ABSTRACT-CONTACT

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