Get all 74 Obsolete Media Objects releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Superdog, Hosie, The Shape of Blood to Come, This Disquiet, Photograph, Web Web Web, Wish and Lean, Planned Obsolescence Sampler 3: DRIVING, and 66 more.
1. |
The Tracks The Bells
04:00
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The air is cold
The tracks are black
They carry us forward and back
And onward to I forget where
Can’t breathe for the scent of fifty strangers’ hair
I am nothing
I am no one
The bells would still ring if I was gone
They carry me to where I want to be
To be!
I’m still longing
For your presence
Right here with me
Something tells me I’m on my own – truly this time
Funny to be suffocating yet so alone
Roasted chestnuts in newspaper wrapping that
Slip from my hands at the sound of the bells
Quick catch a glimpse
A little sky
Between many other pairs of eyes
Is this what it’s like
Living hand to mouth?
Mouths of cities
Always open
Praying hoping
Something falls in
Don’t look at me like that ‘til you have learned my name
I’m not obliged to play that game
Doesn’t the irony of humanity kill you sometimes?
One likes the sound of her heels on the pavement
While the other gets lost and found reading the letters he sent
What pulls you on?
What makes it right?
What makes you hold your head in your hands at night?
This is the thing
This is the one
SOIL VOMIT
BLUE SKY
DEEP PIT
Make your peace with the bare scream of steel and dig in your heels to the train that will do all your crying for you
What pulls it on?
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2. |
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Question, the unfurling of memory, and answer ---
Dedicated to David Jordan Sanborn (1928-2013)
With deep gratitude and love
lyrics
What is left to bring you to me?
My memory
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3. |
Lash On Your Cheek
02:33
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I am the hole in the back of your shirt, where it hurts, ‘tween your shoulder blades
Kind of like the sound that a bell makes
Did you ever think it would be me pressing there?
Bet you like it don’t you, don’t pretend au contraire
Did you know you’re arrogant?
Did you know I like your scent
And it’s you again
Can’t believe it’s you again
And I am the tear in the butt of your jeans, super smooth, no need to stare
I’ll never tell you that you’re wearing something see-through
Cause I know you wouldn’t care
Kinda fed up with your disdain for society
But I do appreciate how you look at me
Did you know you’re bowlegged?
I think it goes right to your head
Your feet are so warm in my bed
And it’s you my friend
Can’t believe it’s you again
And I think a lot about how you think, and I think you’re nuts, but OK
There must be some good reason why we’re getting on this way
Did you know you have a lash on your cheek?
Something tickles in my lungs when you speak
Let’s take a nap in a field somewhere
You oughta let me comb your hair
This love is ridiculous
I wouldn’t stand for anything less than you
And it’s you again
Don’t want to believe it’s you again
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4. |
Elizabeth
06:56
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Gray light of March
Pavement my path
To the front door that you open so joyfully
Day after day
Pencils in hand
Scribbling away at the blueprints of love
That you spread on the floor
and then tape together
But I come here
Only to see
Only to see your baby eyes light up
With the future you are imagining
But - how could you know the sudden blast of heartbreak?
Or know the sting of nails bit to the quick
Or how a dream can stick for years
How could you feel the silence at the bottom of your soul?
You’re just a child, and it won’t be me to tell you so
<berceuse>
Every time you ask me why
Why this or that, well I don’t know!
I’m not God, I’m just older than you
And likely more confused
But it seems you know
Deep in your rubbery core
Something I forgot long ago
Elisabeth please explain to me how you see this flower
Because I was once wrapped in the tissue of my mother’s womb and
I did once contemplate the microcosms in the grass and YES
I did once hear the highest notes like you my dear
And if I live eighty more years it’s so I can be you again
<berceuse>
When the fog
Comes rolling in
Breath of the North Atlantic drift is clouding my view
But I know you will clear my eyes again
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5. |
For My Father
03:30
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I sing only for my father
For the broken spokes of someone else’s life
And I breathe only from the water
That cradled me before I had eyes to see
Cause the womb is the only way
And I sing for my brother
By the oven where we sat
Our baby brains filled with fruit bats
I’m glad we can still do that
And I sing for my ancestor dying in fire
Over the flame he says thanks for trying anyway
We did our best today
And he says to me
Are you aware of the oil in your hair
From which another pair of blinking eyes will come to be?
Cause when you are you sing!
For my grandmother! Picking berries fifty years, her smile hangs from both my ears
And I get it now, the joke of fear!
(But sometimes I forget)
And I sing for my lover
He’s far away by now and I still love him God knows how
And I am my mother…damn
And she says to me
Are you aware of the oil in your hair
From which another pair of blinking eyes will come to be?
Are you aware of the generations in your stare?
The silent scenes all yet to come
The many one and your day is done
But your story lives on
And I’m still singing only only only for my father
Just to be sure he knows
On that wheel are left some spokes
I’m never leaving you we’ve got a long way to go!
You’re coming with me now eighty more years
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6. |
Improv for Ernest
01:47
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7. |
One True Line
03:25
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Time exists on the hips of expectation
Time won’t wait around for me to pose the question
But if I can write but one true line then all of time will stop for me
Time is like a shovel in the dirt piercing the ground
Dig it up and mix it round and pack it tightly down
But if in there somewhere we find ONE TRUE LINE to leave behind
The spade will stop for you!
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8. |
Warm Regard
05:50
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Nothing makes much sense on paper, paper burns
Not much else makes sense in winter, winter yearns
For the summoning of warm regard
And for the blossoming of clover in the yard
And for the murmuring of Cascadilla Creek
I’m listening hard
And summoning every breath that we took in our sleep
Together
Time can move about in such an awful way
Years recounting but I don’t recall today
Til before my eyes your warm regard
And place and time seem to fall far behind
Cause here you are!
And I’m summoning every breath that we took in our sleep
Spend these visions I dreamed with the back of my head cradled in his hand
Overslept cause I dreamed there’s a bottomless love and promised land
Waiting never did you too much good but maybe this time
Yeah, you know you should have.
Now with your cold stance and absence you must be
A man in every sense yet still a boy to me
Til the summoning of warm regard
Til compassion helps you finish what you started
And I’m listening hard
For what is a man but the honest dissolve of his heart
Running water and rotting leaves - oceans away, man, did I believe
Grand old visions I dreamed with the salt of my brow cradled in his sleeve
And we’re throwing stones on the day that you know you’re not actually coming home
Now only you will never know me true
But only you will hear this melody the way that I do
And I’m summoning every breath that we took
I’m summoning every breath that I took alone on the creek
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9. |
Tracings
05:28
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I could trace the lines etched around your mouth
But I guess a smile will do for now
I won’t argue with how it has to be
Let’s just wait and see
When you look at me it’s kind of like how
After many days the sun’s coming out and
The windows face south
Just like that my dear, damn you melt me down
Love is not the word – the word isn’t love
More like energy I’ve always known of
But could not describe
Imagine my surprise when the word was you
Oh the words build up line after line
And I trace them slow with a nail bit low
Cause they’re words I wrote a long long time ago
Folded neatly up
Licked and stamped but no
With such honesty, with such warm regard
One could dry the sea, one could stand apart
But still here you are standing next to me
Waiting patiently for my lips to part
But what can I say? What is left to know?
Wild lights line up in impossible rows
What would happen dear
If we trace them slow?
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10. |
How Blue The Hills
05:42
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Lord how blue the hills far away
And the haze of the sky is like sand
There must be a thread holding me
As I open the palms of my hands
Lord how blue the hills far away and the gray sandy sky
So blue I forgot my name
Lord it’s hard to find the words to describe what it’s like being alive
All I know is that I needn’t ask why till you close my eyes
Lord how sweet the sound of a wave
As I send it careening through space
It returns to tell what it learned
When it ricocheted off a blue face
Lord what a skyline seen from the valley
Why must I be stranded on Earth?
I want gravity skywards
Lend me the right words now
Before my view goes blank and this vision escapes
Twelve shades of blue are bursting my seams
I’m only one piece in dreams
Lord how blue the hills far away
I just noticed today
So blue I forgot my name and what I came here to do
Lord it’s hard to find the words to describe what it’s like being alive
All I know is that those hills will be there
Long after you close my eyes
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Obsolete Media Objects Oakland, California
OMO is a label focusing on stunning physical media.
Although Mp3s are available here, every release is a
tangible object which we hope will enhance the experience of the music. These albums are meant to live on tape, or vinyl, or book, or pez dispenser, or something we hope will be as aesthetically stimulating as the music it conveys.
Coming soon:
OMO053 - hollowbodies
OMO055 - Big Bill Broonzy
... more
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