Release Date: May 15, 2008
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Liner notes:
All instruments recorded in the warehouse of Modern Hardware, Sunday the 6th of April, with the overhead door open, excepting Track 3, which Brad recorded in his bedroom sometime later. All vocals recorded in the ladies bathroom at Modern Hardware, during non-business hours, Thursday of last week.
Brad recorded everything.
We printed/packaged everything.
You mean everything
Thank you.
1. one
Liner notes:
All music written and performed by Vass on the following instruments/devices: bass guitar, electric guitar, melodica, drums, computer programming, and a soda bottle disguised as glitch electronics.
Lyrics excerpted from the novel Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins, with which certain liberties were taken in order to cooperate with song time, while hopefully preserving the authors intended end product. Read by Jordan
Lyrics:
In the last quarter of the twentieth century much of the world sat on the edge of an increasingly expensive theater seat waiting for something momentous to occur.
Christian aficionados of the Second Coming scenario were convinced that, after two thousand years, the other shoe was about to drop. And five of the era’s best-known psychics predicted that Atlantis would soon reemerge from the depths.
To this last, Princess Leigh-Cheri responded, “There are three lost continents…we are one: the lovers.”
In whatever esteem on might hold Princess Leigh-Cheri’s thoughts, one must agree that the last quarter of the twentieth century was a severe period for lovers. It was a time when romantic relationships took on the character of ice in spring, stranding many little children on jagged and inhospitable floes.
Nobody quite knew what to make of the moon anymore.
Consider a certain night in August. The moon was so bloated it was about to tip over. For more than an hour, Leigh-Cheri stared into the sky. “Does the moon have a purpose?” She inquired. The same query put to the Remington SL3 elicited this response:
Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay? Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself. Answer me that and I will ease your mind about the beginning and end of time, Answer me that and I will reveal to you the purpose of the moon.
2. two
Liner notes:
All music written by Chad and recorded in three tracks. The first of which consisted of Chad tapping his fingers and thumb on the body of a classical guitar, the second of which involved Chad playing that same classical guitar while using a pocket knife as a slide, the third of which was Chad playing the bells with a 3/8’ by 4” bolt.
Lyrics recited verbatim from the poem “somewhere I have never traveled” by ee cummings. Read by Jordan
Lyrics:
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
3. three
Liner notes:
All music written and performed by Brad between the hours of 11 PM and 2 AM during two consecutive nights using the following instruments: a Casio keyboard, his drum from 5th grade (with brushes), a self-modified cymbal (made to sizzle), a tambourine, and two stainless steel eating utensils (one fork, one knife) clanked against three glass cups (one big, one medium, one small).
Lyrics based on the poem “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe. Arranged, with song time and desired theme/effect in mind, and read by Jordan.
Lyrics:
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In that princedom by the sea.
But we loved with a love that was
more than just love,
With a love even the seraphs up in heaven covet.
And that was the reason that long ago,
In that princedom asleep by the sea,
That a wind shut her body in a sepulcher,
Buried in the sea,
That bore my sweet darling away from me.
Oh, the angels they envied us—envied our love.
Yes, that was the reason the wind came out,
Stirred the air and made the waves shake madly,
Killing my Annabel Lee. Oh my Annabel Lee.
Our love it was strong. So strong
That neither the angels up in heaven
Nor the demons in the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the
Soul of my Annabel Lee.
4. four
Liner notes:
All music written and performed by Kevin on the following instruments: acoustic guitar (two tracks), electric guitar, and a shaker, with the electric part (a lead) written approximately 5 minutes prior to recording, and partially improvised as the track rolled.
Lyrics are an amalgamation of several similar retellings of the same Asian myth. Arranged and read by Jordan.
Lyrics:
There was once a great kingdom, and its great king had a beautiful daughter who passed her days in solitude, weaving garments for the pleasure of her father. One day, while she was sitting beside the great river, peering across, she saw a handsome young shepherd boy leading his flock through the pasture. Immediately, she fell in love.
Thereafter, she became terribly disheartened, knowing that, due to her duties at the loom, she would be unable to pursue that love. The king, aware that by his bidding such despair had befallen her, felt great remorse, and arranged for her to marry the shepherd. There marriage was one of happiness from the start, and everyday thereafter they grew happier and happier. However, in immersing herself in her marriage, the princess had neglected her weaving and the great king became angry. Unable to reconcile with that anger, the great king banished each of the lovers to opposite sides of the great river, allowing them only to meet once each year: on the seventh day of the seventh month. On that day, a ferryman would carry the shepherd boy across the river to the princess, and return him home at day’s end. However, if the princess has not fulfilled her obligations at the loom the king floods the river, and the two can not meet.