The Earthly Frames

The Earthly Frames

Light Reading

Light Reading
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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. 

Track Listing:

    A Doorbell for Finite Beings, 03:34

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
    Watch the video
    Notes

    Read the debut video coverage on Sub-Stream Magazine.

    Lyrics

    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

  1. A Doorbell for Finite Beings

    2. Underrepresented Harmonics, 03:34

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
    Lyrics

    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.

  2. Underrepresented Harmonics

    3. She Waits For Yesterday, 03:33

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
    Watch the video
    Lyrics

    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

  3. She Waits For Yesterday

    4. The Imagined Lives of Shirley Kudirka, 03:13

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
    Lyrics

    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

  4. The Imagined Lives of Shirley Kudirka

    5. Dismantling Ubiquitous Monitoring Systems, 02:41

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
    Lyrics

    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

  5. Dismantling Ubiquitous Monitoring Systems

    6. The Architectural Mnemonics of M. Nodisks, 02:11

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
  6. The Architectural Mnemonics of M. Nodisks

    7. End Timed Family, 02:50

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
    Lyrics

    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.

  7. End Timed Family

    8. A Teleological Wind, 03:08

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
    Notes

    Rainbow Man, indeed.

    Lyrics

    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

  8. A Teleological Wind

    9. A Dark Years History, 02:42

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
    Lyrics

    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

  9. A Dark Years History

    10. Getting Started in Tempography, 02:42

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
  10. Getting Started in Tempography

    11. Eye on Ghost Singers, 03:12

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
    Lyrics

    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

  11. Eye on Ghost Singers

    12. Time Moving in Light, 04:11

    Listen: Bandcamp Apple Music
  12. Time Moving in Light