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A Mouth May Grow

by red steppes

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1.
Ashton 04:11
Ashton, for once go taste your own strong salt go touch the crowded tongues of mustard go kiss the cormorant bones but don't hold me; my hands can't offer help Go find a frame where I am not the only thing in which you see yourself Ashton, you wrap yourself up in that nice brown bag You squint into that amber spyglass, and you spot steadier land where I see stars above the softest marsh's mud If you can stand there you'll be proud, but if you can't what passing hand will pull you up? Underneath the sacks of seed and bags of sallow hay up comes the cattail reed Up comes the bottom of the bay Go sew your broken teeth between the rows of overwatered wheat A mouth may grow, though the field lays fallow. Ashton, what billows at your front porch now? If that's your white shirt on the fishing wire I will not cut it down I won't hold you - I cannot keep you still The wind's been chewing and the sun's slight ribs and now it's getting at you, too.
2.
Solemn Bird 03:55
Come down from your ghostly perch silver poplar, and congress of birch Solemn bird, come down Be a man who will not be cowed a man with soft hands and a rubbery mouth When one branch of the birch must be bowed allow one banch to be bent, and one to be proud. I take my sip from the fissured bell I take what hits I can, and I raise my hell Only time will tell which is free. You take your sip from the lion's maw You peck at his black lip, and you steal his barbed tongue See what strange, strange harm a small bird has done. Be a man who will not be feared with a nest in your great russet beard with a flush on your chest, and fierce cheer and soft flesh where a feather once reared Oh, my dear be near Bear away your gifts and your body of half-baked clay Bear away your bottles of whistling beer I am only a slip of myself just yet you are only a faint frontier.
3.
You weren't much just dust swirling in your car smoke on my mother's porch and your flippant heart I don't know you I did not count your grey hairs I cannot say you'll die before you hit sixty five though you're likely to Oh, I was caught in some long summer gone black-eyed from borrowing your steam So I lose myself sometimes but I'm not unredeemed I envy them: your hands, and the space they span the attention that they demand and do not seem to mind But you curse and fold just as autumn is crawling in Still, what rampages eastward, wet and slickly red won't make you bold Oh, I was caught in some long summer gone black-eyed from borrowing your steam So I lose myself sometimes but I'm not unredeemed I pace low lately, in this box with its windows barred a big cat in a circus cart, sleepless nextdoor for the gallery But do your neighbours know about the crowding of aborted scales the vanished signal in the static space of interstates and your loud, loud voice? Oh, I was caught in some long summer gone black-eyed from borrowing your steam So I lose myself sometimes but I'm not unredeemed
4.
Bixby 04:15
You lay your belly on the stone You put your face down in the water You wore my eyes, you wore your grandfather's sweatshirt You wore that winter light as if it were a hood You hung your head out like a dog you drove the heat from me, you hollered I turned the cliff I turned my cold collar upward You turned your lips to see your teeth bared to the wind But send no call to cover me no postman, and no pale grey gull no road to the bridge above Bixby In our aimlessness, we are faded In our nights, man, we are all our own And January is a joke January is a fever Your feet were cold, your faith could not be recovered You bought me for a square of chocolate and a poem I broke the turnstile and the phone I broke the mouth of copper wire I ate the basin with its clandestine orchard I took your face in both my hands and watched it fall But send no call to cover me no postman, and no pale grey gull no road to the bridge above Bixby In our aimlessness, we are faded In our nights, man, we are all our own And we have both been castaways but you're not sinking in these shallows I am not letting go, and I do not agree to follow you down You bear that heavy load; I am prepared to hear it now But send no call to comfort me Come quiet, or come not at all by the road to the bridge above Bixby On the face of it nothing's fated but in the nights, man, we are right where we belong
5.
As all those houses falling waterward, I fell with your back to the hills, with your clothing all filthy standing terribly still Like a child just barely old enough to see that she won't long be young I saw it, but I did not know it, so I did not speak it And I woke wrapped in your riding jacket with a mouth full of sand with a throat full of furtive sadness Like a widow startled by some strange resemblance I saw you, but I did not know you, so I did not speak it One lost postcard from high country: Does it master me? Am I captive trading an honest thing for more silence? And I drove down to your dry white city with no place to call home I was drawn past your door โ€“ I was drawn on and on and on As if convinced by one small loss that all that's gained comes at great cost I called you, but I could not reach you so I did not speak it
6.
I tried to count the bluejays my father shot their tiny wars of ceaseless noise against his pellet gun I was twelve they were jumpers to be caught: brothers of my heart Like them, I'd die before I stopped And I had hoped I was a liar, not a fake that I could take this name without taking its place That I would be bold: bald-faced as fickle snow, and stony roads that told you they would lead you home They told you they would lead you home I am just this: sullen, and stateless just this artless thrumming just this howling I do in the dark "Song is nothing but a bully," says my love. "It takes your money. It'll take all of your trust and wake your polaroids, and whittle down your poplar chest and make you a real boy, with a bruise bloomed in your bonfire ribs. I've got a bruise, too; I am proof that you get used to it." I am just this: sullen, and stateless nothing but this artless thrumming just this howling I do in the dark.
7.
Go with old Impatiens, bursting coiled and green with your brothers bruised like summer pale petals on your cheeks Go, and take your quick words with you teach me nothing more Sweet, your brothers went and brought you a slow, barbed snail But what's that happy scent they caught you? What in god's name is that smell? Iron swimming on your shins in old mosquito swells teach me nothing else Your whip your whistle your history of hot needles: can I cast them off? Can I - can I - can I go? And can I please be brave? And can I treat these comforts (like pepper, like all sharper things) as a trade? I'll raze our house and wave the dust away But give me just one dripping plum, give me a July bath and I will drag my tongue down every surface and each salty back And I will let you plunder no good ground again but give me what I had my whip my whistle my history of hot needles and I will cast them off I will go
8.
Bodie 04:35
Goodbye, god; I'm going to Bodie to lie down in sage and hard, dry snow It's bright, god, in Bodie: those wide streets do not bask in your shadowv Goodbye, god; I'll marry a miner and lie down and bear him a miner's son A child, god, of silver hills high on thin air and pale bottled poppy Black mouth, ready mountain carry me home by the bad road Half-grown, bitter water in the ground carry me home, carry on Goodbye, god; the parish has been emptied and I cannot find its flock They've all gone away, god or they've gone beneath the rock Goodbye, god; the wind has grown peckish here It bites hard, chews your lips and it chaps your ragged ears I'll walk on, god, to the valley where your bones are bared where the tall salt towers, and the water repairs Black mouth, ready mountain carry me home by the bad road Half-grown, bitter water in the ground carry me home, carry on Don't bury me where the parish has been emptied and I cannot find its flock They've all gone away, god or they've gone beneath the rock
9.
Big Desire 03:42
Do you remember Pescadero? Sunflower men outside the county store they spit their seed out. They spit it so far And in the boneyard of St. Anthony, behind the town you wished for one of them sunflower men to lay you dow and he laid you down Now all your dates are at the deli He plugs your belly with his country fare but it won't fill you up; you've got to go somewhere And you've been thinking about the city, with its million eyes You'd think a million more might do you well well, you'd be surprised I could sleep soft in your kitchen like the kettle whistling far too long like the hat hung on your door knob or the radio that's never on So I'll be driving up to Albion a thousand faces in a plunging bay someone must love them all - someone must know their names And they will sleep soft in their kitchens and their parlors they will sleep soft in their river soil, and go back home
10.
Son, tell your feet tell your feet not to hurry Let them be; let them season like pine and blue columbine Let them lie Son, tell your hands tell your hands they're too heavy How they carry the air as if air were a stone or a spear Let them spare me my only heart Fill your breast like a beaten hull or take the metal off: silver, bronxe, or tin, or gold, or cold cold copper to cover what you ought not You'll have your turn Have no thirst but your brother's Pass the urn and the earthenware cup when the first's had enough you'll have some But have no pride have no pride but what's offered How you rise form the wine as if wine were his shield or his shrine How you shy from him you shy from my only heart Fill your breast like a beaten hull or take the metal off: silver, bronxe, or tin, or gold, or cold cold copper to cover what you ought not You'll have my ways and the face of my father and the trace of my hand in your hide where he laid his own line down on me
11.
Thought I saw the stag's head pinned high on the blue gum tree just a broken bough, a torn t-shirt tied round the leaves I came home all thistled, with deep purple knees; I was tired to the bone An outside cat will still come home, if it's cold And if it don't come back, kid it's just that home is wherever the light goes Cap the bottle's whisper and catch the water's cough Tear this cotton dress away from me, take your coat off moss'll make a bed on the slippery rock when you're tired to the bone You drink your whiskey - I will drink my thistle milk from the bowl of that belly I know we both ought to try harder to fill Who will climb the slope of that green mosquito hill? Who will sleep in that soft grass again? Who will swell like a red, red fruit, and let the land have its kill? When you're tired to the bone you will

about

"A Mouth May Grow" is the first full length album from red steppes on Native Cat Recordings. Helmed by songwriter and photographer Nika Aila States, recorded and mixed to tape at Tiny Telephone in Northern California, the music draws its aesthetic language from the bounded period of long days and evenings in the studio and from the generous imitations of analog tape.

The songs move through mapped points on the Western coast of the US, explore growth and decay, and interrogate narrative tropes surrounding love, gender, and industry. State's wider artistic practice as a visual artist makes its mark as well, in imagery that nods to a yearning for a sense of place, the positioning of botany and landscape as teacher and translator, and the pregnant silence of uninhabited spaces.

"A Mouth May Grow" pairs each song with a 35mm photograph of the space which informed and framed its music and lyrics. The salt marshes of Alviso - at the terminus of the concrete-bound Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek - features twice. The regional parks east of Oakland provide grounding for an inquiry into sex and morbidity, and Bodie - the site of a ghost town high in the eastern Sierras - asks questions about religion, dislocation, gender, and decay. In the fine details of common weeds, in barred windows, and small-town cemeteries, the songs watch as much as they speak.

www.nativecatrecordings.com

credits

released May 11, 2018

All songs written by Nika Aila States. Co-produced by Nika Aila States
Engineered and co-produced by Jamie Riotto. Mixed by Jamie Riotto.
Mastered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service.

Nika Aila States: Vox and guitars:
Jamie Riotto: bass, synths
Rob Shelton: keys
Andrew Maguire: percussion, mallets
Teddy Rankin Parker: cello
Ben Goldberg: clarinets
Owen Adair Kelley: electric guitar on "I Did Not Speak"
Jason Slota: percussion on "I Did Not Speak It"
Mateo Lugo: guitars on "Bixby," slide/electric guitar on "Ashton"

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red steppes Oakland, California

red steppes is a project by Californian songwriter and visual artist Nika Aila States.

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