In Abstract-Contact (1988), the music veers into sharper territory, departing from the fluid contours of Annette’s more recent previous works. Here, the sound grows firmer, more angular—anchored by defined rhythms and deliberate structures. The lyrics, too, shift: they become taut, incisive, unapologetically political.
This political—always present and inseparable from the personal—now feels like a pointed gesture, a steady hand naming names, lifting veils without hesitation. In Elect Yourself, for example, the voice cuts through with clarity, baring the brutal logic of capital:
“The rich do not make profit
to empty their pockets
to the poor.
It doesn’t pay a free-market
to have a socio-eco
conscience unless
it is embarrassed
or penalized into it.”
Amid this sharpness, there are moments of luminous defiance. Happy With My Hand rises like a small anthem of self-fulfilment—radiant, humorous, and resolute in its joy. A celebration not of escape, but of presence.
Listen to the music here.
Photography by Patti Perret
Lost In Your Speed
It’s the quality of
the how in the love
not the what that we spend
or the why you intend
If the who that we are
is as much as we give
then the secret we share
is the more that we care
And I’m lost in your speed
out of control
And the way it all feels
far surpasses ideals
still remains unexplained
yet it can’t be restrained
If the promise we tie
is our life not a lie
where the future begins
when the fantasy wins
And I’m lost in your speed
out of control
And when you’re gone
has the amputation done me harm?
A sense of loss so strong
my whole body’s sending
something’s wrong.
Existing in some place
I persist in but I don’t belong.
When you’re gone
and I’m lost in your speed.
Through the changes and pain
more than warmth more than gain
is the best we can be
for each other to see
It’s a test it’s a trial
and a question of style
if the truth in the proof
is we’ve won and undone
And I’m lost in your speed
out of control
And when you’re gone
has the amputation done me harm?
***
Elect Yourself
About those who are not
poor without hope. And
the betrayal runs deep.
Youth
in its garment of
tight-fitting skin
discovers, decorates
and observes
it admires itself
deserves and
requires others
to admire itself
and romance
awakens dancing the
now of the night away
to the big-hard-sound
of its own independence.
And full they are
with themselves
and desire
and each other
and the future
and of the future they are
wanting everything
all at once
in fast forward.
In fast forward
their mommys
and daddys play
spend, waste, trade,
gamble
they be biting tomorrow
in broad daylight away
systematically selling out
every implicit, heritable
ecological right
as if they had the right.
On a guess
of yes or no
life and death
wait in the balance.
Making concessions
of rectification
on a diminished scale
in order to sustain
the better way of living.
You gonna fool
yourself cause you think it's cool
You gonna dig
yourself cause you think it's hip
You gonna ride
yourself cause you think it's swift
You gonna hurt
yourself cause you think it's hard
Elect yourself
select
Collect yourself
connect
Protect yourself
And brand new brains
distain
but remain
behind designed
realities
parade their convoluted
emotions, presumptions
and trad-attitudes
along the capitalistic
avenue of affluence
among the negated
neighborhoods of their
biological brothers
and sisters.
The what or why
you do or do not have
can or cannot buy
is your identity
the fundamental
social relevance.
If each anxiety
reacts to its own
subjective reality
still some must be
willing to take less
in order that others
may also have those
certain inalienable
rights.
An ordinary, mandatory
involvement with money
vetoes the natural
civil possibilities.
Each generation grows up
and turns their remarkable
marketable youth into
sold out sold to older
at a younger age.
Innocence and enthusiasm
are prime targets
and commodities.
A complacent
deliberated-desperateness
insidious
like an endemic disease
spreads among
representatives, advocates
of the language of image
who communicate
the gospel of image
in a visual protest era
with an exponential need
to have not forgotten
how to feel real
about being angry.
You gonna fool
yourself cause you think it's cool
You gonna dig
yourself cause you think it's hip
You gonna ride
yourself cause you think it's swift
You gonna hurt
yourself cause you think it's hard
Elect yourself
select
Collect yourself
connect
Protect yourself
Grass grows
singing green between
the cracks of the dead
paved-grey city.
A trees urge to live
takes root on the small ledge
between the stories
of a crumbling building.
On the streets
the body, the rap, the beat
celebrate perpetual life
and a new language
arises again out of
de-o-repression
dangerous
and glorious.
It speaks of freedom
anonymously
on the canvas of the city.
The personal revolution
defines its fight
its expression
its weapon
and guns shoot colours.
Like a sacred scripture
a cry from the heart
trains scream
"It's not an obscenity
to be free.
It is a divine right."
And walls shout eloquently
"What fools we are
to fall so far
from the truth."
You gonna fool
yourself cause you think it's cool
You gonna dig
yourself cause you think it's hip
You gonna ride
yourself cause you think it's swift
You gonna hurt
yourself cause you think it's hard
Elect yourself
select
Collect yourself
connect
Protect yourself
Hope
is the expectation
or positive personal control
overs the factors
that govern our lives.
The compulsion
when self-destruction
or truculent
visiogenic revolution
as therapeutic outrage
is the only possible
effective option.
And tho it is real time
and true, true
that we are intrinsically
intimately
alone inside our
own insistent skins
within a selective
hypocritical, unscrupulous
negligent
rotten to the core system
that perpetuates
the acceptable lie
even tho everyone
knows the truth
(because a society
benefits from it)
the moment you
relinquish responsibility
you truly
become a victim.
And the sentiment
you'll feel for everything
that could have been
if it would have been
will be the last
indication of
hope.
You gonna fool
yourself cause you think it's cool
You gonna dig
yourself cause you think it's hip
You gonna ride
yourself cause you think it's swift
You gonna hurt
yourself cause you think it's hard
Elect yourself
select
Collect yourself
connect
Protect yourself
Most people
surrender their responsibility
to government, management
Christ, family, reality.
Settle, succumb
to cry over their
battlefields in the
sweet-comfortable-sourness
of acceptable dissolutionment.
Move
at the speed of
social approval
when nothing changes
but appropriate appearance
altering to what's amusing
for those who can afford it.
The rest remaining
the dispensating same.
The dilettantis skill
is agility, flexibility
and that it's important
to be seen
to be frivolously bored
first.
The martyrs go on bearing
the pain of tearing
the lies from their eyes
glaring at the
intolerable truth, because
besides lobotomy
there is no other
possible way to continue.
You gonna fool
yourself cause you think it's cool
You gonna dig
yourself cause you think it's hip
You gonna ride
yourself cause you think it's swift
You gonna hurt
yourself cause you think it's hard
Elect yourself
select
Collect yourself
connect
Protect yourself
The more science the more
sentiment to compensate
for the sense of loss
of a healthy, hopeful
humanity.
Church
is like a giant
slot machine
3 in 1
you get salvation.
But the cross
maintains its popularity
because it is a familiar
and instantly understood
image
of many uses
a traditional excuse.
And history
repeats its history
as the quality of life
of one individual
or people
is still sacrificed
for the sake of another
and it's unchristlike
but very christian.
An ideal is an ideal
as long as it remains
a fantasy.
And the tragedy is
the original purpose
and intention has proved
to be impracticable,
nonapplicable.
The rich do not make profit
to empty theirs pockets
to the poor.
It doesn't pay a free-market
to have a socio-eco
conscience unless
it is embarrassed
or penalized into it.
There is no
social, cultural supremacy
solamente
economic, technological advantage.
And technological advantage
and natural resource
es grande business.
And big business is the
insurrectional magnitude.
(De la guerra a la salvacion)
From war to salvation
profitability is the
essential entertainment.
Economic power
is political objective,
ecumenical motivation.
Christianity and capitalism
(el padre y la madre de)
the father and mother of
corruption.
Christianity, the capitalistic
trade-off.
You gonna fool
yourself cause you think it's cool
You gonna dig
yourself cause you think it's hip
You gonna ride
yourself cause you think it's swift
You gonna hurt
yourself cause you think it's hard
Elect yourself
select
Collect yourself
connect
Protect yourself
There is no
benevolence in politics
only management
of power and profit.
There is no
freedom in society
there is only tradition.
There is no
privilege or poetry
in human relationship
only conditioning
and coincidence
(the human mind is a victim
of habit).
Religions rules by
acquiescence to the
fictitious possibility.
Sex is a biological trance
It's about
how hard you work on yourself
to overcome adversity
while the choices you make
are who you are
if you are to continue.
Once upon a time
there were people.
You gonna fool
yourself cause you think it's cool
You gonna dig
yourself cause you think it's hip
You gonna ride
yourself cause you think it's swift
You gonna hurt
yourself cause you think it's hard
Elect yourself
select
Collect yourself
connect
Protect yourself
***
Memory Is:
Remembering, remembering,
remembering
remembering — everything.
Memory is, memory is, memory is
memory is tape loops cluttering
the mind.
I can’t erase the (matter
can’t goodbye sequence)
I don’t have them, they have me
starting by replacing now.
But, but, but, but
the memory won’t efface.
But, but, but, but
the memory won’t efface.
***
Living Is A
Living is a
series of habits
that try to continue.
Surviving's a process
of changing
what doesn't work.
Stop
re-start
and change the chart.
***
We Are Adnate
We are adnate
with this planet.
No alteration or substitute
for purpose of convenience
entertainment, progress
profit can alter this fact.
This is the primo reality!
What we subtract from
and add to our world
is not abstract,
it’s personal
and directly effects
the quality and survival
of all life.
Our priority is
to re-examine the motive
of modern tradition
the consequence
of contemporary decision
the short and long-term price
of any new commodity
and possibility.
And this time we do not have
an infinite future!
We cannot afford to be patient
to accomodate the lie any longer.
We cannot afford to continue
to relinquish the responsibility
each day the lie is longer.
The real enemy is:
human nature and time.
And the time’s
keeping time on you
with an imperative view
of the inevitable.
We are adnate
with this planet
with each another, or
obsolete, redundant!
***
Disparate X's
We share the same difficulties
but we cope in disparate ways.
You blame them on someone else
or something outside yourself
(understandable tho apparently
inefficient).
I observe, react, collect
information, adjust
alternating behaviors
(compulsive about
personal improvement).
We speak the same language.
You react to your emotion.
You use the same words.
They’re not relative to action.
How can the exchange be pleasurable
each with their own motive?
How can the experience be comfortable
each with their own objective?
How is it possible
and why is it popular
to isolate the sexuality
from a personal humanity
and then intend sincerity
with the body?
The coming from
imagery in uncontrolled consciousness
that lets the tension in the muscle go
and sets the alpha flow
in motion
is the quickest way to god I know
but it’s not love
only one type of opportunity
to love
in these disparate x’s.
The complicity for each others
need to survive
is active loving
in the contemporary tense.
Superficial ritual
artiface as reassurance
sacrifice or guarantee
are not necessary
(to include oneself beside the other)
in these disparate x’s.
***
If Time Weren't
Dreams come and go with
with the tides of your soul
and time has the speeds
of your dreams
Time is not
an absolute in dreams
Slaves
in the sense that
our master is time
who orders the pace
to the rhyme
If time weren’t solid
we could all be free
***
Happy With My Hand
I can feel for any reason
need at any time
No sentimental niceties
and it doesn’t cost a dime
Have it when I want it
and every time’s the best
It’s convenient
when I need release
and guaranteed success
Pain killer
There is nothing to be won
nothing I can lose
I can live alone and love myself
and never get the blues
Not obligated by dependency
to demonstrate my gratitude
It’s a remedy
a safe investment in my attitude
of being good to me,
being good to me
They make no demands, my own hands
My own hands, make no demands
It’s just a simple reaction
an easy satisfaction
No ultimate thrill, but still
relief without grief
of betrayal
I can say I need you
but it isn’t true
I can say I love you
but it’s only an invention
to perpetuate convention
I could say you’re important
but it’s only relative
Pain killer cools out
the immediacy of priority
Get no stress from my own caress
Get no stress from my own caress
I get no stress from my own caress
It’s not an ideal world
and I didn’t make it
If the risk is there
I ain’t gonna take it
I’ll take control
The redundancy
of sexual dependency
And if there’s no penetration
you got to use imagination
I’m happy with my hand
I’m happy with my hand
I’m happy with my hand
***
Down In Blue
Rainy evening
stains the avenue
Rains upon me
all dressed down in blue
People hurry
home to be alone
Homeless children worry
on their own
Love is gone’s
the headline in the news
Gone away
like someone born to lose
Baby’s born
to bury in the sand
Murdered by
the money making hand
Love is gone’s
The headline in the news
Nothing lasts forever
but the blues
Rainy evening
stains the avenue
Rains upon me
all dressed down in blue
