The Somniloquist is a limited edition CD of Michael Gira narrating his stories , or " Fairy Tales " , as he calls them .
For the most part the recordings were made live with audience in Trondheim ( Norway) , Prague, Berlin , New York City , San Francisco , and Seattle . Gira reads from his book The Consumer (published by 2.13.61) and from new , unpublished stories .

Gira's stories might best be described as lurid , body-obsessed , claustrophobic allegories that simultaneously paint a world both obscure and obscene . The stories are almost superreal in their descriptions of self-loathing , sexual mutilation , and elaborately ritualized violence . This subject matter is made even more unnerving by Gira's clear , deadpan delivery and by his casually self-effacing , blackly humorous remarks to the audience . Don't expect the emotionalism and chest-beating tirades normally associated with the "Spoken Word" genre here . Gira let's the cinematic qualities of the stories speak for themselves . His stoic approach , he says , is inspired by memories of listening to Burl Ives narrations and various Disney recordings as a child . We'll leave it up to you to decide whether Gira's hyper-macabre version of an escapist fantasyland is a place you'd like to visit ...

SELECTED QUOTES

" M Gira is an astonishing writer whose belief in the power of language is almost supernatural . The Consumer is one of the purest , scariest and most beautiful books I've read in years..."

Dennis Cooper , author of Try ; Frisk

Gore can be good , but those with weak stomachs shouldn't pick up The Consumer , M. Gira's first collection of short prose . In nearly 50 stories set mostly in his native Los Angeles , he plumbs the excruciating depths of modern existence like Edgar Allen Poe resurrected to write the screenplay for Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer . Gira looks on the world through glazed eyes - on an optomistic day , his outlook can be described as bleak . But his writing is just the opposite , replete with lush , sensuous description ... "

Jacquelin McCarthy , Portland Weekly

" This is repulsive writing . Brilliant , disciplined and repulsive writing ... "

Nick Cave - author of And the Ass Saw the Angel

" Gira speaks with slow , serious indifference , letting the obscene and unthinkable roll off his tongue as if it were commonplace . Gira 's sense of humor about his work is enjoyable . He introduced one tale as " a love story " and responded to applause with an indifferent " Thank you , I love you ... " .

Jhan Dean Egg - Oblivion Magazine

" ... dense , surreal , and ultimately hypnotic reveries that suck the reader into a foreboding parallel universe . In this bleak realism , a dying sun beats down on a decomposing planet where all "human" relationships are revealed as parasitic by nature ... he manages the considerable feat in creating a book that accomplishes with words what Swans did with the much more direct form of music ..."

Michael Moynihan - Seconds