1. |
Begin Again
04:27
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A few tiny movements, and it begins.
The needle drops, the record spins.
Lately I've been giving in
to these primitive machines.
Back when I barely knew who you were,
we were both precious and obscure.
Sat together in a park.
You tossed a coin out into the old pond and snarked
at the young man and his courage,
and the ghosts in every hotel room.
They keep claiming they could begin again.
Then you got up just to change the sides.
There, on the fourth chord came a lie.
Once I could tell them apart;
a twist of fate or a change of heart.
Blood on the tracks, it skips a beat.
As he sings a solemn eulogy
for the old man in the courtroom
and the stray dogs in the parking lot.
They're all thinking they would begin again.
We'll begin again.
With lies still stuck between our teeth
we'll taste the bitter irony
of the stranger in a subway station
unsure of her destination.
Only knows she will begin again.
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2. |
Foreverest
07:19
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A dry stone, no sound of water
I’m coming home through the wasteland
And I am searching for that memory
Among the trams and the dusty trees
There it is: My first memory
When you were young, as young as I am now
Were you humming on some melody
That you then planted deep in me?
Pigeons circling the mall
Forever rest the months you never called
Soon this fog will turn to night
But i’ll try to trust the stubborn daylight
With all their loss enunciated
They’re holding on to whatever they can
While I’m holding on to your memory
It’s somehow planted deep in me
All those words I could use
Forever rest the life you didn’t choose
And when all these towers fall
Forever rest your work in the drywall
Now I walk out into the night
Forever with your name next to mine
Oh, what do I do now,
what will I do now?
Snowy crests, the trees are tall
Forever rest the paths your feet walked
And when all these towers fall
Forever rest your work in the drywall
Forever rest the shaking in your legs
Forever rest your bones in the muskeg
Forever rest the stubborn daylight
Forever rest the fog in the dark night
Forever rest the words I could have used
Forever rest the life you didn’t choose
Forever rest the hoarfrost on the trees
Forever rest your memory in me
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3. |
No Reception
04:01
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All of a sudden it was overcast. Descending from the final mountain pass,
I am only about a third into this year’s novel. And I only read when I travel.
We arrived, it's summer/somewhere in Norway. There's the fjord, there's the freeway.
You lit another one, the world is your ashtray. And so did I.
I rode in here in the backseat of some car,
with the windows down, and the music loud, but we don’t really make a sound.
‘Cause I'm still trying to pretend I'm tender. You claimed your hazy days have now ended.
I said “it's all love”, and you rolled your eyes. So here's to new and better lies.
Guess I approached you under false pretenses.
An amalgamation of several people answered:
“Something tells me you have dropped your defenses, well so have I”.
I pictured you riding shotgun in that car.
It’s a sight to see, but the thing you need is far from where we are.
‘Cause I don’t want to pretend I’m tender, or chained to the last few things I remember.
Here all is love, but those words weren’t mine. So here’s to hope and better lies.
Danced to “I Love You, Fuck the Government”. Or was it the other way around?
We spent another half an hour trying to answer that question.
‘Cause out here there's no reception.
Got up, tripped over a tent. I smelled like single malt mosquito repellent.
Someone told me you had lost your senses. Well, so had I.
You ended up in the backseat of some car.
It’s a sight to see, but it’s not with me. I’m only a passing star.
The fog was low, now it glows like ember. And there in the slow sunrise I remembered
how love is all, and I still do. So my lies are old, but my hope is new.
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4. |
Drinking Song
03:11
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“We're a wave and this is a crescent”.
That's how you describe the present.
Of course I want to feel fluorescent.
Live only for tonight.
His obsession with being alone,
only he knows where it came from.
Though I just wanted to go home,
you pinned me down, I let them loose.
But we're more than the drinks we choose.
We are bordering on too obsessive, oh,
looking for truth in the smallest decimals.
Like the pesky weather. Or that things will get better.
You've read all my letters.
And you always check them twice.
Well, so do I.
Between the pompous and the boring I dwell.
While you keep exploring the center of the universe.
I'll catch the last bus to the suburbs.
Are we more than the lives we choose?
Are we something bigger and better?
I think I'll spring for the latter.
Your choose the former, and you'll get what you ordered.
5% less water for the kid in the corner.
There, I said it. Seconds to minutes, and I'll wait it out.
I’ll wait.
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5. |
Random Quotes From F.
04:13
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I'm lost and afraid. I think I might change my name: Aimi.
A clear construct, but still uneasy.
You're building an argument. While I'm trying to make sense of it all.
Waiting for the final curtain call.
It starts with an open ending. I'm still pretending this reads like a novel. Third world wars and helpless animals.
I suppose this is love, when my soaked garden gloves give shelter to the june bugs and the spiders.
Wish I told you to your face. Had a plan, but it got erased by a hand that tastes like polyester.
If we're building a monument to these past few years. It depends on your view.
Mine half as cute as Einstein’s shoes.
I broke, like the dawn. Placed my second foot on the lawn. Just to prove to you the grass is greener.
While I can't prove God, only irony when you nod, and say “Sjur, didn't we know better”.
Like the roots that wait under the snow
Or a song for someone I don’t know
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6. |
Writing About Music
04:53
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I'm not the Fred Astaire of words. I just dance about architecture:
The home we built to calm your nerves, plus your desk job in the public sector.
I fill four columns weekly, a sharper pen for my softer heart.
A judgement passes easily, I dissect them into smaller parts when
there's a plane, no address, no terrain.
And I’ll point it out.
They would run, had a plan, got a gun.
And i’d point it out
with my cold, dead hands.
Cause I'm half empty
From ABC to XTC, I pulled them out and rearranged.
With a nod to High Fidelity, how I once could hear the full range.
The piercing highs, the rumbling lows.
All the details in between personas and characters.
They would all relate to me.
Here’s a hill, here’s a rock, show your skills.
And I'll point it out.
Rinse, repeat. Glue your drums on the beat.
And I’ll point it out
with my cold dead hands.
New clouds overhead, as we watched the rose parade.
“There's a rumoured possibility of rain" is what you said to me,
Then you sighed.
‘Cause I'm half empty. You're half empty.
We’re filled with reason and regrets and irony.
You help yourself, though I need your help.
I understand it, I’d just rather be anywhere else.
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7. |
Dystopian Sci-fi
04:51
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Now the length of the summer day feeds a darker blue
I watch the Metropolis set in a silver hue
I know nothing is bottomless
I’m leaning into a wall
Another snowy winter waits
at the end of a fall
I would patiently tap the keys,
while you would quietly sing
Water filled the reservoirs every spring
Before the bees began to flee
Before you said you were leaving me
How you would have my sympathy
if it wasn’t me
I've been down the road before, ca 1984
Your sister said we could teleport
to a new world
Then we passed the high water mark
of what they thought I could sell
They called it literature
at the bottom of a well
Before what was once canals had turned yellow and pale
We watched the Adriatic sea from an abandoned hotel
Before the cities of shelter tents
Before the right wing governments
Before I just wasn’t making sense
And someone told you to call
Before a name on a tiny screen
was how you'd remember me
Not for my nuance or empathy
for the new world
Dystopian sci-fi released me from the life I thought I had in front of me
Maybe this is an apology: I want to know how to live. I want to know how to love
I gaze up at the night sky, thinking everything must go!!!
I’m here in a cul-de-sac. Are you coming back?
Dystopian sci-fi for everything I lack
Well, it is what it is, I guess; the new world
The world was old and cowardly
Had Phillip K and fresh batteries
in my flashlight and suddenly:
A new world
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8. |
Six Feet Over
04:13
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When I cleaned out this place, I found a small leather pouch under layers of dust behind the living room couch. With things I’d forgotten I actually own. And a note with your name from when we were still unknows.
I am what I am or pretended to be. Threw the bathwater out with accuracy. Now I paint my maps from memory with an aerosol can. Let the rough edges proclaim I am a better man.
Maybe I am, I’ve been doing what I can, but you know how it’s easy to stray from a plan.
They’re making gravestones in the basement while I rule in the control room. Keeping warm in my sheep’s clothing
while you're out howling at the moon.
When you had first stumbled upon me and my lies, you had a halo of sadness and twinkling eyes. I forgot that this place has revolving doors. I held on to your bag as you hit the dancefloor. My outlook may need further explanation. See, my first love, she got married in the Appalachians. That might sound pretentious, but actually it’s true. Unlike most of these things I’ve been telling you: I’m bitter and blue, there’s no beauty or truth. And where timelessness comes to an end, there’s solitude.
They're making gravestones in the basement, while I'm cutting down on my metaphors. Grazing on the green grass between us, while you're out dining with the carnivores.
Oh wait, my apprentice. I still have stories to tell. Like when we went to the crossroads, but had nothing to sell.
So if you wake up at night, thinking everything must change, just means there's something still pounding
behind the bars of your ribcage.
They’re making gravestones in the basement while I rule in the control room. Keeping warm in my sheep’s clothing
while you're out howling at the moon.
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9. |
Accidents & Time
03:27
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In this northern town we are getting old,
united by our love for John K. Samson and our disdain for the cold.
It’s how you replied, clear avoidance, crooked lines.
When all I need is straighter answers, overtures and hope,
you said
“I believe in accidents and time. Promises, conversation and wine”.
Yet the marks on your skin pull me into the dark.
The continents drifted further apart.
We were Mid-Atlantic swimming, divided islands, states of the art.
You were always bent on finding something else than this.
Oslo’s awkward kinesis is always easy to dismiss.
While I believe in accidents and time. Broken trust and condescending lines.
Yet the light on your skin pulls me into the night
Where the black matter eats every line
and I tie them to knots.
There, when daylight descends without rhyme
I was trying to disconnect the dots.
And I was right on time.
I've got words that could make you spin. And a box I put them in.
But we are right on time.
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10. |
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I touched ground and let my brain make its demands
Sometimes you know they aren't true
Beneath the neon signs I saw shadows holding hands
Blinked twice, then reviewed
Here on the south side of the park
there are tourist traps and dive bars
We know, we've walked these streets before
Without knowing what we're looking for
In this city that you've claimed as yours
Just to dull our senses to the core
But forgive them and please pretend
That you don't share my growing sentiment
that all of this soon ends
And forgive me if you can still breath
Though there's this itching in your throat
that you can't shake or even try to put at ease
Now there's a tug-o-war
straining on your vocal chords
And only spite is slipping out
But forgive those foul and bitter nouns
Forgive the verbs you can't pronounce
Forgive the buildings, then the trees
And forgive me
I can still breath
Though there's this itching in my throat
that I can't shake or put at ease
And forgive them
They're still your friends
Send those memories into orbit
Let's watch while they burn as they descend
'Cause by this time last year
everything will seem younger
And you will be on to me the way I'm onto you
By this time last year
Every beat will feel stronger
And you will make peace
With the buildings,
then the trees
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Fika Recordings UK
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