IT WAS DURING LIGETI It was during Ligeti’s Second String Quartet that a relationship between the music and its physicalities—a communion of musical constructions which contained a tension strong enough— made me aware of the record entity itself rotating carrying the grooves which are music turning with a force carrying their own microcosm and perfect imperfections, skips on the material which carried their own life. At one point during the most sublime moment of visuals a marking of some sort on the surface of the record became noticeable in the distance approaching the needle heading toward the full sound arriving from the left channel and it coming finally like a bubble, sealed and holding its reserved moment in time on this recording and now passing across like a rock flying through Saturn’s rings with the forces of the universe crossing my path carrying me along and then leaving driving further away, away, away into the forever space of infinity, continuing now, traveling, until perhaps again someday, as I enter the world of this music, I will encounter yet again this small planet in the galaxy of this spiraling record’s surface as I journey along my path like a comet, destined for God knows where… November 15, 2005 © Ben Gerstein