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There is, on one of the walls​.​.​.

from HdB - album (2020) by HöFLICH

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From the writings of Honoré de Balzac

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“There is, on one of the walls, a sundial decorated with this bourgeois and Christian inscription: ULTIMAM COGITA! The roof of the house is horribly dilapidated, the shutters are always closed, the balconies are covered with swallows’ nests, the doors are continually shut. Tall grasses have outlined in green the cracks in the doorsteps, and the ironwork is rusty. The moon, the sun, the winter, the summer, the snow have hollowed the woodwork, warped the timbers and eaten away the paint. The dismal silence which reigns there is disturbed only by birds, cats, weasels, rats and mice, free to trot to and fro, to fight and to eat each other. Everywhere an invisible hand has written the word Mystery. If, moved by curiosity, you were to go and look at the street side of the house, you would perceive a large door, rounded at the top, in which children of the district have made numerous holes. I learned later that this door had been boarded up for ten years. Through these irregular gaps you would be able to see the perfect harmony that exists between the frontage on the garden side and that on the courtyard side. The same disorder reigns there. Clumps of grass surround the paving stones. Enormous cracks furrow the walls, whose blackened tops are festooned by a thousand garlands of pellitory. The front steps are loose, the bell rope is rotted, the gutters are broken. What fire from heaven has fallen this way? What court of law has given the order to scatter salt on this dwelling? Has God been insulted here? Has France been betrayed here? These are the questions you ask yourself. The snakes crawl about without giving you a reply. The empty deserted house is an immense riddle to which no one knows the answer. It used to be a little fief and bears the name of La Grande Bretèche. During my stay in Vendôme, where Desplein had left me to look after a rich patient, the sight of this strange dwelling became one of my keenest pleasures. Was it not better than a ruin? Undeniably authentic memories are attached to a ruin, but this house, which was still standing, though gradually being demolished by an avenging hand, contained a secret, an unknown thought; it suggested at least a whim.”

credits

from HdB - album (2020), released January 8, 2020
Narration & concept by Peter Hoflich
Soundscapes & mixes produced by Cronkite Satellite

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HöFLICH Singapore

Peter Hoflich is a musician living in Singapore. He has sung in the rock bands MegalomaniA, the Hideous Motör-Apes, Reckless Hearts, Von Doom and The Sinisters, as well as the folk unit the Es with Athena Desai and Jae Lee. He also performs his own acoustic songs from time to time, and is trying a few experimental things in the home studio. ... more

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