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an amateur’s manifesto

 Music & Words 


I see it unadorned 
I hear it sung from whispered lips 
Sometimes soaring 
Sometimes flat 
I see it like life not like art 
I want it to be discovered by an alien 
Who does not know what it lacks 
I want it to be amateurish 
Who gets the occasional complimentary 
I want it asymmetrical and atypical 
I see it as unique 
An example only of itself 
I don’t want it to be tasteful 
I want it to be graceful 
I don’t mind if you only listen for a passing moment 
As long as you listen in 
& acknowledge that a man was here 
Who’d live to tell a tale 
A tale different to any other 
No better, but just so no lesser 
Don’t doubt it 
Trust what you hear 
Like you do 
When you eavesdrop on a stranger

 ©️ Malachi Doyle 2017.

6 years on it actually reads pretty close much of the time. I wasn’t intending to make a manifesto.
I’ve continued a perilous journey since. Technology has made it easier in some ways. For the dance parrot project, the phone is preferred for recording rather than the computer. Field recordings in essence, unedited and extemporised, it’s just I’m the one with the microphone and camera. It feels right now, to bypass multitracking and editing.
At times I long for a physical souvenir, but that seems to require extra anti-human processes. So increasingly my work is only available for download or stream, the souvenir usually a handmade visual work on paper, despite the fact that I consider myself a singer-poet. Some extant handmade cds exist but I have no strong desire to fire up a machinery of work — which burning the disc requires. Art must I believe fight for the human. Media can use AI and all the work/war machinery it wants, I am in the play of making art, as humanity has done since the beginning of time, if indeed there is a beginning.

Love, Justice, Wisdom, Understanding, Spirit xx

 ©️ Malachi Doyle 2023.

Current Project: dance parrot available at Bandcamp.com,

Earlier projects: Malachi Doyle, Bait (with Mikey Maginness), Mel From Melbourne, Earth To Malachi also available at Bandcamp.com


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