P Machinery

For ~BeatleSongs. Done with UF 3.04

Central single from "A secret wish" by Propaganda, 1985. One of the most polished album i ever met with, one of the many pearls an highly experimental and thriving West Berlin produced in these years. The whole cover and sleeve concept of the LP is by itself a full artistic manifesto, brilliantly insterspersed with quotes by Barthes, Moretti and Benjamin. Unfortunately, Suzanne Freytag's untimely departure did not allow for an imo significant return, even if the group has been re-formed for another album in 89 or 90.

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P Machinery Lyrics
Power
False motion
Drive

Another hope feeds another dream
Another truth installed by the machine
A secret wish a marrying of lies
Two days make two what comes after lies

Protectingly use the best in need
In flagrant city lights
Machines call off for followers
Are all into the night

Because of the machine
Drowning in the stream

Another hope feeds another dream
Another truth installed by the machine
A secret wish a marrying of lies
Two days make two what comes after lies

Because of the machine
Drowning in the stream

On joyous lanes
We walk in line
And combat steady flow
Our strength is running low

Another hope
Another dream
Another truth
Installed by the machine
Installed by the machine"
(M.Mertens/S.Freytag/C.Brücken/r.Dorper)

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some quotes from the sleeve, illustrating the various songs of the album:
- Dream within a dream: "the most merciful thing in the world, i think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents"
- The murder of love: "...the idea of crime is able always to ignite the senses and lead us the lubricity"
- Duel/Jewel: "the imagination is like an engine that can work on many different fuels: but it must be powered, and sex, properly used, is a fuel of high potency"
- P machinery: "the dark religions are departed and sweet science reigns"
- Sorry for laughing: "...always two strangers uniting in the interests of torment"
- Dr Mabuse (first life): "the greater an individual's power over others, the greater the evil that might possibly originate with him"
- The Chase: "reliance on powers of reason does not come easily: it is opposed to our basic animal instinct"
- The last word: "the contemplation of the world independently of the principle of reason"

"The news item's role is probably that of preserving within contemporary society the ambiguity of the rational and the irrational, the comprehensible and the unfathomable; and this ambiguity is historically necessary as man still needs signs (which reassure him) but also signs which are uncertain in content (which make him irresponsible...)
This is a twilight condition of consciousness: neither high noon nor tender night. And precisely for this reason our relationships with mass culture is itself interminable. There can be no conclusion or certainty, where the very structure of communication has founded the reign of perplexity, of dissociation, of procrastination. 'The consumers relation with the real world, with politics, history and culture is not one of interest, investment or engaged responsibility -rather, it is one of curiosity... One must try everything: in fact man in consumer society is tormented by the fear of 'missing' something, any enjoyment whatsoever... It is no longer desire or even taste or specific inclination that is in play, it is a generalised curiosity motivated by a widespread anxiety'- the all pervasive anxiety of Riesman's radar-man, always ready to pick up on signals from the outside world and, especially, always uncertain as regards to their decipherment. This is no longer the anxiety described in 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle', which was motivated by the fear of trauma, that is by the conviction that the outside word is fundamentally hostile to the individual. It is no longer the state of mind of one who lives in the constant expectation of danger: it is the anxiety of always feeling on the verge of - but only on the verge of - finally grasping the object of desire, the meaning of life, the rules of the game."
Propaganda now: 'every day our cause becomes clearer and people get smarter'
1985