John Vanderslice: vocals, guitars, keyboards
George Ban-Weiss: bass, upright bass
Ian Bjornstad: keyboards
Matthias Bossi: drums, percussion, keyboards
Sylvain Carton: saxophones, flute, clarinet
Matt Cunitz: orchestron, mellotron, pump organ
Laura Dean: intermittencies, paper tigers
Ben Goldberg: clarinet
Daniel Hart: violin, vocals, piano
Carla Kihlstedt: violin, viola, nyckelharpa
Mitch Marcus: saxophones, flute, clarinet
Michael Mellender: bass
Jason Slota: drums, percussion, vibraphone
Scott Solter: distressed mediums, rabbit holes
Max Stroffregen: piano

Produced & Recorded by Scott Solter
and JV at Tiny Telephone, San Francisco

Mixed by Solter

Second Engineering by Laura Dean

Mastered by Bernie Grundman

johnvanderslice.com & tinytelephone.com
Photos by JV

For Isabelle Fix
Thanks Mom and Ray

Tremble and Tear

Over here
I was buried nearly in the snow
There’s an overseer
To a true believer
I’m letting go

Here comes the one
Yeah she’s the one
That’s gonna do it to me

Now I can see here
In the snow, snow, snow

Through the cedar
Tearing a bloody deer
In the throat

Here comes the one
Yeah she’s the one
That’s gonna do it to me

Fetal Horses

Today Elise today
You could almost anywhere
Your post today
Your bruised and pixilated face
It seems to me to be
Finally dead with you and him
Today Elise today
I wanted you
To come back to me again

You’d break everything I have
You’ll turn a hanging man bad
I live with another
I stole her from her lover

Fetal horses
Gallop in the womb
Seeding courses in an empty room

Elise your pixilated bloody face
It seems to be to me
Finally to dead with you him
Come back to me again

You’d break everything I have
You’ll turn a hanging man bad
I live with another
I stole her from her lover

Fetal horses
Gallop in the womb
Seeding courses in an empty room

C&O Canal

We said goodbye
On the banks of the C&O canal
You could’ve told me then
Instead of in a letter from Syria

You’ll never return
I thought we had only now just begun
So you’re helping the Druze
But things are fucked up here behind my door

I tracked down your friend
Won her heart over slowly then
I walked away
Hope it gets back to you someday

It’s all over now
I look for you everywhere I go
So you’re building a school
But things are fucked up here behind
my door

Too Much Time

Woke up on the sand
Tied up my sleeping bag
Jetty won’t last forever
Waves they tumble and tumble

Stone by stone
I ended up here all alone
Brick by brick
Walled myself from happiness

Eucalyptus piled high
I’m shivering by the flaming fire

Too much time
Too much time gone by
And I can’t find you even if I tried

Rolled up my map
I’ve got no obligations
Packed up my pots and pans
Freedom is overrated

Stone by stone
I ended up here all alone
Brick by brick
Walled myself from happiness

Dead fir and almond wood
A storm crosses over Mt Hood

Too much time
Too much time gone by
And I can’t find you even if I tried

D.I.A.L.O.

The longer I’m out here
More I forget who I was
The people I’ve hooked up with
They only care about what I become

Forget about my home, forget about D.I.A.L.O
I’ll make it on my own, forget about my home

The more I disappear
The bigger these people loom
The ones I’ve hooked up with
They’re not the right kind of friends I fear

Forget about my home, forget about D.I.A.L.O
I’ll make it on my own, forget about my home

Forest Knolls

We were unprepared
By rights we should’ve been aware
With bow and flint and arrow

There were three deer outside the window

My father’s father would’ve known
How to pull that wire and steady the bow

Send that arrow into her beating heart
How to cut her and use every part

We’ve got food for weeks and weeks
And all that blood would find its way to the carpet
Sitting there I couldn’t shake that guilt
As the deer walked free up the hill

Oblivion

I took a blow to the head
A mechanical pencil filled with lead
I took a shot all she got
I took a knock, it’s everything she got

Forgive me I’m ready to live
Until then I’ll be defending again
It’s how I owned oblivion
Forget me not or I’ll never stop
Never stop, never ever stop

It’s 4pm, the bad shit is closing in
Put the stereo on, boost the top end

Can’t write a song, strap the capo on
can’t close the deal, play Defender until dawn

Forgive me I’m ready to live
Until then I’ll be defending again

It’s how I owned oblivion
Forget me not or I’ll never stop

Sunken Union Boat

Out past the Levy County line
Coffee-black Suwannee River
Blends into the cold
Gushing water crimson copper boil
I grew up there, in the bottom of a swimming hole

Fresh blood comes rushing back to me
I never thought I’d remember all of this so clearly

It’s a trick of the mind
It’s a trick of the mind

Ready set dive again
Open up your mask

Let the water clean your glass
Find the sunken union boat

Find the 1955 Dr. Pepper cap

Romanian Names

They took you away at three
To teach you a craft

To make you compete

When you fell off the balance beam
You couldn’t win but you jumped up again

And still wide-eyed you go

We met in the tunnel of the stadium
And immediately it was too fast and free

I asked you to stay with me
Don’t return to that satellite tomb
And still wide-eyed you go

Carina Constellation

Summer had to go
And with it that evening glow
We swung the courthouse door
And found the car
And drove it slowly home again

Look out look up and say
Carina Constellation

Two-lane county road
We always drove a different way home
The night was inked in black
The squid escapes a terrible attack

Look out look up and say
Carina Constellation
I know somewhere somehow we’ll pay
Carina Constellation

Summer Stock

Ever since the world began
Kids were kids and men were men
If that raging river crossed
Into hell they both were tossed
Lights out

The day I lost my childhood
I was at camp in the Pocono woods
I played in all the summer stock
I was Dinah in the Whistle Stop
Lights out

Hard Times

Oh that summer with you
I clearly remember
We swimming off the Serbian Coast
And you reread and you reread Hard Times

After the way it ended
I was bloody and bruised
I needed to find out why you cut me off
And left me for dead in Javeria
Hard times

So I lost a year
On that shaky pier
To find an answer
I searched every sentence
And ended deeper still
In hard times