BANDCAMP

CUTTING THROUGH (THE FINAL RECORDINGS)

MARTIN HALL
DB-LP
FEBRUARY 1986
SAM (SAM25)

The original double album Cutting Through – The Final Recordings released in February 1986 features one record with grandiose, high-tech electropop while the other contains a Tibetan flavoured hybrid of ambient music.

The title was also released in Germany at the time, available as a only one record in this territory.

1. Showdown (7:50)2. Crush (5:14)3. Cut Off (6:03)4. Deep Inside Me (10:42)5. Synthesis (8:28) 6. Further (20:54)7. Over (22:01)

SHOWDOWN

As everything changes me
Exploding in start on start
It shines on so hard through you
A crystal of flesh and blood

And caught in the blue of night
In the meshes of your love
A freedom turned upside down
To this point of no return

In your face
In your eyes
In the savagery of how we love
How we die
A fever is burning
Releasing my spirit

In these European schemes
Imprisoned in mind of stone
A system so centralized
Conceptual humanity

The “Arbeit Macht Frei” parole
In rock’n’roll terms like these
You know what it’s all about
But that doesn’t change the need

Through obsession and love
Through the days and the years
And still burning inside
There’s no turning back now
The circle is broken

Feel the showdown

CRUSH

As you fill me again
I have no further questions
Condemned to be free
As I reach out for you again

Nothing is new
But something has grown
Bigger than both of us
Stronger than memory
And much stronger than defeat

I’m gonna crush the worlds we used to know
A seed is sown
I’m gonna let it grow
I’m quite aware what I’ll be going through
There’s no way back
It all depends on you

My destiny
I’ve seen it in your eyes
A love so deep
A stream that purifies
And in your arms
The nature of all death
Is nothing but a touch of timelessness

I’m gonna crush you with my love
I’m gonna be crushed up in love

CUT OFF

Living the change as night closes in
Freezing my moves in each flicker of light
We’re lying so close
Your breath burns my skin
Still feeling alone though you’re right by my side

Nothing lost
Nothing gained
So it seems
Still we’re much closer than ever
Like a child in the night
In its dreams
In its return to forever

A dream came true
A nightmare too
And we’re just two out of millions
I hold you tight
As if the night was an angel of death come to take you away

And it feels so unreal
Like there’s magic in the air
And your face in the haze
It’s reflected everywhere
And it burns as it turns
Like a sun that blinds my eyes
Sharpening everything
Through your whispers
Through your cries

We’ve seen it all
The heavens and hells
Questioned each move in the name of the game
Played every role escaping ourselves
Ending concluding we all feel the same

As we were
As we are
We will be
Emotional “Führer der Menschheit”
Time is set
The twentieth century
And everyone knows what it feels like

It seems to be point 93
So feverish a reflection
The children of rejected love
All alone in the night
Fighting shadows of need

In the wind
Dust rising
Forming figures in the air
Night and day blown away
By a memory so bare
Bridges burned
Lives have turned
Slowly growing inside out
Mirrored in origin
In the limits of all doubt

The eyes of a child
A pulse running wild
Releasing this vacuum
A balance so tense
In thought and in sense
Can’t make it alone this time
In this mystery
Of every degree
From here to eternity
So tender and raw
The flame of the core
The hardest surrendering

DEEP INSIDE ME

Like re-running each way
Every aspect of love
Every night and day placed so precisely
Every sacrifice that freed us from our patterns
Guiding us face-to-face to this consequence so essential

And the tender pain that comes with freedom
Connects me to the presence we share
Love’s like a shadowplay
Imagined through survival
We’re here all by ourselves
But nevermore lonely

Nevermore lonely

Watching the lines being carefully drawn now
I couldn’t make it if I were without you
Knowing the ages of every tomorrow
In every turn ever made just a notion

Child on child
Sustain my love
The final triumph
The thirst deep inside and the surface
From crowd to crowd
In these streams of emotions
Watching it all gather to action

And every time we connect with the basis
In the holy name of the transfer
I let you grow deep inside me
With the dignity of my life

I let you grow deep inside me

SYNTHESIS

To my love
Wherever you may be
I’m with you
United in spirit
My life lies in your hands

All power ever been
All power yet to come
Is here now
This instant
Around us
Inside us

Flemming Nygaard: Cello
Janine Neble: Backing vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, drums, keyboards, bass
Søren Frank: Saxophone
Søren Jacobsen: Guitar

Design: Martin Hall
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg

With the release of the original version in 1986 Martin Hall publicly declared his plans to end his musical career. Already appointed “the musical prodigy of the age” by the press, his decision was surrounded with great media coverage – after all, he was only 22 years old at the time. According to several interviews he couldn’t recognize himself in the figure created by press and fans any longer and therefore released the double album under the artist name “The Martin Hall Concept”.

Although Hall in time did return to the music scene, the Cutting Through album and the two following concerts in Stakladen (Aarhus) and Saga (Copenhagen) nevertheless marked a clear dividing line between his early and later career. After the final concert at Saga he withdrew from public life for a couple of years – from 1986 to 1988 – a period he dedicated to a metaphysical quest.

In September 1988 Martin Hall made a massive comeback with the highly successful album Presence. In this respect Cutting Through was re-released as a single cd/lp on Virgin Records in September 1989.

In 2009 the album was a made available in a remastered cd-version (combined with the Relief album from 1985).