedelic. I hope you enjoy what you hear. More info soon, as the process moves on...

The World of A.J. Kaufmann · "Delilah"

20 Years of Artistic Activity this year (or 25 in 2023, depending on how you count). Info.

It dawned upon me that today marks 20 years since the first written Brain Salad Underground songs. I think the first one was "Alleygates of Sin", which I wrote after listening to Hawkwind and Amon Duul II for the first time. You can listen to my 2014 solo version here:


We recorded all my/our then-brand-new songs direct to tape in our high rise apartment in Górczyn, Poznań, in July 2002. And then we recorded 5 more tapes, and then back to school since our holidays were over.

It was the first psychedelic experience in Górczyn, Poznań, Poland. There still isn't any sort of a "psych scene" here, so I am forced to work as an outsider, but I really like it, because the artistic freedom gained, and so on...)

I still haven't properly digitized the 2002-2003 tapes (mp3s are not the desired quality), but I have started digitizing old CD-Rs (2003-2008), and you can listen to the deep archives here:
http://soundcloud.com/adammajdecki-janicki

20 years might seem like a long time making noise and music, but to be honest I still feel like I haven't even started "doing my job". I like to have a beginner state of mind all the time, which allows for ideas your "grown up full blown ego built artistic self" would never let out of the scrapbook. I think being juvenile to a healthy extent is the key of remaining artistically fertile.

In those 20 years I learned a lot, especially on "what not to do" and "how not to sound". I think I spent the majority of those years on failed experiments and absurd, surreal ideas. But hey, there's even more to come, as I really don't feel like dying, rather on the opposite - I feel like being freshly born every day I wake up.

I will include some links to things I'm really proud of in those 20 years (or 25 in 2023, since hey, I actually started recording cassettes solo in 1998 - I was 13 and really out of it - but those tapes - and all tapes that followed until 2002 - are only bursts of teenage noise, that barely and rarely contain any coherent idea, sound, lyrics, or melody) and I am looking forward to my new album, which finally sounds like music should sound, and I hope you will be interested in the pretentiously titled, but totally non-pretentious "Bard's Woman in the Cool of the Summer Breeze". I am also slowly completing the book that will accompany this album. Speaking of the music, I am even slower, but this time I want to make an album at least as good as "Stoned Gypsy Wanderer" (out on vinyl on Ramble Records, Australia, have you already bought your copy?) - otherwise what's the point in making a new album?

I am also releasing things like crazy on The Swamp Records, and on April 8 I will release my brand new (except one song recorded in 2016) album, "Domino". Dominoes are a very simple game, and the album will be about simple games, also featuring the incredibly talented Eliza Dycha on one track - the beautifully raw version of "Niezapominajka", Eliza's song based on Polish folklore and the blues. Stay tuna.

The World of A.J. Kaufmann · "The Dragon And The Phoenix"

Here are some albums (which I like to call ideas) I'm really proud of as I'm writing this, and probably those are the only albums you should really check out if we're not friends, close friends, or lovers. Then maybe we will become them. Cheers.