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Turtle Taxi

by Suggested Friends

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    12" sky blue vinyl, printed inner sleeve, reverse white uncoated board outer sleeve, complete with download coupon.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Turtle Taxi via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 300 
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Digipack CD, complete with lyrics and as much of the art from the vinyl as we can squeeze in!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Turtle Taxi via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £5 GBP or more 

    You own this  

     

  • Digital Album
    Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £7 GBP  or more

    You own this

     

1.
Imminent 03:59
they almost had me there i almost bought it all as if i’d manufacture this fiasco just for inspiration, just to watch it fall. you aren’t smiling with your eyes so why say hello at all? surely by now you’ve read enough online to figure it out. and oh my god, that pedestal i’d never reach and still sometimes i miss the company that you never gave from A staircase to that beach if i could stop being invested in your imminent demise i swear i’d see the sun is on the rise he took me for a walk he walked me round the field told me he wasn’t mad, ‘cause he has found this nice much younger woman, and so my fate was sealed. you told me you didn’t care said that you were relieved and i saw through nothing since at twenty-two there wasn’t much i’d disbelieve. and jesus christ if i could be the friend i needed then and take my own advice, instead of years of doubt. i comprehend but now i know what love can look like i won’t self-pathologise i swear i see the sun is on the rise
2.
Cygnets 02:46
try as i must, i don’t know what to make of this fluctuating trust i pass the boats and their rust, i pass the same spot just watching the cygnets grow up. turn away from the page and all those digital birds i was wiser than a year ago, i heard you fell in love with the secret and although we suffered at the loss of your conscience, i heard it. another stingray trapped in a fish tank, another little setback i’ve got you to thank, ‘cause you’ve been resting here lately with your heart on my lap, and the rest of us laid here with you to thank.
3.
look here’s the sun it rose again, it won again, it won dew covered shoes, no time to lose, no time to gain, no trust to feign. i never played away so just don’t stare at it, and don’t be scared of it, i’d give you tenderness and you can rise above it a little later on we might have fled and gone there’s no more bitterness, i’ll keep the curtains drawn backed out again and you paint yourself into a corner, i despair. so please wake the fuck up and admit that as the world burns you’ll be practicing self-care. it’s just a day away.
4.
G.N.A. 02:50
guardian news app, one more round of fear i’m trapped at the cold stop waiting for the red bus to appear the scum’s built up, your hull wrecked the wind’s ripped off the sails and life’s on auto-correct, but redemption’s always failed the rent’s too high, this room’s too small i’m dreaming of a liquid to knock me out cold you were dreaming of a backyard, i was dreaming of a boat but i was living alone, kept all the notes she wrote i guess there never is an ending, never is an ending but together we can keep afloat you were dreaming of a backyard
5.
At Ease 03:36
worlds collide and i’ve got no more knives, i’m going nowhere tonight said she’d have pulled out my eyes, and it didn’t even take me by surprise oh my blood runs cold, old senses fall in line when i used to be so bold, i’m such a mess this time ‘cause it was written in the back seat, you and your turnpike dreams oh but even in my fantasies, the roles are blurred it seems. so come on, come on, i don’t need you to wish me well now when it’s been so long and i could pray for the rest of my life for civility don’t know how much that would’ve changed me can’t say how much that would’ve changed what good am i, tracing all the contours of the wrongdoing in life? i should give up more of my time, because it’s unincarcerated time. i wanna celebrate you, want you to lock me down i’ll intervene with any bullshit on the overground ‘cause you’re a powerhouse of kindness, you put everyone at ease and if you love me like you do, maybe there’s not much wrong with me
6.
Turtle Taxi 02:27
i won’t be leaving at nine, i’ll leave you a note i’ll leave you a note, i’ll leave on the rind, i’ll find you a loom, try and buy us some time, i cut my teeth on this circle too late to arrive, too gay to drive i’ll return to you, keep every jar that you want me to and yes you make me feel like i can rest cool we’re alive at the same time i’ll be your honest turtle taxi i know if anyone attacks me you’re gonna start. i used to bide my time, and now i spend my time riding out the azimuth sunshine i’ll find you some clay, we’ll read ties that bind i’m still not writing but i don’t mind i’ll teach til i die, let this all pass by and i’d return to you, rescue twelve dogs if you want me to
7.
there was something at my ankle in the stream that i couldn’t see here at a confluence of sorts or so it seemed but i couldn’t see and the cattails can’t reveal my face, my feet glued to the stony bed of disgrace. are you sure it’s worth the bother standing in the cold? it bothers me we’ll all be working til we’re eighty-five years old, that bothers me ‘cause i’m funding your retirement with my tiny monthly wage and you say you had a house and a car at my age. suck it up, suck it up, put your best foot forward, leave a mark, come on talk it out, talk it out, don’t you have any doubt that it’s your own fault what you’re talking about the heavens open and the whole sky fills with rain at every angle of the cross i see the selfishness the lies and all the pain clearer than the cross there are no good guys and no bad guys in any guise at all how many bloody hallways til we murder them all? your flesh will decompose just like the people that you kill and pretty soon your grave will be a landfill
8.
Blooms 05:01
you laid here late, sleeping like a silent stone once in multitudes of colour, now in monochrome you crept just like a vine, and i left before it wound round mine. so go on break promises and promises. prosaic and practiced, i know them like my mother our endochrines align, the reach and the cost in kind. but it wasn’t such a distance if you measured in miles, but i lost a fucking lightyear in those grocery aisles. so hold my hair back, you could promise me anything or film me on the bathroom floor, try to ignore everything. i was only fourteen and pain blooms everywhere, shackled shadows of an agent, desire blooms everywhere, desire blooms and so do you, you’re like an aster in the bed so hold my hair back, lay with me. mantle and plate, rifts with so much history but you come like a river, swelled with pride and with all these apparitions, i’m mortified. but it wasn’t such a risk then, if you measure in pounds but i lost a fucking household in those coffee grounds
9.
For Jokes 03:07
did you get teeth yet, i wonder are you redeemed yet, i wonder fine i’ll permit myself to be broken and alone, love is a labour and i know, i know it wasn’t all for jokes so many bitter words someone spoke, not for pain or revenue i’ll come out. did you cut keys yet for summer is addiction a disease yet or will you flounder in stasis and drown in it, oh bloody hell i’ve got the whole menu it isn’t busy, i’m alone, love is a labour that i know, i know it wasn’t all for jokes, those were genuine words i spoke, my lungs full of dust and spite and i’ll show you i’ll show you, i’ll show
10.
Magnolia 03:40
i threw it all at the wall so i could see what stuck just a gallery of gambles and you on the left hand side, sliding down the magnolia. i’m not concerned, it’s just a bad light, i’m not concerned, i’ll never let you blow my cover i’d never let you end my life, never let you squeeze my hand. there’s a part of you in every line i land. how does he do it so brazenly, just a library of let-downs with one small window inside. and i haven’t earned it, it’s just a minor slight i’m not concerned, i’d never let you change my practice i’d never leave my heart estranged, never let you harm my band there’s a part of you in every line i land there’s a part of you in every joke i land there’s a part of you in each punchline i land

about

NB: North American fans: save yourself some shipping costs - you can order the vinyl direct from our friends at Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records if you'd prefer a US pressing! hhbtm.com/product/suggested-friends-turtle-taxi/

Suggested Friends are an indie rock quartet with a firm grounding in queer identity, fusing DIY punk roots with the interweaving guitars of 90s indie and a sometimes tongue-in-cheek take on the performative masculinity of 80s rock. There’s a tenderness to their songwriting, with lyrics reflecting on cultural malaise, trauma recovery and the banal absurdity of everyday life. Personal politics can come with an incisively dry sense of humour too.

Turtle Taxi is their second album and demonstrates just how far they’ve come from the raw, scuzzy sounds of their DIY debut; unrepentant in letting the pop hooks loose. The choruses are big, harmonies frequent, and guitar solos abound - this is a lush, textured leap forward.
Suggested Friends are more confident, acknowledging emotional pain and exploring how this affective space elides with a more expansive sense of injustice in the world.

On Pretty Soon Your Grave Will Be A Landfill the earnestness and absurdity of gaslighting politicians is laid bare, through to the futility of naming social ills and not acting on them on At Ease. The album’s title track, Turtle Taxi, talks about the relationship between love as a labour and the focusing in on life as an opportunity for that to flourish in all directions – (‘teach ‘til I die, let this all pass by…’).

The quieter numbers on the record, such as At Ease or Blooms, recall folkier inspiration such as The Weather Station and Hiss Golden Messenger, through to the alt-pop oddness of Nilufer Yanya and Blood Orange. But for parallels as a socially conscious, high-energy and vulnerable punk pop band, think Martha or Charly Bliss - though they’d argue for that perfect sweet spot between Weezer and Abba!

Recorded in rural Norfolk over two separate sessions a year apart, album was able to flourish into a more collaborative effort, incorporating Faith’s wife Meghan on percussion and Sickroom Studio's Owen on trumpet - plus plenty of time to experiment with overdubs and piano flourishes to up that classic-rock vibe that simmers just under the surface.

Suggested Friends formed in late 2015 following a chance meeting at a gig between Christabel (drums) and Faith (guitar and vocals). They were soon joined by Jack on guitar, who had met Faith through an activist group in London. Mammoth Penguins’ Emma Kupa is the most recent addition on bass, having worked with Faith on a number of projects over the past four years.

“brilliantly distinct, wrapping their varying influences in to one rabid burst of lofi indie-rock” Gold Flake Paint

“frighteningly good in a way that most stuff called frighteningly good just isn’t” Everett True, The Friendly Critic

“a bright, fun, sparkly album with raw and to the point lyrics – there’s no hiding from the wit. Check it out; you’ll be hooked” Loud Women

credits

released October 4, 2019

Suggested Friends are Christabel Williams, Emma Kupa, Faith Taylor and Jack McGinn.

Recorded and mixed at Sickroom Studios by Owen Turner.
Mastered by Scott Craggs at Old Colony Studios.

Christabel: drums, percussion, vocals
Emma: bass, percussion, vocals
Faith: guitar, vocals, piano, synth, ukulele, percussion
Jack: guitar, percussion, vocals
with
Owen Turner: trumpet on 'The Apocalypse'
Meghan Butt: wooden toad on 'Turtle Taxi'

All songs written by Suggested Friends.

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Welcome to Fika Recordings! We're a London based DIY record label, releasing glorious indiepop, folk and more...

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