3/23/2008

Nom

Today we are proud to announce the release of our first album, entitled "Nom."


cover

Track listing:
01. Beneath the Weeds
02. I Need a Place to Stay
03. I Come Home to You
04. Whatever You Say
05. Spring
06. The Fire's Burning Brighter
07. Officer, Please
08. Where No Man's Eyes May Go
09. Appalachia
10. Accidents (Better Than Diamonds)
11. Pacific
12. Humor and Pale

Running time 35:51

1, 2, 4, 7, 8 by Michael
3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12 by Jennifer

To download a .zip file of the album in .mp3 format, click this link. (45.1 M)

To listen to the album via mp3 stream, click this link.

If you'd like to download the songs individually, follow this link for mp3 or this link for flac.



"Beneath the Weeds," "Whatever You say," and "Where No Man's Eyes May Go" are different mixes than those previously posted here.

We thank you very much for listening.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool! Downloading...

Anonymous said...

Track 4 is missing from the zip file...

qwynwyn said...

Very nice! Thank you for sharing the songs and the lyrics!

Michael said...

Hi guys, and thanks.

As for track 4 not showing up in the zip, it looks like archive.org wasn't detecting the VBR header for that track correctly. The header checked out fine in foobar2000's verifier, but archive was choking on it for some reason.

Thanks, Mike for bringing that to my attention. As frustrating as it was, I learned a lot about the archive's upload system today (and I found myself a much better FTP client).

Anonymous said...

BTW, the album is excellent. I shall be recommending it to people...

Michael said...

Awesome, Jennifer and I appreciate the word-of-mouth.

Anonymous said...

Cool, downloading now. I can't wait to hear it!

Unknown said...

Just a couple of things, i might have bored michael with it previously but i share his anal track rating problem and during the year i play all the four star songs to my wife and she tells me what she likes and we make a mix to send to friends/family as a christmas card. So The Cedars Two will now be distributed to sundry 40+ types in Aus for christmas.

Also a mate at work grabs all the music i have on my portable drive, rummages through it and drops the stuff he likes on his ipod. Looking through it the other day you're on his play list and i had nothing to do with it.

Thanks for the music i have enjoyed at many times during the year.

Mark

Michael said...

Hi fbs, you're welcome. Thanks for sharing our music with people. It's neat knowing that something we worked on has traveled so far away, and is spreading.

Would you believe I removed all my ratings a couple of weeks ago... these days genres make better playlists. I've got 141 in rotation, from Angolan Popular to Western Swing.

Best,
M.

Michael said...

p.s. @fbs Forgive me for taking so long to respond. Work has been hectic lately, with a hundred people laid off. I wanted to wait until I had time to think about what I said before I sat down and typed it.

Michael said...

Edit, 2009: Moved the lyrics from the body of the main post to the comments.

Here are the lyrics:



Beneath the Weeds

One night in the failing light we drew alongside the stone that was set apart for you. We turned it over and felt the clover pressed flat and pale against the earth. I thought of him, never seen again. How I told him not to look beneath the weeds.

One night three men came and searched our room. What they thought they'd find was a mystery to you. Three monsters in the clothes of men who briefly flared and failed again. Three mortal men, never seen again. How I warned them not to look beneath the weeds.

Where cicadas climb in rows, there's an opening where the cold comes rushing out beneath the weeds.


I Need a Place to Stay

The trick to seeing things in the dark is not to reach for where you think they are. Oh no, where did the fuses go?

The trick to spending time with you is that the filters let the message through. Oh no, where did my filters go?

If we come around to what the thought we ought've seen. In between what hadn't been and what might should have been. If we should have waited until things were better known, here it goes.

The key to see inside your tells is that it matters when it goes to hell. Oh hey, I need a place to stay for a while.


I Come Home to You

You are full of good advice. How did you become so wise? Where did you get the patience to let things work themselves out? While I'm busy getting all worked up, fabricating the worst. You hold me with your gentle calm. Wrap me in comfort as your arms pull the covers to my chin. Tonight you tuck my worries in.

You're a pool of reassuring calm, a pad for walls that echo everything. Did you learn to be serene, or are you just silencing?

Nothing is simple. Nothing is truly lost. On its own, the body will survive.

Then I feel your arms pull the covers to my chin. Tonight you tuck my worries in.

Every day I struggle to stay alive, struggle to keep what's hidden covered, clean, and dry. But at the end of the day I come home to you. Somehow you bring me back down, tuck my worries in.


Whatever You Say

(voice #1) Whatever you say, I'll go on and believe it. Whatever you say, I'm sure it's close enough to true. The one thing I won't believe is you have had enough of me. Whatever you say, I still love you.

If I had another chance, I would make another pass at you. What else can a brave man do?

(voice #2) Whatever you say, I cannot believe it. Whatever you say, you come off like a total fool. Get off my lawn you hairy creep before I go and call the police. Whatever you say, there is no me and you.

If I took another chance, I would make another pass at you. What else can a brave man do? I still love you.

Michael said...

Edit, 2009: Moved the lyrics from the body of the main post to the comments.


Lyrics, pt. 2 (Comments have a 4,096 Character limit)




Spring

I remember when it happened, like fiction, like movie, like fake. I told her to stop. It was sickness anyway. But she didn't come back alone. She didn't come back the same.

We made our bets as a joke, worried more about each other. We paid the price through smoke, thought we'd hold her high forever.

We wanted around her. She was so exciting. It was our show. We didn't think she'd go down. Still the same, we watched nervously as they talked her down from our ecstasy.

And it's just a token of our lust for youth to last forever.

It took seven weeks to happen. She was like a pretty song in July. Then we awoke in November. The spell was broken and the beauty was gone.


The Fire's Burning Brighter

I'm used to the unsteadiness of an ever-changing sight. Perhaps I don't remember or wasn't paying attention. During the last three emergencies I was on vacation. How do I avoid the misery? It is always such a waste of time. More than the taste of fine lines that I keep crossing over.

I can't help but hide the flames well, and no one can tell that the burning will send me straight to hell.

I could tell you these secrets, but I think you already know. So these silences between us are fire to snow. Despite every skin in my body that wraps around you now, when the fire starts it burns all alone.

So when I say the fire's burning brighter I want to jump in. The fire's burning brighter and I want to jump in.

How do I avoid burning us both? Maybe if I don't move. Maybe if I don't think. Do you think? Do you know?


Officer, Please

I see it would harm my opponent. I grant it would do me a favor. They'll take you away, sir. They'll put you away, sir.

Dawn brings no sign of the sun. A man holds a torch at the gate. I will send them away, sir. I'll send them away, sir.

This house is the eye of a storm. This world has a mind made of stone. There's no way to dial home from out in the dry zone. That sound could be a train from somewhere far away, where lights at night don't mean the end is come.

I hear the dogs. I hear the glass explode. I fear the rain has finally come. Officer, please, I thought you were there for me. My family sleeps. My family prays. Don't take them away.


Where No Man's Eyes May Go

It all turned out the same as if we'd not turned the tide. The one thing that it means: we're out of time.

Tell me where you hid your name, I'll find it. I will store it where no man's eyes may go.

Oh, I see it in the fire. I ride upon a rail. I take it down and put it all away. I have been studious. I have been so careful not to stir the cruel minds of lesser men, whose senses dulled, whose overdone exertions destroy more than they make.

Michael said...

Edit, 2009: Moved the lyrics from the body of the main post to the comments.



Lyrics, pt. 3 of 3 (Comments have a 4,096 Character limit)



Appalachia

Appalachian whisper makes my jaw ache. Three aspirin aren't enough to bring down the stakes. So I'm sleeping sad for a weekend and a half, wasting away my vacation for those Sundays in the mountains that weren't so long ago. She tried to forget about them, but Appalachia won't let go.

And the phone keeps on ringing from its cradle-bough still broken. I'm feeling so sick all of a sudden as the words impress upon my token of melancholy.

Musings of the yesterday, she thought was erased from the greedy hands of today. But all of the sudden the mountains fell in with the weekend, and she's lost in the gale and spray of those Sundays in the mountains that weren't so long ago. She tried to forget about them, but Appalachia won't let go.


Accidents (Better Than Diamonds)

The language caught in a sigh that lasted over a year got caught in the somehow thinking, and I stapled shut the edges with shoulder bones exhaling the only phrases left.

But I can still remember all the close to nothing accidents, and the days are branded with anniversaries. My dilated blackness takes it in.

So now is better than diamonds, and now is better than Christmas. The coughs reveal all the endings. I construct the rest. These are exaggerated horizons from the real life veins pushing through all circulation. Too fast, too slow.

But it's the only way to walk strong in the language of the somehow thinking that is finally starting to change the order of my memories. It's scrubbing me clean.

In the language of the somehow thinking.


Pacific

We looked at the pilot. The pilot said "We're going down." Buzzers and engines screaming, sky so hard, thunder so loud. The captain threw us a 'chute and we leapt into the clouds.

By the time we hit the Pacific we were already frozen. All we could see was a deathly grey horizon. We sat atop a wing blackened by flame. For seven days we prayed, oh how we prayed.

That was many years ago. You've never been the same. Every morning you awake with the sound of thunder in your ears. You are still grey, frozen after all these years, your soul lost in the Pacific. There's grey in your eyes, so much grey in your eyes.

It doesn't really feel like a survival, and I don't feel alive but it doesn't really matter in the Pacific.


Humor and Pale

You winked hard. I got caught in the updraft with a chill across my hand before all went gray. And I fell on the concrete. What can I say? It's just another crisis. It's just another day. Was that a gesture of understanding, lids blinking as I caught the gravel in my cheek?

What can I say? It's just another crisis. What can I say? It's just another day.

What was it I said? Sweat flowing river-skins, face clammy and gray, breath shallow and fast. Mud and rock etched into my backbone. What does that say about the state of our years? The unchanging roles of humor and pale, these unchanging roles of humor and pale.