Mesquite Treason embodies Avant-Americana. It is a performance bordering on witchcraft, utilizing theatre multimedia and a
collection of bizarre prepared instruments and life sized electronic controllers, Blanton Ross is a scientist conjuring
western lore, cowboys and indians, boomtowns and empty prairie, woven into a blanket of alien noise interference and sonic
manipulations of acoustic instruments.
Mesquite Treason is tribal and folk, a mixture of the many ethnic threads that first laid claim to The New World.
Existing somewhere between European and Native it trespasses on the fringe like lonesome mountain men, vikings, braves, and
outlaws. It rises against that tendril of industry cutting through untouched land, bending it to the will
of agressive man knowing we must be that industry to stand a chance. With nostalgia and modernism it seeks
to redirect the evolution of a broken system by reminding us where we went awry, reminding us that returning to harmony
may be the only way forward. Hinting at a perhaps unavoidable violence that might be forced to break a blind wheel.
Idealist in naturalism, preserving the legacy of The West founded by the original pioneering spirits pushing forward
into tomorrow.
Mesquite Treason unavoidably sides with Native America, Remembering forever the cruelty they faced. Remember Sand Creek. May we cross
sacred arrows of the Cheyenne and release a most powerful medicine. Here is past overlapped by present, echoes of Navajo
nation radio stations falling in and out of range while traveling through our nations vast empty places. We live in the static
here, Each who stands alone is Native now, facing a mighty hand of oppression and a flood of conformity. It is our nature to
seek asylum from the onslaught, to turn our face from the overrun homeland and run ever towards something new. Though it is
contrary to our nature, individuality must gather and face this wave with full force of unity. By this we will rise. By this we can claim
the future and venture out to find new undiscovered places, places that remain free only as long as we remain one step beyond the grasp of the machine.
This is Mesquite Treason.
