Club Voltaire Live

1998

Cutting the Veil/Point of View (live) (14:59)
The Mirror of Division (live) (22:22)
Curtain Call (live) (16:48)
The Hostile Sea (live) (16:34)

"Club Voltaire Live" is a live recording from February 1998 in the Club Voltaire.

The CD is no longer available.

Arne Schaefer: Vocals, Guitars
Ekkehard Nahm: Piano, Organ, Synthesizer
Stephan Dilley: Bass Guitar
Stefan Maywald: Drums

Cutting the Veil

a) Changing Conditions

Our heroes seem pale and worn out these days
though we tried so hard to accommodate
to changing conditions - new values and times
we can't afford to fail

All major discoveries it seems have been made
established ideas are just optimised
by an army of workers whose skills are just wait
to be substituted by chips

The greatest of visions - the whole world to see -
are fallen to pieces and swept away
Now disillusion is spreading in minds
leaving a void of untenable kind

Ancient rules devaluated - now -
substituted by an omnipresent
scientific rationalism

- now -

cutting the veil

b) Laying Bare the Nerves

Laying bare the nerves within a moral scaffoldingonce
ensuring hold to the individualfragments of ancient
walls eroded and undermined by timesubstituted by
high-tech prostheses

Everyone on his own - in isolation
striving for social recognition

Tools are ruling minds - perfect but bare of meaning
do not participate in any interpretation
The ultimate state of mind - direction of social preference
obscured by ill-advanced individualism

c) On Fertile Ground

Subliminal currents of haunted minds
long time suppressed - now face the light
claiming the spaces still laying fallow - out of sight

On fertile ground now growing wild
the seeds relieved from chains of mind
some seem enlightened, others passing dangerous frontiers

- no safety net to catch
no self control to close the hatch
a game of free forces - maybe too late to turn the tide

Ever harder too weed out the thicket that's grown beyond control

In search for instant satisfaction - a short term fit mentality
providing obscure saviours and charlatans
a peak prosperity

d) The Gentle Coat of Night

Long grown social structures splinterforming a strange kaleidoscope
immediately commercialisedall long term trends nipped in the bud

Only in hidden and distant niches
granting unhindered ripening
time allows to crystallise
forms unseen in velvet light

Once covered by the gentle coat of night
now exposed to dazzling daylight
the sharpened knife desecrates the pure

now- cutting the veil

e) In Distant Niches

(instrumental)

Point of View

In the deep dark abyss of human nature
a viscous strange morass keeps floating by
misteriously trapping fascination
for those who still keep heading for surprise

Somehow everyone of us is trying to get it straight
but who will pretend to be safe on his way today?

Pityless the force which keeps us human
by swinging with the rope from side to side
eager to prevent static stagnation
buried all alive in a satin grave

Somehow everyone...

This inscrutable soul is lurking
still we follow it on its ways
while this tremblin' urge will strike us to
find a reason for every rhyme

Hey what's wrong with you my dear
she asks with doubtful face
what kind subductive fear
you're afraid of?
what you're expecting me to say?
a definitive answer?
don't you see that I just sway
if I knew, I would have told you yet

We have discussed a thousand times
'bout things that lie beyound the
level of concrete definition
But now we always come to this
point of divergation
already I begin to repent
that I've tried to force it - over and over again

I just keep with you waiting, anticipating
that it will be me, who will give way
I'll just playing the lover, but undercover
longing to be - free

But then, didn't we say we'd tell us
anything that jerks us
to prevent the rumouring of the unconcious
But then it's always kind of mad
starting things by reason
which cannot be grapped by argumentation
or forcing it - over and over again

I just...

It makes no sense - to look sharp
even sharper then
if we face - the mirror of our soul

The point of view - each of us
everyone of us - in the end
will feel a different way

The Mirror of Division

Here in the blink of an eye - there's a motion

I shall keep the spot -the idea - just a notion of
what will be - what will fail intor oblivion
I'm down the line through the mirror of division

Caught inside the halls of my unearthly palace
dare take a look from the edge of my imagination
where shall I begin - where's the point of my departure
the course is set arbitrarily - there's no way back

Lost in the loops of a small coded spiral
I'm circling around about myself in denial
I'd never depend on this lasting imperfection
forever damned to perform the art of speculation

Out of it's surroundings been forming in a lifetime
gradually the spirit's defined
a differential equation with too many variables
margins ever set for my own
And I know that it feels so safe
within the orbit of common agreements

The choosen parameters accidential intersection
at zero on my contemplation plain
by statistical selection empirical dead ends
are reassured by the large number law
And I know that it feels so safe
within the orbit of common agreements

Pseudo accidentally generated propagation
the origin resembles the same damned with similarity these phantoms of creation
unable to change the angle of view
And I know that it feels so safe
within the orbit of common agreements
I am circling

And I try by catching an eye
on this vision that hides in my mind
And I try to identify
the ingredients inside I may find
But the sight has got blurred
it's fading away the focus is stirred
I'm deterred

It lies with me so peaceful glowing bright
embedded in this endless band of white
the juicy fruit pulp of a cosmic well manured
random sampled apple gently furred

wedged inside of a mould in space and time
in solitude progressing down the line
fate and chance in dislocation intertwined
out in here all history stands aligned

in variations manifold
unanswerable questions
and a vague anticipation still remains
minds confined and specialized
no time to dream or analyze
visions of beyond and after

will all this being still exist
without my view or just because of it
without the code all earthly things defines
born in singularity
our fate proceeds through entropy
forever in transition we remain

and once again I am left in contemplation
all sources are fed by the power of imagination
and by the way feelings overwhelm me
I'm free to step out in this world
so long the way I'd walked through
within a lifetime still further I may go along this road of inspiration

Curtain Call

As the final curtain falls, she´s dropping off - lost in a maze

and in the silent corners of her mind a rest from daylights blaze
And as she falls, she´s well aware that it´s
just a symptom of her trial to escape
for to flee the triteness of reality

in this void surrounding her heart
And so she waits for the curtain call

for those voices behind the wall
who´ll come and see and let her be

pretending her life was a memory
And out of aggrieved artist´s defiance
she decided to sign herself to this state
commuting between the two alterning worlds
she´s trying to bear her fate
Her strongest wish to submerge down into a
fictitious world of noble ideals
where no-one is forced to accommodate talents
and visions to established and fashionable rules
And so she waits for the curtain call

for those voices behind the wall
who´ll come and see and let her be

pretending her life was a memory
- it will feel - as for real - a little time
Meanwhile beside the directors hall

of a major scale artists agency
sits an ill-humoured talent explorer who -
stares in despair at the chart of the
turnover curling in fine illustration -
the lies in disguise of a multi-dimensional -
colourful - push and pull...

Something reminds him - a week ago - at the party:
"go meeting the who is who"
with all those young artists are swarming ´round -
those whisked-off figures playing lost and found
And the young girl who stayed till the party was over -
trying to take her chance
All that he would say: "Try another time - don´t wait for us -
hope you´ll make it fine - and some day soon

you may get the chance
but today we can´t come your way"
More than two years we can´t take the risk - until then our investment must earn interest
Now my hands are in bondage - these days are hard
we all do our best and must play our part

Such a shame - keep on talking those terrible phrases - he thinks by himself but then
All that he would say: "Try another time - don´t wait for us-
hope you´ll make it fine - and some day soon

you may get the chance

but today we can´t come your way"

The Hostile Sea

All through the sieve of time

chosen like crystal islands of
stability - waiting for rain to fall
dissolving all ingredients
mingling again

All by the secret code
all life is interwoven
twirling around - endlessly - by the sea
through the microcosmic veins
of the living world

Wait, there's something unclear
the point of origin seems so randomly determined
All deductions I can make
will just lead again to the ultimate starting point

Restricted by reception tools
incapable of looking further
All intuitive approach is fooled
no equivalent experience

The everlasting attempt to catch a glimpse of what's
behind the door, beneath the floor
The illusion of an understandability
of the inconceivable

Restricted by reception tools
incapable of looking further
All intuitive approach is fooled
no equivalent experience

A further step approaching eternity
cracking the foundation down beneath my feet
everything floats - I'm drifting on ice
cutting the rope - guarding the slope

It's the eternal fight
it's the eternal challenge
all of our time
struggling the entropy
populating niches left in an hostile sea