Diaphane

Diaphane, an EP release premieres on 5.31.04 at 17:00.

Bold-font text flickers to life, its vibrant color schematics a shock of neon green and pink against a sea of black: DIA<*>PHANE. Part One: DIAPHANE.

It fades away into the ether, heralding in a short cinematic sequence of what appears to be a backstage framed in diaphanous golden silks.

The shadowed silhouette of a woman garbed in dramatic ultramodern apparel takes center shot, her back to the camera as she slowly saunters forward. Every click of her heels ring out in the quiet. Sharp. Poignant.

A turn of angles reveals the enchanting profile of Alivia, her makeup understated to highlight the full of her supple mouth and Asiatic features as she peers through the gauzy curtains straight into the camera.

She stops just shy of the curtains and the massive feathered coat around her shoulders pools to the floor around her feet, then slowly glides beyond them and out onto a glass-topped stage dominated by a single slender pole.

A backwards drift of the shot reveals sleek and dangerous curves poured within an artfully placed bralette and high-arching panties that barely contain her ass. She stands there, arms slowly lifting as though to present herself to the world; to their expectations, and delight.

Applause rings out, achingly hollow even in its raucous cheers. A crowd is never seen, only heard; the theater is vacant, empty. Camera lights flicker in and out while the superstar dutifully makes her way forward with delicate, methodical steps toward the pole.

Briefly, the metallic clank of dangerously high stilettos melds into the foreground over the faint din of applause as a short clip of her elegant feet flickers over the screen.

It flashes back in a close-up of her profile, highlighting over the quiet determination within her expression despite the dull vacancy of her eyes. Her arm stretches high to caress the gleaming pole, twirling in to bring her back aligned against it.

She dips down, ginger curls shimmering in the sole spotlight bathing her in a soft golden glow as she arches and rolls her hips to the eerie silence of the auditorium. Every step echoes out, a metallic click of stilettos on glass flooring. No music. No applause, yet she dances on.

One twirl around the pole marks her descent upon the floor, waves of champagne blonde spilling over the floor and lithely-muscled arms as she glides across it. Her back arches, rear raising seductively in the air, tossing her hair back with a roll of the head.

"... Every person, and being, in every direction..." Alivia's lyrics bleed through on the crackling tine of an antiquated record player that dominates a single shot, a black vinyl slowly spinning beneath a blood-soaked needle. "Those hurting, and fleeing, forms of oppression...."

The music fades in at long last as though it had always been, and the world simply hadn't found the celestial frequency to witness the flashing pulse of EDM that wanes and ebbs over spliced dub-step reverb to create a haunting, sonorous melody.

Alivia's performance progresses to a montage of her spinning upon the pole, building upon her own momentum with graceful kicks of her legs until she's briefly airborne and flipped upside down.

"... Cause now it seems, it's all a reflection. Of you, of Me, of the whole collective..." Her song never overshadows the music, that sugary sweet songbird's trill like a gentle caress to the ears behind a symphony of synthesized beats. "Getting introspective, in the depths of excess..."

 "... Time is precious, and we living reckless. Get the message, read the books... Venture to the edge, and take a look..." Desperation and passion bleeds in, an urgency creeping higher and higher with every twirl around the pole. "Vegetable television, new perspectives... Sacred medicine, soul redemption..."

Every rise upon the pole stalls out into a new spiraling tumble down, her expression dancing between two extremes of manic bliss and frightful realization of her struggle.

Svelte curves are tucked in around the pole as though she curls in, cowering from the world or the mind's eye turned introspective. And like a flower, she upends herself and blossoms open with a leg hooked behind the pole as she comes to hover above the glass floor.

"Irrelevant rhetoric, gets rejected," Her voice is reduced to an ephemeral whisper on the brassy, distorted melodies. The beat stalls out, stuttering into a descent of shocking reverb and soul-searing bass. "Give me truth, give me light, that's my connection..."

It's in this moment that while the shots cycle down to follow her graceful descent, her wordplay gives birth to stunning visuals of a world refracted within the glass floor beneath her. As she transitions from one graceful aerial pose to another, so does a copy of herself in beautiful synchrony beneath the kiss of heaven's light filtering in from celestial, golden clouds swirling in the distance.

Twisting upside down upon its axis, the camera descends beyond the glass to zoom in on the seraphic divinity. The pole ascends toward the heavens, its rigid shaft becoming a gentle amalgamation of curling wisps that enshrouds a winged creature with azure blue feathers.

"I am so alive, and so awake... I never thought, it could be this way," she serenades. "Even in the dark, up against the hate. We are the spark, so let's celebrate..."

So close to heaven, yet unaware, the beauty displays her delicious flexibility with a stretch of a near coltish, shapely leg forward as she clasps against her ankle at mid-spin.

With a beat of its great beryl blue wings, the creature takes flight. Beyond its wing span, it remains obscured against the blinding glow of the heavens. It's only then, as Alivia attempts to climb that she's suddenly brought to a frightened halt. Wondrous rapture replaces that fear. Curiosity harkens her to propel herself forward, ascending at last into the celestial heavens.

"Mental places, boundless, ageless," the unmistakable ascent of avant-garde eccentricities inflects itself in the music. "Meditation, surf the vibrations. No mistaking, life's what you make it..."

The creature reveals itself to Alivia at the apex of her climb; a Simgarl, or winged dog, is nothing but an amalgamation of golden-plated machinery and parts touched with azure accents along its great metal wings.

It leans in close, revealing a trio of metal face plates that break away to reveal a humanoid android head beneath peering curiously at the flesh-bag invader.

Frightened, the dancer stretches out a leg to impale it upon the perilous heel of her stiletto heels. She pushes it away, only for its face to disintegrate beneath the force until its animations are suspended in death.

"A mystic mystery, future history," her breathy vocals return quietly over down-tempo arrangements at home within loops of alt-R&B amid a EDM-dominated world. "Busy listening, to the symphonies. Straight from nature, into the matrix. At the least the light, had the strength to break it."

Realization dawns upon her. She leans forward, pulling her leg away only to be forced from the pole into a free fall - cast from heaven for her sins. Faster and faster she falls, catching diaphanous sheets around her body as though breaking through the clouds. The shroud of innocence that encapsulated her shatters in a brilliant haze of glass shards, the scene turning dismal and dark with the turn of music.

Black-light shines down upon her, the background vanta-black as she gracefully twists and turns, her slender arms grasping through nothingness for something - anything - to break her fall.

Her plummet reaches break neck speeds, flipping and pivoting in an endless spiral as she screams and wails in silent denial. Mourning the loss of such divine grace.

"Under rat races, The Truth is hidden," the melodies depart from the soft and gentle flows that accompanied the heavenly visuals. It hearkens the need for extensive self-reflection in a decadent excess of sotto voce spoken word. "In a mental stasis, we're in a prison. The decision yours, to open the doors..."

Lightning lances through the montage of the dizzying scenes, briefly highlighting a pole so intimately familiar to her performance. She gravitates toward it, her world gaining semblance of shape in the way she orchestrates herself to spiral down in a complicated series of poses.

Her descent comes to an end at long last. She's ejected from a tunnel into a cavernous hellscape of chaotically turning walls. The camera follows after her until she lands within a pit of rich earthen red mud with a satisfying splatter. Winded, defeated, she lays there in an elegant display of graceful limbs and beauty, but broken.

"Free your mind, in time for the war. Fought inside, against their design," Alivia's voice evokes a chilling finality that accompanies the arrival of distinctive melisma from her Caribbean roots, dwelling on empty space that expands into an outro of slick, edible beats. "Our lives are on the line, now that we know what we're here for."

In the final moments, spindly creatures are seen encroaching in the blurry distance from all angles. Unnaturally long limbs, unsettlingly smooth faces with features not -quite- human, they drag themselves through the mud to reach her.

Lovingly, they saturate her in their filth. Degrade her. Break her down, feasting upon her until there is nothing left but an empty hull; a star who's lost her shine by her own volition - now, simply, one of them.

The music video fades out into a brief commercial break.

[A chilling symphony of synthesized strings accompanies the cinematic montage of a young man fighting off a crazed ginger in a cube of an apartment. He scrambles across the floor, grabbing a nine wood golf club and brandishing it menacingly. "I JUST WANTED TO GET MY DICK WET!" he roars, bringing it thundering down against his assailant. The scene flashes to a title sequence.] DEMON IN THE SHEETS. OUT 6.08.04. NLM CINEPLEX.

The programming transitions into part two. Familiar bold-face font fades in. AMETHYST - JUJU X JUICY VEE - DIA<*>PHANE.

In a departure from the hyper stylized visuals of the previous music video, the scene opens up in a dimly-lit music studio with a live band fully equipped with state-of-the-art instruments in the backdrop. Two stools sit center-shot, occupied by Alivia and Juicy Vee respectively.

A young man armed with an acoustic guitar picks out the opening notes to the song, weaving together a sense of ritualistic quiet; an intimacy without being heavy-handed intermingled with percussive taps of his palm against the body of his guitar.

Juicy Vee bobs his head, catching the vibe easily while Alivia closes her eyes and sways to the rhythm. Their voices are easily caught by the microphones floating around them, harmonizing in sync.

"There is no equation, for how we act," Juicy's Mix-accented tenor is a smooth and seductive introduction to the song. "Are we tied, with puppet strings to our past?"

"Do we ride, on beams of light so fast... That any movements might upset and crash," he paces himself with masterful articulation and flexing of his vocal chords. "The spaceships we pilot, in the night's quiet... Machines made of light, otherworldly delights. Sleep sets the scene, so tuck me in tight."

"There's one thing, I'd like... it's to run away with you." Meditative piano arrangements and ambient mood-setting make for an effective and lightweight backdrop, building up on the intimacy between the lyrical heavy-hitters as Alivia's silken Caribbean dulcet melds in sweetly with his in the chorus. "Escape the craze of this life, that's tinted blue..."

"I fell into your love by accident," Back-up singers are briefly highlighted upon in a soft-focus shot as their voices provide layered depth and harmony, chasing after Alivia and Juicy V's lyrics in gentle echo. "I was only passing through, on a wave of chemical sacraments... Open up your heart. Nothing to fear. We'll never be apart."

As the chorus fades, the band draws back into an intentional sparse spare, percussive base; a piano is close-mic'd alongside the slightest brushes of synths and strings, continuing the intimacy of the moment without heavy-handedness to detract away from the sugar sweet serenade of Alivia.

"You left me speechless, removed from my static self. Realigned the mental atoms, when I needed help," Alivia showcases her startling level of agility and command as she inflects passion and adoration into every word that floats from her lips. "Out of my shell, can't describe how it felt... Like an age old ice shelf, sta-arting to me-eelt..."

"Now I'll wade through your purple ocean. Discover bliss in an amethyst kiss of pure devotion," The Chyenaire rapper is caught taking a toke from a custom-made pipe burning sticky loud ganja, giving his voice a rough-hewn, smoky edge that makes it all the more enticingly edible. "I'll do what I can, to make the feeling stay. I can't say, how long, or talk about duration..."

Again, there is a spotlight reserved for the background vocalists who provide that layered depth to their crooning. The live production sublime, unrushed and methodical in their delivery of instrumentals undercut with feverish desire at its core.

"I'm not complacent, I just want to see your face and," Alivia closes her eyes, taken away with the sparse beats and easy-listening melodies as her verse flows freely from softly glossed lips. "Be with you, and help your spirit grow. From the summer rains, to the sleet and snow."

The song rotates down into its final verse and it's Juicy who lays down smooth rap verses. "Every day's a blessing, a revelation. Every moment's a choice, between wakeness and sedation."

His flow is articulated with casual gestures of the hand, eyes lidding low as the effects of his ganja take root and leave him ad-libbing on the outro. "Everything's impermanent, it's all a vibration. Without hesitation, Baby you're my salvation."

All the while, as it all draws to a close, Alivia is nothing but sinfully sweet in her harmonizing behind his lyrics. "Stay upon my shore... I'll shelter yoo-oou from the... stoorrm..."

The camera pans back to encompass the crowd who've been hooked in, hanging off their seats to the performance. Within seconds, as the last note fades, they're on their feet and breaking into raucous applause.

The set slowly fades out, transitioning into the final part of the production. It opens up to the interior of a richly-appointed boudoir. Like previously, boldfaced font in neon hues labels the song to come: IMPORTED - DIA<>PHASE.