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Post​-​Empire

by Will Stratton

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1.
You Divers 07:10
You Divers I woke, and I did not know who had spoken The sun spilled all over my floor The shades sighed in and out with the wind I rose right from the fire that had done me in Don't make false steps, you divers I don't know where you'd hide them Broken bones and high breakers Empty rooms with no takers I hope that I am alive, I am alive To see the afterlight of spring When the, the coats of arms do not rust And the, the amber women don't stop singing You are anathema To the curses I know You are not the answer You are just a way to go
2.
When You Let Your Hair Down To Your Shoulder When you let your hair down to your shoulder Call me a coward, but I'm not a fool The wind lets it loose and you let it blind you I may be lazy, but never untrue And with your gloves on above the causeway I deign to unveil you as you may desire Your hands full of packages, bound to deliver Your eyes of the coldest fire And you look at me blindly as I do As if to say that i have been wrong Well I'm only the sundial sitting I haven't moved all day or night long Maybe it's you that's been rootless and changing Always the first to call yourself ice When in fact underneath it's a basin The bottom deep out of sight
3.
Tell Me, Where Do I Begin? Tell me--where do i begin? With your lips, with your hair or with your skin? All three fall as hard as stone Into the hour of the snow Tell me--what do i see first? The scythe, the sickle, or the curse? All three come up from the ground And spread, so pretty and so brown Tell me--what comes next? Is it the hour of love or the hour of the hex? Both thaw in summer but harden in the cold It's time to let them settle, and together they'll grow old Tell me--where do I leave off? With the scythe, the sickle, or the cloth? All three replenish what is gone The aftertaste of wormwood, the ending of a song
4.
Colt New Marine You stalked along the old canal And you wiped the salt out from your eye And you said Suzanne, we'll have this child I've done no gambling in my life She began to count her debts and weep As her fingers pulled down at her ring Looking down into the clearest deep Where the piers recede into the sea And she said oh lord, I don't think you understand You may have four years on me But you'll never be a man She then disappeared from you Til the wedding in closest June When the air hangs like a gavel stuck Suspended just before it's struck You bought a Colt New Marine Like a true dramatic fool Tucked inside your jacket's seam As you shook the hand of the groom And you said oh lord, What a pleasure this has been I once knew your bride-to-be Long ago in sin
5.
Honey Diamond You're cloudy in the center, You're cut wrong on the edges You've got a dark past Of which I never ask Your color's all wrong So I got you for a song You're set in cheap metal I got you from the devil But you're a diamond, baby You're a diamond baby You're a diamond honey You're a diamond You're from a dark mine Should've took that as a sign The blood like a dress Coming off when it's wet The hand of a slave Carried to his grave Dug up by the archangel And sold to a stranger You're a diamond, baby You're a diamond baby You're a diamond honey You're a diamond I've kept you forever Here in my quiver I'll never let go Not til hell snows I bought you this way And I'll make you stay No matter the cry You'll stay til we die You're a diamond, baby You're a diamond baby You're a diamond honey You're a diamond
6.
Post-Empire 03:00
Post-Empire If you felt any less, If you felt any less, If you felt any less you'd be dead Summer is over, i swear Who knows what you see If you're underwater, get out Before you freeze
7.
At The Table of the Styx Are you the sun, or are you the moon? Shall I speak or is it too soon? When you take all the blankets when we sleep Am I the watchman at our keep, Or does anything matter to you? When you're down in sleep's dark bliss Do I play you with a kiss Or does it all fall on deaf skin When I'm awake and you're all in At the table of the Styx? Do I place a coin in your mouth As you murmur, drifting south Like Ophelia at the end Or Elaine all wrapped in linen Or do I lie and try to rest With an arm under your neck What good is stillness when you're gone? At least I can hum a song Why would I ever lie Would it be just to find myself beside you A dream half-dead? How could I ever live With the blood of a half-formed bird upon me, Draped on my head? How could I? The light, it asks to peer through So we've survived another day How could I nigh deceive you? When I'm just a broken knave? How could I?
8.
If You Wait Long Enough Don't die pretty Don't die young Just wait with me til the evening We all will have won Don't die bitter Don't die crass Just wait until the morning All will come to pass If you wait long enough If you wait long enough I remember The first time That I felt so jealous that my heart stopped on a dime Can you tell me How it feels To be so content that your heart turns like a wheel
9.
The Relatively Fair All my friends are in New York and California Trying for something big, what it is well they won't bore ya They just want to make a mark that'll stay around when they're gone All my friends are actors and musicians Myself included, man, this ain't no inquisition If there isn't beauty in a world like this then what have we got? But I don't want to wake up one morning with just a bible and a cot When I was younger I made my mother worry She said "Will, you'd better study in a hurry; You don't want to come to one day in a job that you hate" When I was younger I passed the time so slowly I had a hunger, but for what I could only Guess the root of the cause of my distractions one by one My dumb teenage heart like the surface of the sun What if every florid metaphor is running kinda thin? What if I already know how all of this is gonna end? What if all I really need is for my head to be up high Above the trenches and the vapors, the sirens and the sky I've never known you, and chances are I never will But if you hear this, know that I love you still You're the most beautiful girl, you're the bravest man there is I've never known you, but you know everything that I've known You know the balance to be struck when you're all alone There's a need to be happy and there's a need to be safe And you'd better pick one and hope that the other gets to stay But what if all you want one day's a husband or a wife Just a job, just a house, just a child, just a life Would you give up the poison call of fame to drink up the last air? Would you forsake the absolute for the relatively fair?
10.
Mercury Id Blues Hey, you found me at long last I've been pacing here all decade for you Can you feed me nice and slow Like I'll never eat again, It's true you know I've been rootless, possessed by what I can't find Now I'm useless, in love out of my mind My friends shake me and they say Don't you speak too soon, my William This might not stay But I scorn them and reply That it matters not one whit What lives and dies I've been restless, caressed by eaves so tall Now I'm bested, a trophy on a wall Will I ever have another like you? Don't you dare tell me the truth I'd rather spend the rest of my life Trying in vain to reel in that line When water is the only proof Maybe nothing can compare But I'll sit here catching nothing, There's nothing there And I'll dream here, only you Coming in and out of focus Black and blue I've been senseless Mercury on my hands I'm defenseless Against my id's demands

about

Post-Empire is Will Stratton’s fourth full-length record, and it is his subtlest and most devastating album yet. The album’s skeleton was recorded at Rare Book Room in Greenpoint, Brooklyn by Nicolas Vernhes (famed engineer for Spoon, Deerhunter, Cat Power, Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, et cetera). After laying down the basic guitar and vocal tracks there to tape in a day and a half, with one or two takes per song, Will carefully wrote out arrangements for string sextet and, after a quick rehearsal, recorded them with friends in his Red Hook, Brooklyn apartment, with three players playing two parts each. Then vocalists Amelia Meath (Sylvan Esso, Mountain Man) and Maia Friedman (BOBBY) lent their lustrous voices to several songs in between touring commitments. The result is a record that is strikingly spare and lush at the same time.

Like Will’s previous record, 2010′s hastily-recorded New Vanguard Blues, the focal point of Post-Empire is his insistent fingerstyle guitar playing, descended as much from British folk icons like Bert Jansch and Davy Graham as from American avant-gardists like John Fahey and Robbie Basho. But what sets Post-Empire apart from its predecessor is the newfound urgency to his lyrics and his singing, the increasing dissonance in his harmonic sensibility, and the dark, dense, and hovering presence of the string section. This is not exactly a folk record in the classic sense, and Stratton tries to disavow the current folk movement, but at its heart, for all its high-minded aspirations, Post-Empire runs with the mercurial American folk tradition. While some music writers may talk themselves hoarse about the dueling narratives of hype and authenticity these days, there will always be artists quietly making music impervious to buzz, telling real stories of decline, romance, hope, regret, and renewal.

credits

released March 20, 2012

Engineered by Nicolas Vernhes at Rare Book Room, and by Will Stratton at his apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Mixed by Will Stratton.
Mastered by Paul Gold at Salt Mastering.
Cover art by Jared Ragland.

Amelia Meath - vocals on 3, 8, 9
Maia Friedman - vocals on 1, 6, 7
Heather Sommerlad - violin on 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9
Cori Tolda - viola on 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9
Adele Mori - cello on 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9
Field Recording on "You Divers" by Matthew Carefully.

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Management: Simon and Abbey Raymonde (bellaunionmgmt@gmail.com)

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