1. |
Hieronymus
05:24
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Oh, this is so divine, I cannot contain me
On your left you will see - in the end we're all taxidermy
And on your right you will observe, that we all get what we deserve
Won't you come round for tea? Isn't this swimmingly...?
Join us at the party, at the party
Join us at the party, at the party
Do you want to be afraid for your whole life?
Dear old Hieronymus couldn't stand the tunes
And he went home in a impotent rage
Picked up his paintbrush and stuck it up his ass
Spat on the canvass and entered the stage
He crucified the lutist on a broken violin
Gagged the drummer with mud and acrimony
An open mouthed gargoyle swallowed 3/4 time
And the flautist's being rutted by a pony
Hieronymus Bosch was a bit of a sadist
Bit of a Puritan, bit of a shame his
Talent was wasted on he.
Got a bit miffed at the postman's daughter
Got his revenge when he put her to slaughter
Had fire and brimstone for his tea.
Cheer up Hieronymus! Cheer up Hieronymus!
If you go down to the masquerade, you're in for a big surprise
They're pulling their teeth out, they're tugging at their hair, they're clawing their bloodshot eyes
Dancing on rooftops and dancing on graves, and slapping their hairy thighs
And our guest of honour tonight is Mr Bosch, he set the crowd alight
Walpurgisnacht Walpurgisnacht
Hieronymus says hi...
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2. |
Parlour Games
05:32
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Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly
He curled into the moonlight
The archway of his spine
Was a tangled coliseum
An attack on the sublime
She tied him to the blanket
Chewed the feathers out
He looked a bit like Icarus
As he began to shout
She was one of the most beautiful things we'd ever seen
She walked up to the front of the cafe, and paused
We could see her breath cloud the glass
And we'll implore and we'll adore you
Just won't you play par, play par-, play par-lour games?
Oh won't you play par-, play parlour games?
Won’t you, won’t you play parlour games?
Pinecones on her collarbone
She was deciduous tonight
On a leaf of dog-eared lust
She extinguished every light
Won’t you play parlour games?
Won’t you play?
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3. |
Whalesong
03:47
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She split for the archipelago
A table. A pen. A wire. And a crumpled sheet.
They sit with me, clean and blank,
Elegant in the cool summer air, paused.
The wicker splits like a scarecrow’s stuffing.
A table. A pen. A wire. And a crumpled sheet.
Down the river weaves and trickles a little paper boat
Tracing your handwriting, past my willowed shelter –
Which I pluck from the undulating currents
Like a fruit matured by the seasons of my patience.
A table. A pen. A wire. And a letter unfolded, prone,
Half suspended by the memory of its valleys and folds.
I worry too much. About distance.
About the absence of the arch of your brow,
Brimming with exquisite subtext.
About the parley of our live exchange
Ricocheting off these now too hallowed walls.
This scholar’s hand has gently turned over
These dislocated souvenirs, massaged them
Hopefully, nudged them (too often).
Now they are dulled and habituated,
Or else caricature and saturated,
Like a dull curtain for a show that will not rouse itself,
But still I have hope.
For with strange distance, our aspects
Have come into sweet relief
And our words into focus.
Without this correspondence, in solitude we would not
Have peeped into the sustained discourse of each other’s hearts,
Never murmured over the distillation of a phrase.
We might have blundered through the stew of friendship
Ignorant, till death,
Of those facets that render us both most unique,
And most together,
My darling,
And not composed in reverence such offerings of sincerity.
So now the day is melted over your horizon,
And the night subdues the lapping gales over the long grass,
I stand to close my frail door against the chill, and the dark veranda.
A table, and a pen, and a crumpled sheet,
Are all that we need, my dear. The wire is chatter.
Let us be like whales,
telegraphing across the ocean.
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4. |
Seahorses
03:22
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Bake me in a tray
Dust me down with flour
Break me against a camel's back
And caution me the hours
Elephant child we wanted
Too much much too soon, my love
Scraping around for hours
With carbuncles on your knees
And stay with me forever
At the bottom of the sea
Sea horses
Over
Under
All around me
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5. |
River Styx
06:03
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I went down to the river
What did I see there but you watching?
Puddles of sulphurous half-light pave my way to you
Come and see my upstairs, I will not disappoint you
Rawshack scent, chloroform high-life
Musk-skunked scented thighs
Embalmed psalms prone, kissed wrists open
Uncorked pickled sighs.
I been thinkin’ bout those sunny days
Won’t you be there for me?
I been think’ bout original sin and babe
That’s just not for me.
Don’t you leave them behind
Don’t you leave them behind
Crossing rivers of mud to befriend you.
I went down to the river
What did I see there but you watching?
We’re going down to this broke down hill where we’ll die.
Tarmac smile, glistening razors,
Billowing chimney eyes.
Beckoned delights will you over
The River Styx tonight.
Don’t you leave them behind
Don’t you leave them behind
I been over this a thousands times and we
Belong together.
Love this to pieces, I can’t ever let you go.
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6. |
Oskar
06:05
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Cesare the somnambulist is out of his cage
There’s a tin drum rollin’ over Europe, tonight.
Cruel to see, to learn to be,
A finger in the air
Ooo darlin', history’s callin', history’s coming to tea
Creeping out of the corners,
We come out on the streets
What is this holy feeling,
That we just cannot beat?
Oskar is coming to town!
I wandered into the New York stock exchange
And I shattered the screens with my voice.
Wall Street’s crashed again
Wall Street’s crashed
Tanks linin’ up
Fossil fuels firin’ up
I was an aborted foetus in New York on February 20th 1939
I want you to make me whole again
The cabaret is booming
In the kitchens of Berlin
They’re throwing shade in New York
Now that dragging up is in
But the crowds are getting restless
Now that the news is in
That their security demands an outsider
I went down to the sea
Hiding under rostrums
Cooking up some degenerate music
Your band will dance to my tune
I was born on the sunset of the American empire
Baptised in the milk of colonial amnesia
Sanctified in the sanctimonious
And born again as a white saviour
Divorced from time and history.
The channels still pump fuels and oil
Lubricated by bones cracked so distantly
That they could be the rustling of grass in the wind
Meanwhile, our pennies are miserly counted
And eked out like bribes
Sweet charity tweaks puppet strings in divine counterfeit
We burn the fuel
And we fry them up
When they come round
Our hands rise up
Draw up the bridge
As they die in droves
Flood them with arms
A good price, oh.
I’m picaresque through the nightmare, you see,
Irony is the saviour of Europe.
Warships in the night graze the harbour
Bobbing and swelling with the bodies
Cut onions down into five thousand pieces
Flood these lands with catharsis and shame.
Break me down into five thousand pieces
Bring me round ‘fore they take me away.
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7. |
Tower
05:02
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You were the Sun, were the Moon, were the Stars,
You were the cosmos taken too far
A surfeit of treacle, it squid inks the stars
The sirens and the blackout dance with their scars
We’ll cock a hoop, prize your hand from the handrail –
The balcony couldn’t hold you, you irrepressible girl
We’ll staunch the flow, bung the tap, dam it all
(But) The padlocked art of your precious heart will overflow.
Hit this town like a hurricane in a hat
I’ve been expecting expectorant to be spat
He’ll stick you up, he’ll dress you down
There’s not much to say
The leitmotif of this little piece
Is he’ll get his own way.
I saw the prize of a noble incision
Rippling like a stone on the water
I cried my desire from the roof to the pantry
Scattering your history like breadcrumbs
It’s water off a duck’s back, a spat between friends
We’ll sew it back, you’ll be good as new then.
But the hall dissolves
And we’re all involved
And our tailbones retire.
Fractured by
The moonlight
Of our desire
But your skin unfolds
And a world evolves
To a stranger place
And the world revolves
As our eyes roll
At a similar pace.
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8. |
He Is The Night
01:48
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He is the night
Fall down
He is the night
He is the night
Fall down
He is the night
He is the…
Why don’t you hug me anymore?
Why don’t you look at me anymore?
I don’t want to be afraid anymore.
It’ll all be ok...
We’ll be ok.
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Trashcan Phoenix London, UK
Trashcan Phoenix’s music is a film noir evocation of artists like David Lynch, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and Portishead. It is
by turns melancholy, mischievous, sensual and nightmarish.
It is the solo project of Martin Bowman, based in London.
... more
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