The Top Outgrowing the Bottom, by JayVe Montgomery

The Top Outgrowing the Bottom

by JayVe Montgomery

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Lars Gotrich Trees are celestial beings that happen to live on Earth. As a "metaphor for the socioeconomic condition," JayVe Montgomery stretches out woodwinds and percussion in whistling drones to explore how the roots have become corrupted. www.vikingschoice.org/archive/vikings-choice-to-bandcamp-friday-nov-2021/ Favorite track: The Top Has Too Much to Eat.

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	1.	The Bottom Feeds the Top 22:44
	2.	The Top Has Too Much to Eat 12:24
	3.	It Never Trickles Down 19:20

about

All proceeds for November 2021 went to Brave Space Alliance, the "first Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ+ Center located on the South Side of Chicago, dedicated to creating and providing affirming, culturally competent, for-us by-us resources, programming, and services for LGBTQ+ individuals." Visit bravespacealliance.org for more information.

credits

released November 1, 2021

Woodwinds, percussion, and electronics by JayVe Montgomery
Mastered by Ryan Weber
Image courtesy of Prof. Michael Reid, UC Davis

The Top Outgrowing the Bottom is a sonic exploration of the botanical condition of Epinasty (when the top outgrows the bottom) as the metaphor for the socioeconomic condition America and global capitalism have cultivated as a bed of existence for humanity.

Drone music for contemplating the continued apocalypse.

1. The Bottom Feeds the Top
-In epinasty, flooded roots create overgrown shoots. The stress on the bottom signals the top’s overgrowing and results in leaves that curl-in on themselves so that the surface area where photosynthesis could occur is severely lessened stifling the redistribution of nutrients for the development of the whole plant.

2. The Top Has Too Much to Eat
-As economist Manfred Max-Neef posits, growth can only happen for so long and then development must occur. “Development is about people and not about things.” As a nation whose first three words are “We The People”, we have a great responsibility to honor our development. We are indeed our own infrastructure. Must there come a time when all that is left to eat are the rich?

3. It Never Trickles Down
-Trickle-down economics only works in situations where incontinent bladders are concerned. The cost of having billionaires is grave(s).

Roots and shoots have long been used by oppressed peoples to speak about the hold a top-down system has on our human structure. This is simply an update and a reminder of the idea Bob Marley and the Wailers sing about in “Small Axe”.

If you are a big tree
We are a small axe
Ready to cut you down

Only now we know the top cannot be cut down like blades of grass but maybe if we feed the bottom well and not flood the roots, the top will know it’s fall, in the form of balance, and we can redistribute those mulched cuttings to nourish the next garden bed of human existence- utopia, is a choice.

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