Hey April-ites –
Another month, another pile of strikingly original music, this time from Mount Lake Terrace’s #1 Prog Rock Band – Dissonati! WHAT? How can that be? How the hell do we even know about it. Well it’s like this. Steve Turnidge. Steve masters lotsa folks at his Ars Divina studio. When I talked to John from Dissonati, he said they had recorded this stuff and were trying to figure out where to master is when somebody’s sister’s girlfriend’s cousin said they were related to some mastering guy named Steve. Worked out pretty good. Steve (who I used to sell records to at Everybody’s Record Company when he was but a lad) of course is a fast and furious Facebook poster and posted about this so I naturally had to check it out (I presume Kevin Bacon is supposed to show up at this point). Even though they will give you their CD for free, I bought it. Seemed like the sporting thing to do.
I have kept pulling it out from time to time and quite like it. I actually went down to The Mix in Georgetown (they say they are “Sometimes referred to as the CBGB’s of Seattle.” Hmmm) Saw them play a 30 minute set before going over to my daughter’s Karaoke birthday party at this other Georgetown joint with the most blisteringly hot Jamaican wings ever. Whew.
So, check ‘em out – get their CD for free if you like or better yet, give ‘em some dough for it.
Next month we will be releasing (from deep in the vaults) The Colorplates – Agony and Ecstasy Post-Punk Art Rock Seattle 1979 -1982. This collection is for my arty punk band that predates The Icons, which I thought I would never get around to releasing. Bob Blackburn (da bass player) kept dogging me for three years and here it comes. Understanding the very special nature of the audience for this release, it shall be digital and CDR only.
We have several other projects floating around in a somewhat indeterminate fashion.
Till then,
td
April 2013
The Album
1. Can You Hear Me?
2. Middle Man
3. Age of Foeces
4. Mindwarp
5. Senescence
6. Driver
7. The Sleeper
released 05 June 2012
Dissonati is:
John Hagelbarger: keyboards, saxes and woodwinds, lead vocal on “Age of Foeces”
John Reagan: drums Ryan Hankins – bass
Ron Rutherford: guitars, guitar synth, bass, lead and background vocals, occasional keys, everything on “MindWarp”
Produced by dissonati
Songs by Ron Rutherford
Except Age of Foeces by John Hagelbarger
Recorded at
Dissonati Studio, Mountlake Terrace, WA
studiOblique, Shoreline, WA
Mirror Sound Studio, Shoreline, WA
The Hive Recording Studio, SeaTac, WA
Mixed by Christian Heilman, mixerguy.com
Mastered by Steve Turnidge, arsdivina.com
Cover Art by Brin Levinson, brinlevinson.com
CD design by Carl Bennett, silentera.com
Lyrics
Can You Hear Me?
Floating slabs of ordinariness
Bridled incivility
The center ring holds no hope
Watch these moments and wonder
Will the next one come?
Like a stone in this river
With nothing to deliver
The flow goes ever on around
Can you hear me?
Are you receiving me?
Can you hear me?
Are you receiving me at all?
In the cold light of day
Still in the dark
What we do, we do alone
What we remember
Won’t take us back, ever
To where we came from
Listen with a clear mind
It’s possible to find
What you already know
The structure holds, but barely
Cracking at the seams
Facades are only that
There is no endless moment
There is only now
The thought invents itself
Everything that’s said
is everything that’s heard
is everything that’s thought
is everything that’s meant
is every single word
is every single sound
is every single light
is every single tone
Middle Man
Philosophy is foreign
Religion is absurd
Heuristics as process
Cant or the word
Articles written
Comprehension obscured
So much detritus
So mentally blurred
He is Middle Man
He does what he can
To try and understand these things
He is Middle Man
He follows no plan today
So many distractions
So much to endure
A life out of balance
Take time out to cure
A septic environment
A holy man’s lies
Step back and shut it out
Just close your eyes
He is Middle Man
He does what he can
To try and understand these things
He is Middle Man
He follows no plan today
I am Middle Man
I’ll do what I can
To try and understand these things
I am Middle Man
I’ll follow no plan today
Age of Foeces
It was a century of license
An age of vice and rot
A day when fools and cowards were exalted
All enterprise and courage ground into the dirt
The proper order gone
The world turned upside down
Now we’re back in our place
and it’s time the disgrace was halted
So Doctor Green, set the Wayback Machine
for eighteen-ninety-five
Might was right when men were men,
And Empire was alive
MindWarp
Older then or younger now
Backwards either way
Different times in altered states
This is not my face
For all I know I might be cracking at the seams
For all I know this could be some psychotic dream
MindWarp
What I’ve lived and what I’ve done
If only I could say
Barking mad or partly sane
Not my choice today
For all I know I could be talking to myself again
For all I know I might be traveling in space
MindWarp
Whispering madness
Am I going insane?
Whispering madness
Is it really my name?
Senescence
My shape is shifting – slowly, ever slowly
The skin loosens over muscle atrophy
But the mind still clicks
As the thoughts engage
Phasing fast in this age
And I can create
And I am aware
I can sense things now
That were never there
Before
I can no longer plumb the all night depths
I no longer know that younger man
But the hands still move
And the eyes can see
There is possibility
And I can create
And I am aware
I can sense things now
That were never there
Before
Driver
I live out of sight
In every location
Outside of time
Ahead of creation
I bring death and horror
I am hope and joy
I know every secret
I am Driver
Call me Driver
In alluvial forests
I slash and I burn
In rampaging waters
I roil and I churn
I killed everybody
In every war
For anything you can think of
I am Driver
Call me Driver
The Sleeper
Zombie echoes in an empty hall
No signs of life, nothing at all
Wandering blindly through an endless maze
Only forward movement, unyielding haze
A slipping cog on a greasing machine
Levers pulled, increasing the steam
Spark and heat and glow and burn
It starts again, nothing is learned
After all that can be has been taken
When the very earth you stand on has been shaken
When you realize you’ve been mistaken
The sleeper must awaken
Reverberations like a temple gong
Another day, another dawn
Circuits shorted, power’s fused
Untransformed, a life unused
After all that can be has been taken
When the very earth you stand on has been shaken
When you realize you’ve been mistaken
The sleeper must awaken
© Dissonati