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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

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  • We decided to ditch soulless plastic CD's and release our album primarily as a beautiful handmade book containing our lyrics in poem form, with specially commissioned greyscale artworks alongside them. Each book is handbound (stitched) and finished by a wonderful local (Hebden Bridge, UK) maker, Sarah Quick, using sustainably sourced materials.

    The illustrations come from 9 artists: Deedee Biott, Domenique Brouwers, Taylor Campbell, Alan Coulson, Sam Leeming, Charlotte Mellor Meecham, Alice Mill, Julia Ogden and Raven Rosetti.

    The idea was to make something that really values the efforts of everyone involved, something special that people will love to hold for years to come. A physical way of expressing and sharing the joy we’ve experienced through our first year and a half of making music together, rehearsing and recording in Rog’s little blue cabin on the moors.

    Approx. measurements: 16.5cm x 13cm x 1cm
    Materials: Pages are handmade cream Khadi rag paper, Cover is powder grey Merchant & Mills linen.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Twice via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 60 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £50 GBP

     

1.
i was a friend of yours that friend with the horns i was the last door spiralled by thorns i thought i knew so i grew pictures of you fantasies in my outer mind and if i was your only hope then who was mine? there is some bliss in solitary be careful who you try to be with let me be, don’t follow me, my friend we'll end up arguing again now i'll be that friend of yours without the claws i'm trying to burn my bridges to open your doors i used to be what people see and now that it's behind of me i'm creeping up on everything surprising it, not questioning, you know?
2.
it’s there if you want it, and it’s there if not if aim prevents my change to dust how come it always turns to lust? if it’s all that you wanted, why didn’t you stop? if it’s all that you wanted, why didn’t you stop and start again? it’s there if you want it, and it’s there if not if scars reveal mistaken paths how come we never learn to laugh? if it’s all that you wanted, why didn’t you stop? if it’s all that you wanted, why didn’t you stop and start again?
3.
everyone's dripping their whole lives away the drains are so full that the towns are just sliding away let's escape now while the going is good let our bodies decay! let's dance in the fire everyone's meddling, we couldn't care less! we're diving today! straight through the mundane to the beauty that rests within everything let's dance in the fire will you dance with me in fire? a change to the suffering is a little release that reveals the beast let's escape now in our glorious best and prepare for the peace let's dance in the fire will you dance with me in fire? let's dance in the fire in the fire, in the fire, you and me, in the fire
4.
oh what fun we had when our minds were wide the expectations almost satisfied but the honesty was creeping in a powerful child the collation of wisdom cremated, into pride in the dark room the terrifying prospect of death drove us wild providing a sanity a clarity a style it gave us a purpose that i still cannot deny now we’re all bound up, so tight in the dark room who cared about sleep? who cared about right? we’re just scratching the surface of this precious human life our impenetrable deafness stubborn little smiles cloaked the captive whale-like patterns of a limited life in the dark room
5.
Heave-Ho 05:11
even though i can be bought i cost a lot through guilt i often lose my sense of fair and my schooling heave-ho her cannibalistic mind eats away and her kindness left dead sacrificed for a safety net heave-ho and for all those plagued by guilt life's a laugh if you make it that way it is not one big funeral so heave-ho take a break from your self become formless let the sadness peel off into orbit
6.
Knowing 05:26
my friend i meet you in a strange, familiar place in silence your voice is still so loud, it's pouring out is the knowing enough? when all the real words get stuck you're silver i see my self in you, and bow my head like diamond the corners of your mouth, towards the light is the knowing enough? when all the real words get stuck
7.
Spiders 12:56
i once was an old man stinking of old hands carbed up and cold i would fan frosted emotions to stifle the damned the thoughts that i've made and the ones that i've scattered the garbles of growth or intuitive splatter i fell in a hole and i came out as matter restricted by a love of myself, getting fatter i remember an old life held in long dark hair, no midwife cloth-bound, feeling israelite hallucinations of sand shielded by igloo outgrown this old trinket beat-filled and explored still mouth full of biscuit i chew like a bore and man brings a cookie new delight, new shores i swim like a bacterium in circles, towards i remember sounds, finger feelings odd, in a sensitive garden caught in a temporary world of fleeting expansion have you ever seen the light?
8.
i thought i’d write a normal song about normal things, with normal chords it’s hard being normal but you’ve probably got a body or something and that helps yeah, that helps you fit in somewhere when you’re crying in a corner the disconnection is real remember this hymn your tears are the ocean the clouds and then the streams then there’s stuff like feelings and stuff like hurt we’ll evaporate lightly and rot with the shells in the commonest magic of our normalest worlds to a normal song it’s almost, almost, a normal song
9.
bring back the dying to life shame on me if i don’t give myself to the world i am everybody’s disciple teaching my crippled mind while it's heavy as iron ah you swines so far in my dying there has been twice i was alive as the river shivered, then the sea screamed (with us) do you remember these? please, let it have been how it will one day be so let’s bring back the dying to life shame on me if i don't give myself to the world and in the end there'll be smiles recollecting the joys that we plugged into our lonely holes so far in my dying the murk has revealed twice i was alive beyond meditated streams i need you to remember what you never believed that the beauty i saw in you is real

about

Following on from their debut EP, ‘Five Past Lives’ which was described by BBC Introducing as ‘absolutely haunting’, Johnny Powell and the Seasonal Beasts dive to real emotional depths on their full-length album, ‘Twice’. Recording away from the studio, in their drummer’s wooden cabin high in the Pennine moorlands, they have created an entirely acoustic collection of 9 sensitive, powerful and meaningful modern folk songs. The resulting sound is natural and raw, with exquisite percussion and vocal harmonies woven around acoustic guitar and the pulse of double bass. The songs themselves, in the vein of work by Mount Eerie, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Mark Hollis or Bill Callahan, generously give insight into Powell’s dedicated spiritual life, conveying a range of mental explorations and interrogations into the path to finding, or not finding, a self within. From dealing with experiences of childhood sensory overload and unexplainable memories in ‘Spiders’, to the dark humour and lighthearted relief in ‘Almost a Normal Song’, about sharing the rare connection of a temporary life with others in a human body. ‘Twice’, is eminently listenable and will reward those who take time to allow the messages within to unravel.

In addition, Johnny Powell and the Seasonal Beasts, named after a Robert Wyatt lyric, will release ‘Twice’, as a different kind of album. Described by Piccadilly Records as, ‘Brilliantly eccentric outsider indie for the soul’, the Hebden Bridge (UK) band are ditching soulless plastic CDs and releasing their new 9 song album as an ethical handcrafted and handbound book of illustrated poetry, the lyrics, with digital download codes, to go against the grain of throw away products.

credits

released April 7, 2018

Written and mixed by Johnny Powell and the Seasonal Beasts:
Ffion Atkinson
Roger Burnett
Paul Mill
Johnny Powell

Recorded by:
Steve Smith

Extra instrumentation by:
Chris Derrick
Amie Willingale

Mastered by:
Alan Lowles / Airtight Studios

Digital Cover Artwork by:
Sam Leeming

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Johnny Powell and the Seasonal Beasts UK

"Brilliantly eccentric, but eminently listenable outsider indie for the soul.” (Piccadilly Records)

"Johnny Powell, is still teetering on the edge of troubled genius with this new clutch of soul-scraping, larynx-wobbling freak-folk vignettes."
(24/7 Magazine - 4.5/5)

"Exciting times lay ahead for Johnny Powell and co."
(BBC Introducing)
... more

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