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Scrimshaw

by Nels Andrews

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1.
Tridents 04:53
The night was abandoned, but for thieves and stars thieves and stars and abandon i slept your graces and dreamed the bars falling dreams of soft landings I laid eyes on oceans, with deserts still in my hair I walked from the bowery, to above the tree line Boys will be boys girls will be wise let the streets take the soldier’s names we’ll keep the skies out past the break, the sharks are patient the sharks, they swim patiently beyond the waves brave boys stand with sand on their ankles sand on their ankles and tridents raised we stab at a beast from six fathoms under for fortune, for glory, for fame the tailor trusts the thread and the needle the thread, the needle and the hand of the cloth ignoring the passing fancy of fashion the fancy of fashion is food for the moth ‘cousin, your coat,’ the wild wolf told me ‘can’t cover your collar and chain’ and then when you rise you’re back on the pavement, your hands in your pockets digging for heat knowing words once they’re sung, bare the rungs of tall timber and fell little redwoods on ludlow street
2.
Starboard 04:10
by the time you finally came undone it was there with the family and everyone in the the tattered backseat of a swedish sedan dried foam yellowed your nervous hand dried foam yellowed your nervous hand too tall for the playground, but not too young you’d mixed robotussin and malibu rum kicked your feet, the moon rose and fell horses on a carousel horses on a carousel you come home ragged and you come home curt we can smell the city on your your shirt by the length of your hem and your torn lapel we see you’ve been sinking in the wishing well an army of butterflies in a bushwick loft playing swiss family robinson, little boy lost he courted you there like a bowerbird but you could not break him from the herd you could not break him from the herd you come home ragged and you come home curt we can smell the city on your your shirt by the length of your hem and your torn lapel we see you’ve been sinking in the wishing well Caught between the shore and sea you broke your stroke to laugh your clothes outgrown, but you cant go home and you are neither kitt nor calf follow the sliver fish upstream wake up portside of a starboard dream bewildered, you’d have never known the curb could cause such vertigo
3.
oh sweet william is it true you’d sung? rhyming couplets in foreign tongues? and drank dry the fortunes of banker’s sons in the el farol bar “i skipped songs on the river there I grew long, then cut off my hair found that love wasn’t really fair, and real beauty is wild” a poet in exile and gentleman’s crest? unsung, un-knighted, and un-repressed? how you charmed your muse to the little death, and a helium sigh “i let her play actress, i let her play queen strangers could really be anything when borders make amber of the warmest dreams and the prettiest scars” sons and lovers send letters home? ships in bottles from messages grown? how the wind shed the skin of that boy you’d known, and annealed a new man “i poached sheep with a bowie knife wrecked el camino’s and socialites, jumped blind at the fence, thinking sure i’d find we’ll all land somewhere in time” barroom bards and river stones don’t shine so bright, when you get them home 3x come greet the dawn then with me and mine, who sing of dead kings and compromise poor sweet william, all full of wine on your kitchen floor
4.
Did you go off the deep end, or fire island for the weekend? to worry your wounds in jade oceans and gin still glossy the faces, on the eight by tens, and vases are blanketed with plaster that once blanketed the wall so goodbye to brando, marilyn in scandal You’ll always be the dutchess of carnegie hall small victories are back and white on the big screen well lit, and well cast so take your time go slow and easy on me i’ve got a porcelain past a bungalow on fairfax interior, lit for the second act was over before you ever even hit the stage wine-eyed and wanting blue sky blondes fawning for a way to live forever, then slip away young Heartbroke, Gold dug we find you ashing on a silk rug having chosen no favorites , for you’d loved them all
5.
Flotsam 05:14
here are no shadows in a house of the sun for driftwood or flotsam to feel shame and run live in a tradesman van out on route one there are no shadows in a house of the sun bottle the solitude of the canopied air sell it in sideshows and traveling fairs saying “drink this and sleepwalk through times square” bottle the solitude of the canopied air That’s true enough for the hopeless heat seekers How are the skeptics the true believers? let the wee little beasties charm all their pleasers and leave the romantics alone and leave the romantics alone I watch the wanderer lower his defense, offer his name in the past and present tense she’s coiled like a library cat on the fence i watch the wanderer lower his defense Lets have a round for the women of troy Who sent us off men, and we came home boys They set fire to the fleet, and smashed all the toys Let’s have a round for the women of troy
6.
Houdini 03:59
all the money from the bucket is wine but I will save my softest song for the hollow of the platform calm after the train has gone There’s still Jersey on your tongue that twists so fine and silver “the west wind will bring me home, and knot tassles in your hair” fireworks over a frozen lake far from laying lovers’ skies when houdini slips from your sheets she wont say goodbye In the end the irons fell, does all your magic need the curtain? Does avery trunk trick need applause? will daylight break the spell? In a dark room music played from accordions hung in cages to the spirits there i begged, for what no earthly means could hold you’ll never tell of the trapdoor in my sweetest little lie when houdini... naked, freckled, fair, we shivered by the rio grande you and and my alphabet snare, held tightly in each hand anglers and conjurers know the tackle and creel but footlit was the rose for the one that got away the seine i laid for your bedclothes washed up pretty, and empty, and wry.. when houdini slips from your sheets she won’t say goodbye
7.
three old hermits took the air by a cold and desolate sea the first was muttering a prayer the second rummaged for a flea; on a windy stone, the third, giddy with his hundredth year, sang unnoticed like a bird la la la la la la “Though the door of death is near and what waits behind the door, three times in a single day I slept upright on the shore” so the first but now the second, “We’re given but what we’ve earned so it’s plain to be discerned” la la la la la la “That the shades of holy men who have failed being weak of will, pass the door of birth again and are plagued by crowds until they have the passion to escape.” moaned the other, “they are thrown into some most fearful shape.” but the second mocked his moan: “They are not chained to anything having loved God once, but maybe, to a poet or a king or some witty lovely lady.” he caught and cracked his flea, the third, giddy with his hundredth bird, sang unnoticed like a bird la la la la la la
8.
you knew it by weight but its shape was sand it trembled in the quiver but was calm in your hand your words flew feathered, true and fair the way some black birds take to air you’d been childlike you’d been lied to I was warned but moved too slow I held arrows of Joy and Sorrow but I could not bend (string) the bow not another last call not another lost year there is a fawn asleep on the lawn so sharpen your darts and come finish him dear come you cowards with poison rush in fools, cape, and blade me, i’ll do it slow young wine,and old songs and these plans that we’d made I listened to the moans of couples entwined hidden by the brick and the balcony vine so i didn’t see who, but i knew how There grew weeds in the garden of the wedding vow they were childlike they were lied to we were warned but moved too slow we held arrows of joy and sorrow but we could not bend the bow I heard the heart of a shuttering deer There beneath the deck, saw his moth’s wing ear as he jumped bound through the garden, the leaves unpiled past the manicured yard, to where the woods go wild
9.
Wisteria 05:27
i will be brownstone you be wisteria, you’ll make me rush in the spring time close as you’ve grown to me you’ll stay mysterious the butterfly lash of a new vine there in the morning sun, up where the blossoms were you’d cling to me , shuttle woven and gossamer you could make a pigeon coo a meadowlark’s song when i was the creekbed and you were still wilderness caught in the cuff of a morning coat then sprung from the cobblestone until couples in evening dress swooned oakmoss and amber around your throat streets of a certain age grow thin from the tireless feet what do they want? , im only east 7th street then you’ll be the the brown stone and ill be wisteria you’ll pick me up when our autumn falls softened by chandelier and ever ethereal memories in oils on our walls goodbye new amsterdam there where our memories hung for we may be old, but the night and the world are young

about

"In the 1800s, whaling voyages would last 3 years or longer; several weeks, sometimes months, could pass between Whale sightings, This gave the whalers a great deal more free time than other sailors of the day. Manuscripts were penned, and finely crafted stories were told in thin line on bone. I imagine it was the romantics, if forced to sea, who would take to whaling, finding somewhere to occasionally oust their courage between long bouts of contemplation, and rum. They probably also liked the rum." Nels Andrews, 2012

"These songs were written last year, when i stayed home for a while, splitting my days between working as a chauffeur in Manhattan and watching my infant son grow into a toddler in and around our brooklyn apartment. At night, while he slept, I culled the fragments of my days, and let them sift and blend with everything blurring past me each day on the street. The city felt so full of movement and ambition at a time in my life which felt decidedly (or at least relatively) not. I tried to boil it all down for this album, these little scrimshawed stories."

This is the third studio album from singer/songwriter Nels Andrews, with songs largely set in and around New York City, (his most recent roost since Albuquerque) until he found himself living in coastal California last summer. Scrimshaw is a masterful and organic progression from his 2008 Off Track Betting. It is as if he took the muscular strength of the songs from his first album, Sunday Shoes, and blended this with the sonic range and artful instrumentation that made Off Track Betting rise from the ranks of most singer/songwriters. Nels has kept true to his folk roots, foremost he is here to tell you a story. As always, his voice is warm and captivates you, melodies hanging in your ears long after the songs end, but in Scrimshaw we can also hear the echoes of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and the influence of Ziggy Stardust era David Bowie in his writing. In "Barroom Bards" Nels suggests the textures of the San Jorocho music he's been hearing lately on the Mexican radio airwaves floating up from Los Angeles. "Wisteria" is a love story from the point of view of a flowering vine that has climbed up the front of a lower east side brownstone for a century. "Small Victories" tells the story of a bohemian enclave being evicted from the apartments hidden above Carnegie Hall. "Three Hermits" a co write with WB Yeats. "Tridents", "Starboard", "Lost Year" and "Houdini" are all tales of different sorts of love and ambition, intimate glimpses of characters orbiting a city that won't rest.

The basics tracks of Scrimshaw were captured at Brooklyn Recording in NY, (non intentionally overlooking the naval docks). Very glad for the return of Todd Sickafoose (Tiny Resistors, Ani DiFranco, Anais Mitchell, Yoko Ono, Andrew Bird) for the production and mixing, and a grand tapestry including my touring band (Jonathan Goldberger and Brandon Seabrook) and wildly talented friends from all over the country .

credits

released May 14, 2018

Produced and arranged by Todd Sickafoose.
Recorded by Andy Taub at Brooklyn Recording and Todd Sickafoose at Earycanal.
Additional recording by Jonathan Goldberger at Downhome Studios. 
Mixed by Todd Sickafoose at Earycanal.
Mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music. 

Todd Sickafoose acoustic bass, piano, pump organ
Nels Andrews guitars, vocals, shruti box 
Jonathan Goldberger Electric  and 12 string guitars (Tiny Resistors Red Baraat)
Adam Levy Electric Guitars (Tiny Resistors, Norah Jones, Tracy Chapman)
Brandon Seabrook  Tenor Banjo, Mandolin acoustic guitar (Peter Evans, Mark Ribot, Trevor Dunn)
Rich Hinman Pedal steel (Ben Kweller, Rosanne Cash)
Ben Perowsky Drums (tracks 1-5 & 9)  (John Zorn, Joan As Policewoman, John Cale)
Andrew Borger Drums, percussion (Tom Waits, Chuck Prophet, Tin Hat Trio)
Savanna Jo Lack Violin
Nuala Kennedy vocals, Flute  (Will Oldam, Gerry O Conner, Kris Drever)
Aj Roach vocals
Raina Rose vocals
Anthony Da Costa Vocals
John Elliot Vocals
Ian Thomas Parks Vocals

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Nels Andrews Santa Cruz, California

He skillfully combines the supernatural, the natural, the beautiful, the wistful, with a subtle sense of magic and mystery. It has a slightly psychedelic lingering nod to the sixties and the era of alternative, artistic living; a kind of ‘On The Road’ Nels Andrews style” Julie Williams-Nash, Folk & Tumble , IRL ... more

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