“Here is a pic of the sun pourch: a total horrific mess! Like some hoarder, I am a slave to this CD collection… after my last move, years ago, everything was left unorganized…and it never changed. So, I will get rid of about 75% of what you see in that picture. I just will put them all in big tubs and sell thousands of CDs at a time! It is sad to take a huge loss of $ but they must go within two years time.”

Oh God! “What a perfect mess”, could sing Adrian Belew of King Crimson, watching this post-earthquake dump of records! So, for instance, if you want to find “Two of a Perfect Pair” of King Crimson, one of the main declared influences of Controlled Bleeding, you think you can locate them somewhere?

Yeah, it’s a terrible mess and I cannot enjoy such a fine collection… I cannot find much in this mess. Generally, I re-buy recordings when I need to urgently hear something, because there is no way I will find it in this chaos, and what you see here is less than half of it.
I definitely will get rid of about 80% of this stuff, since most of it is not dear to my heart. I acquired a lot of CDs as a writer and through musical friends and I have purchased a lot of used CDs over time that I don’t much care for, so most of this material is expendable.
By the way, I don’t like “Discipline”, “Three of A Perfect Pair” and “Beat”.
King Crimson died for me with the great Wetton, Bruford, Fripp line up. I dislike Adrian Belew in this band. For me, he and Tony Levin were sterile players, best as studio back up players. Belew was great on Talking Heads “Remain in Light”, but as a singer/frontman, I could not stand him!

Are you sure you want to get rid of all this stuff? It’s sad! Look ad your old mail art friend Vittore Baroni records room: how would you comment his attitude? Who’s the craziest of the two?

Vittore’s record room is fantastic… now that is the way to do it! Collections like these are for people with homes and full rooms for the recordings, not lowly apartment dwellers like yours truly! Vittore is not crazy: he has a vast collection in perfect order so that he can really enjoy the music. Perhaps he may never find time to listen to all this, but it’s beautifully organized.

Even the light bulb is scary, down on the floor, as if there is no other more proper light source in the room. But, believe me or not, I see beauty in this post-disaster quietness… You know I can relate it to your early experiments such as “Body Samples”, with masses of unorganised noise leaving space to lightful ambient moments? What do you think?

This space of mine really is not meant to be seen by anyone. It looks like the space of some fucked up hoarder. The white trash naked light completes the picture! I avoid going into this small room at all cost. But your “Body Samples” metaphor is poetic… and gives me way too much credit. I am just a fuck up, pure and simple.

Paul Lemos is the leader and founder member of Controlled Bleeding and related projects (Skin Chamber, Joined at the Head…). He’s located in New York and plays music since the late seventies. His last release is “Carving Songs”, a remix album with contributions from many artists like Godflesh, Merzbow, Rothko, Monolake and many more, is out on Artoffact Records.

controlledbleeding.bandcamp.com

Photo: Annette Arsenal