BANDCAMP

TESTCARDS 1994–1997

MARTIN HALL
DB-CD
OCTOBER 1999
TEST (TEST2)

Testcards 1994–1997 is a double-cd including 26 demos and live recordings with Martin Hall made in the given period. It was released in a limited edition of 500 individually numbered copies.

Disc 2 contains the complete Ceremony of Purification performancea highly praised midnight concert with him at Hellig Kors Kirken in December 1994.

1. Touch and Go (4:46)2. Wherever She Is (5:26)3. Tangerine Girl (4:41)4. Palladium (3:53)5. Tears in the Rain (4:16)6. 80 90 Nothing at All (4:36)7. Second View (3:58)8. Lyceum Girl (4:41)9. Animal Heart (5:20)10. Alas, Again, Encore (3:58)11. Salt of Your Skin (4:16)12. The Other Side of Her Face (7:42)13. Untitled (4:01)14. Single Melody (4:51)15. Premonition (Just a Feeling) (4:21)16. Burning Sugar (4:06)17. Nocturnal Mood (1:03) 18. Leathern (5:23)19. An Attempt of Interruption (6:15)20. Another Chapter (8:40)21. Worlds Apart (6:56)22. Imagine Focus (6:46)23. Winter Sun (6:04)24. Synthesis (9:56)25. Paraphrase (16:51)26. Titles (8:32)

TOUCH AND GO

Fading seasons under the sky
Summers turning gold again
See the air bleed
It’s sweeter than anything
Like the sweat within the rain

You hold on
You don’t want
To believe in any feeling
It’s all you know
It’s touch and go

The night turns
Your skin burns
But it’s just another feeling
It’s all you know
It’s touch and go

Spreading in you
The thinnest of air
All this time you never knew
There’s a thin line
Broken a thousand times
And it’s breaking once again

You hold on
You don’t want
To believe in any feeling
It’s all you know
It’s touch and go

The night turns
Your skin burns
But it’s just another feeling
It’s all you know
It’s touch and go

If only I could
You know that I would
That I’d heal the wounds inside
But all of this time
It seems you’ve made up your mind
Such a long, long time ago

WHEREVER SHE IS

Sand paintings of me and her
When the symmetry’s breaking
It’s closing the doors
To the emerald sky and the emerald sea
Still spinning round on the medicine wheel

Michelangelo’s gold
It shines in her eyes
I guess it’s time for the saddest goodbye
Just a handful of dust that’s spread in the air
Now she’s everywhere

Wherever she is
Wherever she’s hiding
I want her to cool this feeling
I want her inside of me

Feeling somewhere in between
Taking walks on the floorboards
They’re rice paper thin
Running down avenues on Titanic feet
The mirrors turn
Never know who’ll you be

Singing songs to the moon
To the carpet of stars
They’re shining down and they’re shining quite hard
They’re the comfort of strangers you get on the streets
And it feels so sweet

MY TANGERINE GIRL

My tangerine girl
She’s the star in the films of my mind
She’s turning my world
Like the sun and the zodiac signs
The blue of her eyes
Makes me feel like I’m drowning
Her Mephisto smile
So exquisitely blinding

The sweetest of wine
Can’t compare to the taste of her lips
Her poetic sighs
And the stardust of her fingertips
On midsummer nights
When she imitates heaven
The moon in the sky
Looking down, feeling jealous

My tangerine girl
I’ve been writing her name in the air
She’s all of my world
She’s the face that I see everywhere
She hangs from the sky
And she fills my horizon
The look in her eyes
God it’s so tantalizing

The things that she says
She means everything to me
She makes me forget
Undesirable feelings

My tangerine girl
She’s a child of the wildest of winds
The face of the world
She’s a story without any end
The blue of her eyes
Makes me feel like I’m drowning
Her Mephisto smile
So exquisitely blinding

PALLADIUM

Never thought I’d ever be myself
Thought I was within my prison cell
‘Cause the windows gave the view
That all to know was what I knew

In this Palladium
In this Palladium
And I know you’ve seen it all
In mirror-mirrors on the walls

Sharing weaknesses with so-called friends
In a game that’s called “it never ends”
Had to leave it all behind
And face the sentence of my mind

TEARS IN THE RAIN

Like tears in the rain
They’re fading away
No eye shall absorb the tear it cries
Each tear is a stream that purifies

Fade away
If just for a while
While these days melt into mind
Never thought it’d come to this
Heart and soul
Never thought it’d come to this

Like tears in the rain
They’re fading away
No eye shall absorb the tear it cries
Each tear is a stream that purifies

Tearing the pages out of any book of reason
Tearing the pages out of any book of days
Never believed that I would ever see the reasons
But all of this time
I must have been have blind

80 90 NOTHING AT ALL

80 90 nothing at all
Watching you come and go
Such a cinematic feeling
Signing off and kissing goodbye
Leaving it all to you
All for you girl

I’ve been watching your face
I’ve been watching the way you’re always hiding
Drawn in pale and in grey
You’re the face of the age
For a while

Like a kite on the sky
The shortest of nights burn for you
Tear the heavens apart
The moon and the stars shine for you

80 90 nothing at all
Watching you come and go
Such a cinematic feeling
Signing off and kissing goodbye
Leaving it all to you
Too good to die girl

80 90 nothing at all
Watching the days go by
All the time now
Hear the next millennium call
Leaving it all to you
Just for you

Easy come
Easy go
All they want you to know
They’ve waited just for you
Leave a trace in the rain
For those who came in your way

Walk on streets made of gold
Of heart and of soul
For a while
Fingers running through sand
The palm of your hand open wide

SECOND VIEW

Rain falling like the seasons
Falling down on me again
No melancholy feeling
Is gonna take these days away

All this time I thought I knew
What to say and what to do
Like a sea of ice that breaks
Try to keep it all away

Rain falling like the seasons
Falling down on me again
No melancholy feeling
Is gonna take these days away

I never wanted to
I never needed you
I’m gonna keep it in my mind

LYCEUM GIRL

She’s been hiding away any world of tomorrow
She’s been reading the writing that runs down the wall
She’s been living inside me
She’s been trying to find me
She’s been playing the same scene
Shedding light in my sleep

It’s the pale and the grey
Of the lyceum girl
Turn my night and the day
In this lyceum world

Interfering my nights like the sweetest distraction
Interfering the heart and the soul of it all
‘Cause she’s breathing inside me
Everywhere, she surrounds me
Like the sky and the blue sea
Falling all over me

It’s the pale and the grey
Of the lyceum girl
Turn the night and the day
In this lyceum world

A little sweeter
A lot a little sweeter
A little nearer
A lot a little nearer

ANIMAL HEART

You carry the world inside you
You carry the world within the air
With all of your heart shining through skin
You’re shedding your light like angels
You’re shedding your light as make-believe
With all of the sky torn apart where you’ve been

You’re all that I ever wanted
You’re all that I ever did believe
You’re all that I ever needed

Count a thousand stars in my animal heart
Throw them out in the open
See them turning around
See them all coming down
Feel them fall inside you
Light a thousand lights for a little while
Make it all I’ve wanted
Keep them under your skin
Keep the world in a string
Keep it all inside you

You carry the world inside you
You carry the world within the air
With all of your heart shining through skin
You’re shedding your light like angels
You’re shedding your light as make-believe
With all of the sky torn apart like a need

ALAS, AGAIN, ENCORE

I’ve been walking in the rain
I’ve been falling down again
Thought I heard you calling
Like a kite upon the sky
Going up and going down
Don’t you know how it feels when you’re losing the feeling?

And in the night the rain keeps on falling
And in the streets the silence keeps calling
Keep on calling

You’re in my blood
You’re in my mind
You’re everything I feel inside
The world inside me keeps on falling
It keeps falling

You’re in my blood
You’re in my mind
You’re everything that spins around
The world inside me keeps on falling
It keeps falling (inside me)

Kiss and tell and make-believe
Suddenly it’s river deep
It’s the strangest feeling
Crossing fingers in the dark
Hope it’s only really started
Seems like everything’s hidden within the air I breathe

SALT OF YOUR SKIN

Lovers will come and lovers will go
Leaving a name that nobody knows
Spread like the stars at night
A handful of days
I’m closing my eyes and I’m watching your face

The blue of your eyes
The blue of the waters
You’re in my blood
And you’re in my mind
The salt of your skin’s
Been burning inside me
All this time

Memory lines all over the sky
Telling the tales of whispers and cries
Calling inside of me
The trace of the hurt
I’m sick and I’m tired and I’m losing the words

THE OTHER SIDE OF HER FACE

She whispers me
So tenderly
She stills the rage inside me
The summer sky
The crimson nights
She comes and goes inside me

Coming in like the tide
Running into my mind

Shedding light like angels
See her turn away within the night
Hide away her reasons
Hide them underneath the open sky

She’s all that I’ve wanted
She’s all that I’ve needed to believe

The cutout moon
A silent view
She holds her hand against it
The light that rains
Upon her face
It falls like lines upon her

Light is running like sand
Down the palm of her hand

Shedding light like angels
See her turn away within the night
Hide away her reasons
Hide away her face to close her eyes

The shadows keep falling
They’re running like water down her face

The shadows keep falling
They’re hiding away one side of her face

UNTITLED

I don’t know what I feel
I’ve been trying to find out
Been trying to see what you see
The same thing always shows
Maybe yes
Maybe no

I don’t know what to do
I’ve been running in circles
Been running around like a fool
I feel hot
I feel cold
Maybe yes
Maybe no

The world’s turning around
Falling down like a mirror
That’s breaking inside of my mind
It feels so long ago
Maybe yes
Maybe no

And it’s stranger than fiction
It’s way out of hand
It’s a feeling that’s out of control
Guess you know how the story will end
‘Cause it already shows

See it run like a river
And rise like the sky
See it falling down on me again
It’s a feeling inside getting on
Getting high
Getting low
Maybe yes
Maybe no

SINGLE MELODY

Logic at the end of its tether
Feeling slightly under the weather
All the time
In my mind
Helter-skelter losing my shelter
Just another secret agenda of its kind
Of my mind

I’m chasing the blue sky
I’m chasing the sky within your eyes

Take me to the forever fields of your mind
Take me to the forever needs you hide inside
Take me down the rivers wide and deep
The mountains high
The forever fields
The forever dreams

Floating like a leaf on the water
Turning over things that I’ve thought of all my life
For a while
Images keep falling like feathers
Hiding somewhere under the layers of my skin
Whispering

PREMONITION (JUST A FEELING)

Silver lining inside me
You’re adapting my every word
Such an eloquent silence
Feeling hurt?
Still you’re moving so lightly
Like you’re hanging within the air
Seems it’s your way of saying
Couldn’t care

It’s just a feeling
Another feeling on the sky
It’s just a feeling
Another feeling coming down
The silver lining
You’ll see it run into the air
For just a moment
Another line that disappears

Guess it’s all second chances
Getting used to the sights and sounds
With the greatest indifference
Running down
All aesthetic behaviour
Still I’m watching your every move
Sugarcoating the daylight
With a view

BURNING SUGAR

The memory lines that run down the sky
Running like streams of reason
The story is told in silver and gold
No words ever tell the tale

I believe in all that I see
In all that I know
In all that I feel inside me
I know that dreams will come true
If they’re burning

Burning sugar
Burns inside me
Burning sugar
Burning so sweet

The things that I’ve seen
The places I’ve been
A secret that stays unbroken
The sheltering sky
It’s high as a kite
Cooling my every need

LEATHERN

Edges of speaking
Outlived of hatred
Could I forgive at all?
Or could sigh be further
Than I reached always

Light died, -ly pregnant
Up, killed in your words
Sheet-minded loving was
Respect as given thought
Of hairy swine-like

Hours of nameless
Of this penetration
Could I still cry for sad?
Tell friend and leech apart
The fall of the fallen

Unnamed or misused
Lethal hate given
Word castles built in vain
Salute nugacity
Could I feel guilty?

The leathern tenderness
Did you cry lustful?
I can now nevermore
Give what I wanted to
To feel so leathern

Cry of the stone tears
Kiss of the unsaid
Without these arms to stretch
Like passion for unseen
I seek the guiltful

To feel so leathern
Emotionally leprous

AN ATTEMPT OF INTERRUPTION

The nurseling and the tendon
The naked responsibility
Unexisting possibilities

Like long gone friends
Infectious ideas
I kept your sins
Sincere to the end

And I concentrate on remembering your face
Your eyes
But the noise from the second day’s party wipes it out
Sentimental warfare

Days of life
Seconds of love
Hours of sin
This could be as heart-known
Lust-dead in deed
Vulgar to feed
Holding me down
You could be forgiven

‘Cause I’ll lie for you
I’ll die for you
I’ll do anything

‘Cause I’ll lie for you
I’ll die for you
I’ll do anything
To be forgiven

ANOTHER CHAPTER

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust
A fantasy world of omniscience
Heavens and ambitions in showrooms of the mind
In another chapter of forgotten time

Faces disappearing in memory and mind
But you, you know it all in your identity design
So twentieth century
Things are what they are, no matter what we feel
Endeavour is the key, not the mastermind ideal
And if you don’t agree
Well then you don’t agree

So come on little playtime Hitler
Forget your intellectual parades
There are no final solutions
Only final denials
No need for vain display
I’ve seen your religion and I’ve seen your holy water
But my spit is more sacred than all your inner borders
‘Cause it’s of flesh and blood

I’ve seen your religion and I’ve seen your inner borders
But my spit is more sacred than all your holy water
‘Cause it’s of flesh and blood

It’s my flesh and blood

WORLDS APART

Somebody told me that love never dies
It grows silent
But once every often
It takes on the form of indifference

Child of northern light
You’re lost at winter stations
You always cried for change
Now you keep the same locations
Year after year
In a world of cards you kept looking for a future
But all you ever found was your isolated nature
Reflected in dreams

The fire and the gold
All the stories that you told
Never seem to set you free
The innocence is gone
But the shadow hunt goes on
In a night without end
In a heart that pretends to believe

In worlds apart
In worlds divided
You breathe the air
I breathe the silence

The moon is turning gold
As the stars are shining silver
I can’t recall this room
But it feels like I have been here
So long ago
A season without end
It cuts the sky wide open
Another line of thoughts run into the distant ocean
Of sheltering blue

We used to never part
Guard the secrets of our hearts
Underneath a nightless dream
But stories always end
And they don’t begin again
When the eyes go to sleep
When the eyes go to worlds out of reach

In worlds apart
In worlds divided
I hold your hand within the silence

The darkness drowns the light
Spitting shadows in our faces
It’s making you forget
It’s erasing all the traces
Except in my heart
The night is turning red
As it’s running through your fingers
You’re bleeding heart and soul
As you give up
As you surrender
The last breath of life

Breathe the light

IMAGINE FOCUS

Just a touch of lost
Burning as always
As it was
As it is
And eventually
Just in trust
Nothing more
So suddenly
From beginning to end

While this centreless present reflects itself
In inverted moves of an obsessional stage
In a stream of light from unreachable marks
Something long ago in everlasting terms

In a cross-fade of untitled reasons
What it turned out to be
And occasionally
Everything in my hands
So totally
In the heat of the touch

Like the way we were
Beyond love under will
Suddenly away in these only words
By mistakes again into changing links
In this compromise of dependence then

Stage by stage in exposure
Still so timeless in this life release
Nearness hidden in casual moves
Watch the changes and recall

Touch through another focus
Mark perfection twice
With or without purpose
Still tons against tons
Carefully mistaken in retrospective fear
Restrain it all while I imagine focus

As I lie down
As I lie

WINTER SUN

It’s like a winter sun
Shining with a cold light
It’s like a moment that’s frozen in time
Shining with an afterglow

Like a deserted dream
I’m watching from a distance
I see a sky full of thunder above
A face within the sudden light

But then the face disappears
Hidden in the sea of the night
Until the sky catches fire again
I see your face within the light

It’s like a winter sun
Shining with a cold flame
It’s like a moment that’s frozen in time
Shining like the light of day

When the sea runs dry
When the stars burn out
When day turns the night
You’ll see the winter sun

See the winter sun
Feel the winter sun

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

Henrik Marstal: Cello
Iben Teilmann: Viola
Kasper Söderlund: Guitar
Martin Hall: Vocals, instruments
Signe Kjærsgaard: Bass
Torben Engberg: Keyboards

Design: Peter Graabæk

The background for the release is explained in an introductory statement by website editor Peter Engels Ryming:

”Disc A of this limited edition double-cd presents a series of private MH demo recordings made in 1996 and 1997. This period is characterized by an emphasis on shorter, more straightforward melodies than in the previous period (Testcards 1989-1995), and the material culminates with the Dog House demos of three Adapter tracks recorded in collaboration with Thomas Li. One of the curiosities included on this disc is Martin Hall’s first demo version (of several more to follow) of “Salt of Your Skin”, a track that later became a huge 1998 hit for Danish platinum act Hanne Boel in several European countries.

Disc B features the recordings from Hall’s already legendary midnight concert in Hellig Kors Kirken (a church in Copenhagen, Denmark) in December 1994. Ever since the event people have been making inquiries about the possibility of having this material released so it is with the greatest pleasure that we’re finally able to do so. As a bonus this disc ends with two pieces of environmental works, “Paraphrase” from 1995 and “Titles” from 1994.

The motives for releasing the Testcards series is to enable hardcore Martin Hall collectors to get hold of tracks and recordings otherwise lost (the majority of the included songs have never been re-recorded for any official release). The reason behind the limited edition package is a demand from Mind and Media and Hall himself who doesn’t want any of the double-cd’s to appear as grand-scale releases. Both titles should be considered as objects of affection, not as an introduction to Martin Hall as an artist.”