4/24/2009

Funnel

Funnel is the new e.p. by the Cedars Two, four songs arranged for violin, viola, 'cello and voices. It was recorded March-April 2009, here in our home. All string arrangements are by Jennifer.



Tracks:
If You Don't, I Do
The World We Knew
Animals (Give Him a Title)
New Pacific

Running time: 9:38


This .m3u plays a stream of the album.

This .zip contains the entire album as VBR V1 .mp3.

If you would prefer to download the songs individually in FLAC or mp3 format, and for a large version of the album art, please see this entry at archive.org.


I like thinking of it as one of those 33rpm 7" records with two songs on each side. This strings-only style is something I've wanted to do for a very long time. Thanks to Jennifer for indulging the idea, and for arranging and recording the strings.

As always, thank you for your listening time.

3 comments:

Michael said...

Here are the lyrics:




If You Don't, I Do
My, my heart what have we done? Our hidden thoughts are now known to anyone. I know what this means. If you don't, I do.



The World We Knew
We chose to go, and you agreed with me. Voices rising. The whippoorwill's eyrie in the gully where we found a reason to take both our hands, rising.

The world we knew, admit it. The world we knew has gone away. A wave collapse in a vacuum. We can show our hope holds over us, hid from us.

The years they go the same place they have come from.



Animals
Thin the crowd. Sling the cash around. We're taking a high road all the way down. The only ones who'll know us when we're done, their ghosts alongside us open their mouths and crow.

Take him down. Give the man a shroud and give him a title. Remaining friends, we will not forget what led him to find us.

Our eyes, our hands, what separates a man from animals is all we have to give. Our eyes, our hands, what separates a man from animals is all there really is.



New Pacific
Tell the preacher leave it at the altar. Tell him let my gravestone say "This is what he sort of wanted, thanks."

Tell my friends they were always with me. There could be no better place. Soon, they'll see me free and face-to-face.

There's shade in the light. So much shade in the light.

tjd9 said...

I'm playing it now. It sounds good!

Thanks - Tom

Michael said...

Hi Tom, thanks. Earlier, I replied to your comment, but I deleted that hasty comment so I could say what I meant to say better.

It's good to get some feedback on this record. This is the direction I want the band to go from now on, but I could not persuade the rest of the band that this is a good idea. Conventional folk music has not been interesting to me for a very long time, so I have stopped working on music altogether since this record.

Of the half-dozen people who like this band, you're the first to have remarked on this record. It is what John Darnielle called "the ocean of silence" back in the cassette days. This is, of course, fine. This one is my own little vanity record to listen to when I want to be self-indulgent. If anyone else likes it, that is good as well. Humor me, but sometimes I like to think this one is in the ground between "The Black Rider" by Tom Waits and "The Final Cut" by Pink Floyd, although the song "Give Him a Title" kind of came out sounding like Tool.

My only complaint about the record is that it is too short. And there is one word in the lyrics that I wish I hadn't used. Other than that, this is just what I wanted.