On Light Reading, The Earthly Frames second full-length, Walsh’s powers of sonic and narrative fuckery are in their prime. The album follows the format of an imagined reading list. There's a corresponding song for each obtuse-sounding book. Titles such as “A Doorbell for Finite Beings” or “Dismantling Ubiquitous Monitoring Systems” offer glimpses into a parallel universe with exotic, yet obsolete, technology. With each track, we hover briefly into the lonely worlds of ghost singers, failed philosophers, and dead ideas. It's a pile of books no one will ever read - a minority report filed away and forgotten. And yet, with Light Reading, The Earthly Frames remind us that knowledge, the reality we don't throw away, is indeed the power.
Block the left side
from the right side
by lifting the door
Usher the cold
Usher the heat
don’t even the score
I’ve been watching, I’ve been tracking
I’ve tried to tell you that something was lacking
Let it come through, let it come through
Was that your doorman, I passed down the block?
Can you text him I’m coming? Leave the keys in the box
Or maybe tomorrow, I’ve lost track of the time
It won’t take long sorting your stuff from mine
Block the right side
from the left side
don’t let them through
Usher the heat
Usher the cold
We’re gonna split them in two
Found an old photo, while I was cleaning up
It’s still flowing, from when you spilled the cup
Miscalculations from being so close up
I’ve been watching, I’ve been tracking
I’ve tried to tell you that something was lacking
Let them come through, let me come through
It’s not too loud, it’s merely deafening,
the way the straight and narrow fall and send the past trembling
The frogs, the lobsters they do venerate
they will burn too, no more ash heap for them to renovate
Tall, white columns topple down most every day. I’d like nothing more than to just get out of the way.
The barricades are open, sand lies under stone. When you forge the world anew, you’re next in line to dethrone.
There’s poison in the cradles, jet fighters in the lake. So go now and tear up fables, just don’t take the bait.
Goodbye, good luck my darling, don’t forget your secret mission. Don’t panic when the process is starting, prepare yourself for superposition.
Now, settle down your sensor membrane.
I think you know this venture’s insane and the pleasure stream won’t broadcast for long.
See, time won’t let you center-maintain
Dispensing lives like St. Germain
The future is present, now it’s your rite to wrong.
Again this time
Again aligned to fall
This is the way the arrow stalls
Again this time
Again aligned to fall
This is the way the sleeper recalls
I know it’s late, Kate, but you can’t hesitate
You can’t go where they stray, you have to wait for yesterday.
Decoherence!
Again this time
Again aligned to fall
This is the way the hero grows small
She’s okay with the way she looks.
She’s disappointed by the second hook.
What she wrote, it’s okay, but it’s never going to make a careful listener’s day.
She’s okay with the way it feels.
She’s not surprised when he makes her kneel.
Left alone a while, now to remember why she even liked his little, turgid smile
See her looking with her eyes closed.
See her looking like nobody knows
that the movie was better than the book,
It’s worse than it looks
She’s okay with the way sounds
Purple vinyl spinning round and round
Autographed, “To under hood” not sure she ever really understood.
See her looking with her eyes closed.
See her looking like nobody knows
that the movie was better than the book,
its meaning something we all mistook
Your drone took out half the block and our drummer! Revenge, excess? Oh, what rock have you been living under?
Release, Repeat, Reverse, Delete
This place is filled with spray-on spies,
that pretty face ain’t hard to recognize
I think you think that now you’ve got our number. But while you filed it all away we’ve traced you to your bunker
This place is filled with spray-on spies,
that pretty face to hard to disguise
Elsewhere, a foam soldier shakes a leg
at a hundred-million critical masses
Begging little wanderers, please, to come home
I have a twin sister operating from a railway
at the apex of a foreign structure.
You shall see nothing more satisfactory than
when they are inclined to do so.
Farthest blue of the sky is weighted down by the sun. Each day’s close brings some token of yours, pushed to the shore and attacking the sand.
There’s Mr. Wind
He’s at it again
There’s Mr. Sky
making sure you don’t fly
There’s Mr. Sun
what’s done can’t be undone
I’ve rearranged
the cause and the effect
Assigning you names
my little world will stay in check
A calcified tale
you all must respect
You can’t hide the nail from the architect
There’s Mr. Wind
He’s at it again
There’s Mr. Moon
leaving so soon
There’s Mr. Sun
He knows he’s won
And the winner takes it all
till the other stars fall
I’ve rearranged
the sound and the sight,
the bellow and the wind,
the torch and the light
At your earliest convenience
I’ll accept your banishment
Sitting in the dark, waiting
hoping you’ll appear
Sitting in the dark, waiting
above the atmosphere
Sitting in the dark, waiting
for years and years and years
Sitting in the dark, waiting
until it’s very clear
Sitting in the dark, waiting
for two light years
Sitting in the dark, waiting
until you volunteer
Sitting in the dark, waiting
until I persevere
Sitting in the dark, waiting
until I disappear
Bill and I took in the late show to hear my voice come out of you.
Outside the theater there’s a fault line.
We could sink before our song is through.
Tomorrow I’m singing at a christening.
You know there’s no dancers in the pew.
You never came to lunch last Monday.
That setting’s still sitting there unused.
Here’s Sid ringing about a dubbing.
Needed me for Mitzi, I said he was confused.
Everyone knows I only work for you now,
’till there’s no more voice to be removed