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Our Ears Are In Excellent Condition

by Merz

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1.
..a man got into the carriage and began to play on a fiddle made apparently of an old blacking-box....the sounds filled me with the strangest emotion. I seemed to hear a voice of lamentation out of The Golden Age. It told me that we are imperfect, incomplete, and no more like a beautiful woven web, but like a bundle of cords knotted together and flung into a corner. It said that the world was once all perfect and kindly, and that still the kindly and perfect world existed, but buried like a mass of roses under many spadefuls of earth....the more innocent of the spirits dwelt within it, and lamented over our fallen world in the lamentation of the wind-tossed reeds, in the song of the birds, in the moan of the waves, and in the sweet cry of the fiddle. It said that with us the beautiful are not clever and the clever are not beautiful, and that the best of our moments are marred by a little vulgarity, or by a pin-prick out of sad recollection, and that the fiddle must ever lament about it all. It said that if only they who live in The Golden Age could die we might be happy, for the sad voices would be still; but alas! alas! they must sing and we must weep until the Eternal gates swing open. — W. B. Yeats, "The Golden Age"
2.
There’s always some damn dog barking somewhere Those creatures are no neighbour’s best friend And the television aerials stand up like stalks on a lake The kids start up their cars with a roar And drive down the street ‘til three in the morn’ The world’s full of opportunity when will they ever learn The TV once portal now mirror All the merchants of doom on the news overload The canal is lined with fishermen chattering into cell phones These houses expand like concertinas Wheezing out a one-key tune If you go off the beaten track you will always come back with a story I’m going off the beaten track; somewhere out there is my story No kind open arms just disorderly brides No chewing of the fat just a few brief lines I could walk for miles and find no bells left to chime And the sky is a Tupperware grey The morning offers no welcome just grey It’s hard to find things sensual on just another UK day If you park in the wrong place you start a war Come back home find a note through your door The walls back on to walls and roads and the roads join up with roads The walls back on to walls and roads and the roads join up with roads.
3.
Cover me in dust and dusk and dreams Each unconscious night Is an adventure, a horror Of love and lust and grief Dear ghost Waverer You’re invisible now In a dream Invisible now The sound of the bell Leaving the bell It’s a grievous, mysterious affliction We fall like fruit from a deathless tree The sound of the bell Leaving the bell Unconscious world When they’re asleep Everlasting When they’re asleep Love everlasting Bell leaving the bell Ghost leaving the ghost Wavering
4.
in this warmth an engine grows silent talk that soothes my soul for it's a motor of emotion strum strengthened by devotion every day in this warmth an engine grows that fuel of yours drives me back home honey in the hive it is water from the skies it is what i need to keep rolling on these pistons have been working overtime all my life soon to be idle will i never find you folded in my warm arms in this warmth an engine grows i pray for strength in this trashed world strengthening my engine heart so it cannot be torn apart every day
5.
Darkness scorns the fallen light The troubled son greets love with spite And these well-worn tragedies Are the sombre ways of beauty’s decree When the shrew leaves the long grass He’s caught in the glassy, long glance The veils that protect are ripped Exist and then don’t exist He patrols the night From ultra high He patrols the night The hunting owl he’ll come into sight Like a cloud blown across the night He’ll cover the moon in your sky Put you in shadow from ultra high (x2) He patrols the night From ultra high He patrols the night Caught up by it Talons are gripped You’re gone through a crack in the night Wings cover the moonlight A black falling sky
6.
it's raining now i couldn't be more soaked up in you cause i conduce that you're in my heart although we are many weathers apart cloud came by i'm overshadowed by you while i conduce that you're in my heart yet we are many weathers part like cumulo-nimbus your memory lingers drifting my thoughts afar i sit in my car the way we are many weathers apart i can see there's a little rain i can see sunbeam again i'm alive i was hopelessly dead i'm achieve achieve what i said that's my line the sun is out it shines an people like you all the ones i knew they're in my heart although we are many weathers apart
7.
You built a fire but you can’t get it lit Providence it may be unkind You got the gist but you can’t make it fit Chasing ideas like flies There’s many a slip between cup and lip It’s a riddle of life There is no absolute repose Everything comes and goes What is it you think you know? Where is it the perfect ratio? Time goes by with a shrug And the sun goes down with a shrug It’s not the worst you could do To be kind and go on your way You’ll find fault forever, find fault forever It’s not the worst you could do To be kind and warm But each encounter goes through your filter And every day you wonder Where’s the adventure? Time goes by with a shrug And the sun goes down with a shrug
8.
I have everything I need Are people younger when they sleep? Support for the fallen Down with the tyrant Support for the fallen down So legion all, legion again Let the dams break Support for the fallen Down with the tyrant Support for the fallen down If I could trade my running legs For the hop of a bird I would If it meant I’d have wings to fly Support for the fallen Down with the tyrant Down with the tyrants Now The dark, the darkness It’s just the absence of light The bad, the badness It’s just the absence of good Hell, hell Is just the absence of heaven Hate, hate Is just the absence of love

credits

released March 12, 2017

Recorded live at Bad Bonn, Düdingen and ChoissyStrasse, Bern, May 2016.

Merz : vocals, electric guitar, cassette, sampler, harmonica
Shahzad Ismaily : bass guitar, Moog Rogue synth, acoustic guitar
Julian Sartorius : drums

Voice and cello from cassette tape on the track Shrug : Gyða Valtýsdóttir

Recorded by Björn Meyer
Mixed by Conrad Lambert
Mastered by Adi Flück at Central Dubs

This live record is also the soundtrack to a film being made by experimental filmmaker Yannick Mosimann, due to be released summer 2017.

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Merz UK

Merz is an English musician, singer and songwriter who, since 1999, has released six albums and a bunch of EP's via Epic Records, Gronland Records, Accidental Records & Dampfzentrale Bern. His music is an eclectic construct of electronics, psych-folk and experimental-pop. ... more

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