Hesperus Rex
by Sweater!
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Digital Album
Immediate download of 10-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.Buy Now $5 USD or more
1. |
Mediterranean
03:45
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2. |
Mockingbirds
03:50
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3. |
Laundry Room
03:40
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4. |
Employment Bored
03:55
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5. |
Grease Trap
02:57
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6. |
Kill It Now
03:03
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8. |
Glass Half
03:52
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9. |
Cursing At Yr Old Man
02:42
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10. |
Forest Girl
03:42
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about
—Available for download on The Ides of March (or March 15, as it's more boringly known)
—Mastered by Jeff Stuart Saltzman (engineer of Malkmus, Death Cab, many more)
—“Kill It Now,” “Mediterranean” and “Employment Bored” have been published by 2 PDX Pop Now! Comps, Tender Loving Empire Comp 2011, a Nike Women's Boxing commercial, and Everything Will Be Fine web series
A little literary analysis of "Hesperus Rex" for fellow English majors...
—The Wreck of the Hesperus is an epic maritime poem about a maiden lashed to a mast during a ship-wrecking storm. The lyrics of this album attempt to recreate that kind of torrid yet exhilarating mood.
—This musical project got somewhat “wrecked” when the two-piece band broke up in the mid-oughts, first romantically and then musically.
—Rex means “king,” but also evokes the dinosaur Tyrannosaurus Rex, a nod to Anne's hobby of “reading” toy dinosaurs in her invented fortunetelling premise, Dino Tarot.
—If you gouge the middle out, it makes “Hex.” Ooh. Sinister.
—Hesperus is Greek for “the evening star” or dark star—counterpart to Lucifer, “the morning star.” Since Lucifer seemed lovely but harbored bad intentions, we like to think of Hesperus as the opposite: a little bit ugly, but totally meaning well.
—Ancient Greek astronomy spoiler alert; the two stars actually turned out to be ONE: Venus (named, of course, for the mythic goddess of love). Oh, tricky love! Two sides to it! We found this, too.
“Like relics recovered from a ruined galleon, or a fallen chunk of meteor that has long since burnt down to a pebble, we hope you can dredge some enduring value out of this long-submerged record, Hesperus Rex.” — Love, Sweater!
—Mastered by Jeff Stuart Saltzman (engineer of Malkmus, Death Cab, many more)
—“Kill It Now,” “Mediterranean” and “Employment Bored” have been published by 2 PDX Pop Now! Comps, Tender Loving Empire Comp 2011, a Nike Women's Boxing commercial, and Everything Will Be Fine web series
A little literary analysis of "Hesperus Rex" for fellow English majors...
—The Wreck of the Hesperus is an epic maritime poem about a maiden lashed to a mast during a ship-wrecking storm. The lyrics of this album attempt to recreate that kind of torrid yet exhilarating mood.
—This musical project got somewhat “wrecked” when the two-piece band broke up in the mid-oughts, first romantically and then musically.
—Rex means “king,” but also evokes the dinosaur Tyrannosaurus Rex, a nod to Anne's hobby of “reading” toy dinosaurs in her invented fortunetelling premise, Dino Tarot.
—If you gouge the middle out, it makes “Hex.” Ooh. Sinister.
—Hesperus is Greek for “the evening star” or dark star—counterpart to Lucifer, “the morning star.” Since Lucifer seemed lovely but harbored bad intentions, we like to think of Hesperus as the opposite: a little bit ugly, but totally meaning well.
—Ancient Greek astronomy spoiler alert; the two stars actually turned out to be ONE: Venus (named, of course, for the mythic goddess of love). Oh, tricky love! Two sides to it! We found this, too.
“Like relics recovered from a ruined galleon, or a fallen chunk of meteor that has long since burnt down to a pebble, we hope you can dredge some enduring value out of this long-submerged record, Hesperus Rex.” — Love, Sweater!
credits
released 15 March 2012
beats & instrumentation by Paul Alcott
words & tunes by Anne Adams
mixing & mastering by Jeff Stuart Saltzman
beats & instrumentation by Paul Alcott
words & tunes by Anne Adams
mixing & mastering by Jeff Stuart Saltzman
tags
license
feeds
feeds for about
Sweater! is home-spun electronica from Portland, the
sleeper side project of Paul Alcott (other/prior projects: Parenthetical Girls, Ramona Falls, Dykeritz, Dat'r) and Anne Adams (other/prior projects: Grey Anne, Dino Tarot, Per Se)
contact / help
For help with downloads, click here.
For all other inquiries, click here.
- Track Name: Mediterranean
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There's a ship in the Mediterranean
with the Pope and his friend an Arabian
They are having a chat and a picnic lunch
while the sea flashes green in the bright sun
There's a sail that's as pale as the Pope's robes
There's a rosary hanging from the folds
There's a turban that twists in a tight knot
and the wind plays the fringe of the whole lot
I have sought you like loners seek shadows
I have met you on planes of insane prose
I'm adrift in a skiff on the bright sea
with the Arab and Pope floating by me
I play chess with the rest of the raft crew
I compose lofty prose to recite you
Though my deck be a wreck and my oars poor
I will strive to arrive on your warm shore - Track Name: Mockingbirds
-
Narrator:
Where is the liquor store; where's the drug store,
Where is the liquor store; where's the drug store,
Where is the liquor store; where's the drug store,
Where is your lost love?
Mockingbirds:
"ya dada dada da da da da da"
"ya dada dada da da da da da"
"ya dada dada da da da da da,"
sang the mockingbirds.
Narrator:
So you woke on a patch of lawn
with a head like a clanging gong
and you're trying hard to just remember....
By the streets full of banging brass
in the chill of the weeping grass
you're relenting fast to sweet surrender....
Mockingbirds:
"Where is the liquor store; where's the drug store,"
"Where is the liquor store; where's the drug store,"
"Where is the liquor store; where's the drug store,"
sang the mockingbirds.
Character:
One for my lover, and one for my father,
and one for my brother, and
one for the vicar, and one for my sister,
and one for my fellow man, man....
Mockingbirds:
"Where is your lover? Right where you left her,"
"Where is your lover? Right where you left her,"
"Where is your lover? Right where you left her,"
sang the mockingbirds.
"ya dada dada da da da da da"
"ya dada dada da da da da da"
"ya dada dada da da da da da,"
sang the mockingbirds. - Track Name: Laundry Room
-
In the view
from my room
a cloudmass
in full bloom
and stairwells
that plunge through
to rumbling
laundry rooms
I wrote you
two letters
I hope you
feel better
the one is
to know you
the other
to own you
from the view
from my room
it looks like
I love you
but love is
a phantom
that lunges
through dungeons
like the cold
laundry room
where your clothes
are consumed
by cobwebs
and flotsam
they're your clothes
I've got them. - Track Name: Employment Bored
-
I went to the employment board
I'm leaving the rest to the lord
Some days you don't want to get up
and drink from the commoner's cup
Long mornings alone on the train
The paper, the streets and the rain
The atoms divide and absorb
I'm leaving the rest to the lord. - Track Name: Grease Trap
-
Take the island dance in which you
take two sticks to dance betwixt
clapping in a rhythm that could
snap your toes between the sticks
Take the Hindu ritual
in which you fill your face with knives
clap along and sing a carol to the peril of our lives
Leap as though your feet could be
ensnared between a pair of poles
Turn like whirling dervishes
that spurn the throes of vertigo
Dance as though there's centipedes
and aphids in your underwear
and the sky is falling and the stars are sticking in your hair
You forgot: You're mortal
You are not: immortal
You forgot: You're mortal
You are not: immortal - Track Name: Kill It Now
-
Kill it now before it kills you,
Kill it now before it kills you,
Kill it now before it kills you,
Kill it now before I do,
before I do
You, Baby
with all of your little ways, Baby
you think that you wanna play, Baby,
you think that you wanna
play me Babydoll
well I've got news
I've got some kick left in these shoes
I've got a way to make you pay
off all your creditors
that you hit up
for sh* that you could use
Kill it now before it kills you,
Kill it now before it kills you,
Kill it now before it kills you,
Kill it now before I do...
Keep talking
you're only tempting fate
while I'm attempting to relate
and to detangle all your lines
into a single strand of truth
but don't make me lose my cool...
don't make me lose my cool...
don't make me lose my cool...
don't make me...
Don't make me take your moon outta orbit!
Don't make me turn your stars into hornets!
Don't make me take your moon outta orbit!
Don't make me turn your stars into hornets!
Don't make me take your moon outta orbit!
Don't make me turn your stars into hornets!
Don't make me take your moon outta orbit!
Don't make me turn your stars...
Kill it now before it kills you,
Kill it now before it kills you,
Kill it now before it kills you,
Kill it now before I do.... - Track Name: Glass Half
-
glass...half...emp-...ty,
can...you...fill...me?
Baby, you know that I love you for all that you do,
Maybe the reason that I'm still alive lies in you
But stop pretending,
Just stop pretending,
That there's a hope of this hopelessness ending
When you pretend you lend me your life-blood
To stir in my stew...
glass...half...emp-...ty,
can...you...fill...me?
Lately, I'm trying to kill dragons with needles and pins,
They get more lethal the more they get under your skin
But if you hold me
Stroke me and scold me
I'd be emboldened to try something desperate
That is unless you extend me your blessing
to finally give in...
glass...half...emp-...ty,
can...you...fill...me? - Track Name: Cursing At Yr Old Man
-
Cursing at the government,
Cursing at the government,
Cursing at the government,
Cursing at your old man...
First you've got the government,
First you've got the government,
First you've got the government,
Then you've got your old man,
Old man coming down on you,
Old man tell you what to do,
Old man try to take from you,
Old man's got his own plan....
My old man's gone gambling again,
Losing our money down at the dog pen
On my calls he's listening in,
He doesn't trust me
Thinks that I'm like him
Hang up the phone old man,
Hang up the phone you prick
Leave me alone old man,
Leave me alone you d*ck
You know you've been a terrible father
You know you've been a terrible father
You know you've been a terrible father
Sometimes I just don't know why I bother
You know you've been a terrible liar
You know you've been a terrible liar
You know you've been a terrible liar
How many more must perish by fire? - Track Name: Forest Girl
-
I ran away
from the compulsory mass
before the tray
of blood and body was passed
There is a wood
just past the chapel grounds
where I can lay
all my burdens down
Even alone
I know my heart must be tamed
lest my hot breast
should set the trees all aflame
There is a glen
lit by a slip of moon
where I can land
should I start to swoon
(sigh)
Huddled in a
puddle in the
middle of the brush and bracken
cradled in a
cave within the
belly of a mossy burl
mistletoe and
thistle hair and
leafy limbs with nails of lichen
I'm a little
I'm a little
I'm a little forest girl....
There goes the bell
to toll the closing of prayer
They'll look for me
and they will see I'm not there
There was the call
I refused to heed
so I remained
and became
a tree
(sigh)
Huddled in a
puddle in the
middle of the brush and bracken
cradled in a
cave within the
belly of a mossy burl
mistletoe and
thistle hair and
leafy limbs with nails of lichen
I'm a little
I'm a little
I'm a little forest girl....
