“I would believe only in a god that knows how to dance”
- Nietzsche

Art has come to exist as an opposition between two intrinsic and enmeshed aspects of itself – that of content; a theoretical engagement with an idea, and form; the art-object itself, characterized by a state of bodily ecstasy. This relationship has become split to the point where both aspects, arising from the same source, now appear totally separate. The former, thinking reduced to a strict cognitive reasoning, thus lies as a destructive counterpart to the openness required for creative activity. For how can something that thinks, a mind that is at its best supposed to be closed, certain, rational, be used for something entirely immersionary; the urge to dance with music, to be moved through a poem or touched by a painting. How can this mind, that fundamentally the western understanding claims is an advanced form of a computer-processing machine, fit into the creative spirit?

This view is only strengthened by those of us who try to think too much – or what we might come to realise is as to think too little - with their art, and end up losing the genuine art dimension of their work. For thinking purely with the version of the mind we have inherited with western thinking is a failure to think at all.

“We can learn thinking only if we radically unlearn what thinking has been traditionally”.
- Heidegger

Yet surely man thinks all the time? There is no question that the constant dialogue in ones mind never stops. Buddhist monks make it their life goal to cease the endless chatter of the mind. Yet this goal, so they claim, may take many lives to attain. I think whether I want a coffee or a tea. I think that the freedom which capitalism claims to bring is no freedom at all. I think she’s an awful old bitch. But the will to think does not mean that thinking has occurred, and an endless chatter of the mind must purely be the momentum of a capacity that surely has not attained its highest fulfillment as of yet.

“Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the over-man - a rope over an abyss.” – Nietzsche.
It makes no point to attempt to answer this question yet. There is point, however, in drawing attention to it. A work of art does not lay in the questions it answers but instead in the questions that it raises. But how does this relate to our subject matter in this E.P?

A man on his tornado learns the importance of space. Who is this man and his tornado? And what is the importance of space? What is the point of it all?

Certainly not the kind of space astronauts go to, even though they interact in a space of sorts. And certainly not three-dimensional space; the distance defined by the centimeters of space between you and this page, or the wall and the door.

But answering questions aside, does this even draw attention to our question?

Maybe the point of it all is that we are asking the wrong question. What is thinking might not even be something a being with the capacity to think can answer. Like the man who forgets his glasses are right there on his nose; what is closest to us is often what is farthest away.

Can a tree bloom about its blooming flowers by blooming?

Maybe that’s the point of it all.

The E.P is conceptual. It has a story. The music exists as the narrative of itself. The above is not the answer, or even what the story is about, but it is a question and at most a clue. The momentum of the music, and your relationship to that momentum – determined by the space you receive this in - creates your experience of it. Perhaps and only sometimes I am the man, and my tornado is to mediate the message of the music. Or maybe you are the man and his tornado and the music will speak to you in a way it has not to me.

Music is meant to be listened to, not merely heard. Music is active, music moves. We engage. To hear only is a passive activity reserved for music of a different nature.

When we try to understand we understand both more about the thing we seek to understand and we understand more about our own understanding.

We might know thinking, but do we really think? Can we really think about thinking? Is there not something more primary that we should ask first?

The E.P is split into three parts; A fore-having, fore-sight and fore-conception (in ode of Heidegger).

A Man on His Tornado Learns the Importance of Space:

A Fore-having: 1. Space is Neither in the Subject, Nor is the World in Space
- Interview by John Frusciante, The Heart is a Drum Machine.
A Fore-sight: 2. Everyone is the Other and No One is Himself
- Guitar Sampled from John Frusciante: Enter A Uh.
- Featuring the Brian Dillion Orchestra.
3. A Lion and A Dragon
4. To Grow Weary of Ones Wisdom
- Featuring Kevin Creed on Guitar.
5. Life is Eternal only in Pointlessness
- Interview by Woody Allen.
A Fore-conception: 6. Dear Heidegger; I am Not Good at Sex. Sorry.
- Sample from Joanna Newsom: 81.

All music Mediated, Arranged, Mixed and Mastered by Gregory the Asshole

Special thanks to Cristina, Tony, Ickis Mirolo, Ben Burns, Ben Bix and, of course, my Father, for their invaluable insight and feedback on the music. Oh, and Barry, for, as always, the quality photograph.

GTAC001: A Man on His Tornado Learns the Importance of Space
Released: 06/05/14 by IH! Audio
Contact: gtacollective@gmail.com
Website: gtacollective.weebly.com
Photograph by: Barry, Cristina and Gregory.
Text by: Gregory the Asshole