Dead Birds Fly Again (for J)

“Once he was showing me a book of twentieth-century art he liked, and there was a picture of an automated sculpture called Dead Birds Fly Again, a thing that whirled real dead birds around and around on a string, and he smiled and nodded, and I could see he felt the artist was a spiritual ancestor of some kind.” —William Gibson, “The Winter Market”

(The cover art is by Joseph Cornell, another artist, albeit a real one, who figures in Gibson’s fiction.)

If your heart breaks, whirl it around till the dizziness convinces it it’s alive…

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Track List

  1. 00:00 Gabriela Friðriksdóttir“Tetralógia”
  2. 03:44 Zoe Keating“Legions (War)”
  3. 09:40 Victoire“A Door Into the Dark”
  4. 14:28 Alan Morse Davies [after Claude Debussy]“Claire de Lune [Hotel Commodore Ensemble, 1927; remixed]”
  5. 20:13 Aram Khachaturian“Gayane Ballet Suite, Adagio”
  6. 25:06 Arvo Pärt“Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten”
  7. 29:18 Kalter“Svalbard”
  8. 30:35 Murcof“Ulysses”
  9. 33:32 Kyle Gabler“Jelly [from the "World Of Goo" soundtrack]”
  10. 36:06 Philip Glass“Pruit Igoe”
  11. 41:48 Victoire“A Song For Arthur Russell”
  12. 47:13 Terry Riley“Half-Wolf Dances Mad In Moonlight”
  13. 55:17 Marsen Jules“Brouillard”
  14. 60:15 Eluder“Moon Plea”
  15. 64:44 Gas“Oktember”
  16. 68:54 Âme“Rej [A Hundred Birds Mix]”