Interstitials
by Joshua Stamper
-
Limited Edition Vinyl Import from Hype City
Special vinyl release from the fine people at Hype City Records.
-180-gram vinyl (only the best)
-accompanying CD (no turntable? no sweat!)
-jacket with matte finish
-beautiful inside lyric sleeve
-more fun: the vinyl is clear (as in SEE-THROUGH)
Includes immediate download of 9-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.Buy Now $17 USD or more
ships out within 7 days -
-
Digital Album
Immediate download of 9-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire. Download includes lyrics and front and back cover art.Buy Now $9 USD or more
-
Limited Edition Handmade CDR
Exclusive run of fifty. Each CDR is hand-decorated and hand-numbered, and includes front and back cover art with a space-saver vinyl sleeve. Made with love.
Includes immediate download of 9-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.Sold Out
-
1. |
||||
|
| ||||
2. |
Arbor
02:50
|
|||
|
| ||||
3. |
Incredible People
04:06
|
|||
|
| ||||
4. |
Honeychild
05:11
|
|||
|
| ||||
5. |
Smoke Signals
03:45
|
|||
|
| ||||
6. |
Interstitials
05:08
|
|||
|
| ||||
7. |
Well
04:05
|
|||
|
| ||||
8. |
Away My Sin
03:45
|
|||
9. |
Press
03:58
|
|||
|
| ||||
about
People and planets, ice and rock, husk and dust and wind; all are constantly moving, and pockets of space expand and contract and expand again. Even in the intimate clutch between one grain of sand and another, these middle places exist as universes, dynamic and unknowable.
Joshua Stamper's last album, 'Wend', was a journey along the fault lines of pattern and change. 'Interstitials', his newest work, builds on this exploration, but focuses specifically on these in-between spaces, the interstitials, that are created and changed by the movement of things and human relationships. Sometimes the tender clasp of hands might not be an adequate bridge over a chasm of emotional distance. Other times, parted lovers lean towards each other across a thousand miles of sea and shore, sensing every whispered thought of their beloved. All the while, planes paint clouds in the air while a leaf lights on the water as it slips under a bridge. The space between.
Stamper's lyrics read like pointillist paintings. At close range, individual images tremble next to each other like dots on the canvas. From a few steps back, though, a masterfully crafted world is revealed. Stamper's textured baritone, not unlike Jobim's or Sam Prekop's (The Sea and Cake), delivers both the points and the whole with unaffected clarity. Eschewing the traditional guitar-bass-drums instrumentation, 'Interstitials' employs woodwinds that speak with an expressive agility, and low brass that at times calls heraldic and at other times swaddles the listener in a warm blanket. The contrapuntal lines of each instrument flow over and away and into each other, carrying the listener through a sonic landscape that is compelling and intimate as spaces of breath are heard between phrases. Sharing the playfulness and strangeness of Robert Wyatt or the snow-hushed power of Morton Feldman, Stamper writes places into existence. The place where sharp focus meets the big picture. Interstitials.
Joshua Stamper's last album, 'Wend', was a journey along the fault lines of pattern and change. 'Interstitials', his newest work, builds on this exploration, but focuses specifically on these in-between spaces, the interstitials, that are created and changed by the movement of things and human relationships. Sometimes the tender clasp of hands might not be an adequate bridge over a chasm of emotional distance. Other times, parted lovers lean towards each other across a thousand miles of sea and shore, sensing every whispered thought of their beloved. All the while, planes paint clouds in the air while a leaf lights on the water as it slips under a bridge. The space between.
Stamper's lyrics read like pointillist paintings. At close range, individual images tremble next to each other like dots on the canvas. From a few steps back, though, a masterfully crafted world is revealed. Stamper's textured baritone, not unlike Jobim's or Sam Prekop's (The Sea and Cake), delivers both the points and the whole with unaffected clarity. Eschewing the traditional guitar-bass-drums instrumentation, 'Interstitials' employs woodwinds that speak with an expressive agility, and low brass that at times calls heraldic and at other times swaddles the listener in a warm blanket. The contrapuntal lines of each instrument flow over and away and into each other, carrying the listener through a sonic landscape that is compelling and intimate as spaces of breath are heard between phrases. Sharing the playfulness and strangeness of Robert Wyatt or the snow-hushed power of Morton Feldman, Stamper writes places into existence. The place where sharp focus meets the big picture. Interstitials.
credits
released 16 May 2011
Paul Arbogast: Low Brass
Michael Cemprola: Woodwinds
Jon Rees: Woodwinds, Celeste
Joshua Stamper: Vocals, Guitars, Compositions
Engineered by Joshua Stamper
Mixed by Brian McTear at Miner Street Recordings
'Interstitials' cover photography by W.R. Cooley
Layout by Ben Stamper
Paul Arbogast: Low Brass
Michael Cemprola: Woodwinds
Jon Rees: Woodwinds, Celeste
Joshua Stamper: Vocals, Guitars, Compositions
Engineered by Joshua Stamper
Mixed by Brian McTear at Miner Street Recordings
'Interstitials' cover photography by W.R. Cooley
Layout by Ben Stamper
tags
license
all rights reserved
feeds
feeds for discography
-
May 2011 -
Dec 2012 -
Nov 2012 -
Feb 2010 -
Aug 2007
contact / help
For help with downloads, click here.
For all other inquiries, including help with merch, click here.
Redeem download codes here.
- Track Name: Wake, Worried Sleeper, Wake
-
When the wind yawns, trash and dirt grumble in the tangled bank
Buses drift forward and a stomach tanks
Horse hooves on top of manholes
Birds dream on telephone poles
Dragonflies cough and spin and sputter through the air
When the leaf falls, it lights on the water to the naval yard
Under a stone bridge with a ceiling charred
Planes painting clouds in the air
Moons and stars sit on the stairs
Tossing their coins and wishes into the sky so blue
Wake, worried sleeper, wake
Your soured dreams it’s time to shake
Window panes shatter by the sun's gentle morning
Buildings sway as grasses in the breeze
Wake, no more old heartache - Track Name: Arbor
-
The smoothness of my palms is no match
for the the things your skin has seen...
How many baby-strollers?
winters, joggers?
foxes, poodles make their mark?
Loves declared, loves despaired?
How many pocketknives
work their way
across your countenance?
How much fickleness of wind?
How much moodiness of sun?
How many soft-footed moons have rubbed their light on your chapped skin?
How many six-legged things and green-feathered wings?
Or large-headed kids that touch you in their dreams?
For shelter from the light, the shadows to you cling
You, with your thousand arms skyward
stand.
You, with your thousand arms skyward
stand.
You, after having done all
stand.
You, in such silent adoration
stand.
You, with your thousand arms skyward - Track Name: Incredible People
-
You say to me that I am incredible.
My sweet honeybee, this flatt'ry's inedible.
'Cause that's why you love me and
That's why you want to be with me.
I play the right notes,
I smile a just-so
I cut a fine figure or dance on the hedge-row,
My words aptly smart?
My freshly flossed chops?
My rhythm's like rivers, I pull out the stops.
You say to me, that I am so beautiful.
By this lead decree, a wild bird's made dutiful.
Is that why you love me?
Is that why you want to be with me?
You polish my mirror,
The crowd is engaged.
You set me a'-sailing on top of the big stage.
But a wall of wave makes your confidence cave,
A whale named Grace has just swallowed my face.
Will you still love me when I'm no longer incredible?
Will you still want to be with me when I'm no longer so beautiful? - Track Name: Honeychild
-
When train-cars of air rattle and shake
Down tracks of branch that bear the weight
With weary protest and groaning wood-limbs bent
When engines thunder, when courage is all spent
Don’t cry, honeychild
Don’t cry, honeychild
The wind’s just yawning
Tomorrow is still dawning
and it won’t be long before the draft is down and dreaming
When at last there’s no more light to oppose
The shadows that hide behind doors, books, and clothes
Their quiet leap forward and dances so slow,
The flips and the skips, the bad dreams all in tow
Shadows will play
Still light they must obey
and it won’t be long before the dark is down and dreaming
Don’t cry, honeychild
Don’t cry, honeychild - Track Name: Smoke Signals
-
Miles, miles from here
I see you sitting on your doorstep
will you turn and see me waving from my rooftop?
Black smoke, white smoke,
carry my love...
Fire-yolk, bellow's stoke,
carry my love...
Cloud of oil, mantle of dust,
Furling cloth and faithful gust, let my love know that I am here.
Inches, inches away
I hear you dreaming of a clearing
will you breathe relief in the breeze?
Ten feet, ten feet from here
I feel you moving on the treadles
is the blanket that you weave meant for us alone to share?
Black smoke, white smoke,
carry my love...
Fire-yolk, bellow's stoke,
carry my love...
Cloud of oil, mantle of dust,
Furling cloth and faithful gust, let my love know that I am here.
Miles, miles from here you see me sitting on my doorstep will I turn and see you waving from your rooftop? - Track Name: Interstitials
-
The space between two grains of sand,
the space between the fingers on my hand,
the blade and the ice,
the drunk and his vice,
the 'if' and the 'then',
the nine and the ten,
You're the space between.
The space between the fish and the water,
the space between the ink and the blotter,
the sound and the ear,
the thrill and the fear,
the spoon and the batter,
the rock and the shatter,
You're the space between.
The space between the wings of a moth,
the space between the threads of a cloth,
the swatter and the fly,
the lid and the eye,
idea and the action,
the friction and the traction,
the open and the shut,
the shell and the nut,
the mouth and the word,
what makes sense, what's absurd,
right -on-time and just-too-late,
a choice and one's fate,
You're the space between. - Track Name: Well
-
Litter lifted through
town and river, desert and glen
Bears my sea-sick soul,
time is waning for wounds to mend,
to round the bend...
Shipmen raise the sails
Stale starlight offers a course
See the moon beneath lapping waves that hide its remorse,
the wind has gone hoarse.
Take me down,
down, oh the light is leaking from this room
While the stones rise to the sky
the walls are getting taller.
Needles swing through holes
born by, crushed by fingers and thread.
Stretched from end to end,
hands are fisted, new twine is spread,
strands newly wed...
Take me down,
down, oh the light is leaking from this room
While the stones rise to the sky
the walls are getting taller.
Is this rope strong enough to hold my frame?
With the weight of secrets claimed? - Track Name: Press
-
Paper
Flower
Paper
Weight
Five strong men strong stock
Pad lock pressure cook
Closed book
All is still till the ground is tilled and
The story takes its windy root
Battles waged along stem and petal
Damsels saved on fragile nettles
You are
Pressed in, pressed out, pressed up, press down
Paper flower, do you lean towards the sun in that world too?
Tiny planets tiny moons
Bull whippoorwill wind
Thick-skinned nonstop
Flip-flop
All’s a’flutter as a whisper’s uttered and
The atoms take their windy route
Sound and heat pass from one to the other like
Beauty transferred to daughter from mother
You are
Pressed in, pressed out, pressed up, pressed down
Your eye has grown cloudy, her vision now clearer
Your gray hair discovers her fair head’s sun nearer
The scars on your hips made the newborn’s sweet yawn
Your life is erased, her full breath is drawn
You place your grace with care into the tree
And the glory takes its windy route
Pressed in (good measure)
Pressed out (shaken)
Pressed up (running over)
Pressed down (poured into you)
It was morning in heaven and we all knew where we were.
