The Consulate General

Blue Sky Black Death Third Party Album Lyrics

alex — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:23:54 +0000

I collaborated with Blue Sky Black Death on their new album “Third Party.” I handled lyrics and vocals. The album comes out Sept 7th on Fake Four Inc. The first single “Carl Sagan” is already up for listening. I thought I would post all the lyrics for anyone who looking for them. Grab them all below the cut.

CARL SAGAN

I’m not in pictures that your parents took
I’m not described in your stack of holy books

I wasn’t born in your seven days
I’m not the monster your fathers made
Can’t break my bones if you can’t pronounce my name

I’ll elude what your top thinkers might conceive
Your “wanted” sketch doesn’t resemble me

I wasn’t born in your family tree
I don’t want blood or your charity
You won’t believe that your maker thought up me

Your common cold is my trojan horse defeat
And my fine cuisine is your world catastrophe

I might be dormant on your ocean floor
Or in the margins of error you ignore

You can’t survive in the class of air I breathe

ABSENTEE

I don’t care for your revolution
I don’t know the day of the week
But I’ll be your utmost trusted absentee

I’m so over your personal crisis
Let me know if our state secedes
But you’ll probably never hear from me

So mark me condemned, and mark me as vacant
I’m out of mind and I’m out of sight
Strikethrough my name, forget my location
I’ll stage a coup when the timing’s right

I’ll wake up to a new national language
I’ll sleep in while the coasts recede
TV movie, you can have my story free

I’m so over your sovereign nation
And your block party best move along
Your injustices make me yawn

CALL TO ARMS

Wake me up radio, wake me up forecaster
Be still my heart, what’s this new disaster?
My main muse is self-eradication
We all need inspiration, don’t we?

Your misfortune is my winning card
Your new disaster is my call to arms

I make my cold calls strictly after hours
I’m proud to serve with my flock of scavengers
And fellow cowards, suit up
Boldly battling market saturation
With no standing ovation for me

Your unknown is at my home address
When you’re displaced is when I come to collect
I like a good wreck, what can I say?

I’m the looter at your uprising
I live and breathe silver lining
I’m the pickpocket improvising in the crowd

INSTITUTION

Your last name is sold
Your institution now in my control
Your words reposessed
Now come identify all your personal effects

I’m tapping your phone and I’m sealing lips
I’m scrapping every bone of our old sinking ship

Reimburse my transgressions
And bill me for your private sessions

In your Sunday best
Maintain the calm in the face of unrest
Your small talk’s a crime
Let’s maximize use of our remaining time

Don’t sell me out when we’re losing ground
Where’s your brave face when the wolves are coming out?

CYNIC’S COUGH

Do you recall where you were?
Do you recall how it was that you first heard?
Here, here to global innovation

Disbelief, a cynic’s cough
We, the pundits of these united scoffs
Here, here to boyish fascination

At birth separated
Don’t be polite, you’re my reflection

This is our victory song
Watch us prove all the non-believers wrong
Here, here to science’s salvation

This is our last request
The writing on the wall is self-addressed
Here, here to desperate preservation

RERUN

We’ll outdo you
Our sunken ships still wear our names
We’ll outlive you
Reborn in nightly rerun fame

SCANDAL

I’m on your side, see how my comb-over reflects the light?
I live by a code to fight the keepers of the status quo
I’m clearing the slate of rabble-rousers and old heads of state
I’m coming for you, armed with a hand-shake and a half-truth

Calling all favors from my past from hibernation
Well my god I thought you’d never ask, what’s the occasion?
What’s a little scandal between friends?
It’s all forgotten

A hand over my heart for a foot in the door,
Then a foot in my mouth when it pleased the court
What’s a little scandal between friends?
I had to break some means just to make some ends

To my childhood philistines, you’re all just ex-liabilities
To my once-trusted go-to, I don’t know you

New song collaboration with Blue Sky Black Death “Carl Sagan”

alex — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:49:51 +0000

In early 2010, I was asked to collaborate with Blue Sky Black Death as the vocalist/lyricist/songwriter on their new album. The result is a new album “Third Party” coming out September 7th. “Carl Sagan” is the first single. You can stream it at Soundcloud. Lyrics are after the cut.

CARL SAGAN

I’m not in pictures that your parents took
I’m not described in your stack of holy books

I wasn’t born in your seven days
I’m not the monster your fathers made
Can’t break my bones if you can’t pronounce my name

I’ll elude what your top thinkers might conceive
And your “wanted” sketch doesn’t resemble me

I wasn’t born in your family tree
I don’t want blood or your charity
You won’t believe that your maker thought up me

Your common cold is my trojan horse defeat
And my fine cuisine is your world catastrophe

I might be dormant on your ocean floor
Or in the margins of error you ignore

You can’t survive in the class of air I breathe

Remixes by Blue Sky Black Death, Lymbyc Systym, T.H. White

alex — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:06:22 +0000

A new digital single for “What Time Is It Now” is out now. It features really nice remixes. Blue Sky Black Death’s take is moody and fantastic, full of dark, intricate electronics. Lymbyc Systym provides an unusually hard-hitting number, a great noise-drenched track. Finally, T. H. White is a lovely, glossy pop version, a nice sunny single version. You can grab the MP3 of Blue Sky Black Death’s remix free from this Soundcloud page or this direct download link. And of course all three remixes are available for purchase at Amazon.com and iTunes.

YWCA Trixie video and song story

alex — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:36:54 +0000

Here is a new mini-video for the song YWCA Trixie. This was shot at various science and art museums in Stockholm, including the same Tomas Saraceno exhibition where we shot the Patricia Soriano short. We talked about the story behind the song recently in an interview, included below. See the video below the cut, or at Vimeo, or Youtube.

From an upcoming interview for Fairtilizer.com, about the song YWCA Trixie – “My wife actually wrote the words for that song. She was in Venice two summers ago. When she tried touching some fruit at a market, she was reprimanded, not knowing it’s not allowed there. She later learned that using your left hand also has a bad aura around it, with the word for “left” even being “sinistra.” Meanwhile, she learned more about Venitian history. Starting in the 60’s, there were these huge cruise ships that would come through. The city was only designed only for smaller commuter boats, and the waves from the large ships did serious damage to the buildings. Basements flooded and collapsed. Trixie was the name of my wife’s swim coach at the YWCA who was an Olympic swimmer for Great Britain. About the chorus: She loved trash day in Venice because to put the trash bags out, people actually lowered them on strings from the windows. So you would walk around and there were trash mobiles dangling from the windows.”

Full lyrics:

Keep your hands off of the bene fruit in Venice
Take a step back, they’re too delicate, you menace
Said the fig admininistra
Your hand’s looking sinistra

Oh me oh my, oh me oh my
It’s trash day in Venice

The boats were fast back in the 60’s
The waves were too much for YWCA Trixie
Buckling broncos, while collapsing basements achoo’d
Were plowing through

Patricia Soriano Video Short

alex — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:50:10 +0000

Here’s a new video short for the instrumental interlude “Patricia Soriano.” This was shot at a Tomas Saraceno installation in a Stockholm museum. The women were complete strangers who just happened to enter the installation at the same time. It’s an enormous, detailed replica of a spider’s web that took 2 years to build. Watch it at Vimeo, at Youtube, or below the cut.

First new song MP3 with Montag

alex — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:09:53 +0000

“What Time Is It Now” is the opening track from the new album Person number. This one features my friend Antoine Bédard from Montag on backing vocals. Here’s a direct MP3 link (right-click and save), or you can stream it below. Some blogs have said some nice things about it (here, here, here). Feel free to download it, share it, post it. Lyrics and more about the song below. This song was written around the time I was relocating to Gothenburg, full of references to the quirks of living overseas. (Government TV controllers knocking on our door?)

Antoine and I have only met once in real life. We were both on tour in Japan and happened to bump into each other in a hotel lobby. I had remixed his song Alice, and he had just finished a remix of the Boy in Static song “Young San Francisco.” Having his vocals on this track just seemed right.

Other things are in the works for this song. Just finished mastering a digital single with remixes by Lymbyc Systym, Blue Sky Black Death, and T.H. White. Also have a music video in the works by Nando Costa. Should be unrolling these in the next couple months.

For now, here’s the album version. Feel free to share it, blog it, etc. Download MP3 (right-click and save) or stream from Soundcloud:

I can’t decide, NTSC
We fought about it three times, A or B
Just check me in, smuggle me overseas

We’ll brave umlauts, Nordic seas
Won’t let the government find our TV’s
We’ll give ourselves new names for Nordea

What time is it now in Sweden?
When’s the sunrise in Gothenburg?
What time is it now?

September, give me your 30 days
You won’t be missed, so promptly vacate
You bring shame to the family name

We’ll optimize and make a home
A pair of trailing spouses, whoa
We’ll navigate the Atlantic by our SWIFT codes

“On The Run” Demo For Listening

alex — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:00:42 +0000

Here’s an old demo of a new song “On the Run.” One of my most useful eBay purchases was a cheap battery powered Casio MT-36. It’s been my main songwriting instrument for the past two years. It’s refreshing to not have to stare at a computer screen overloaded with possibilities. It simplifies choices. (Do I feel like Rock or Swing?) Anyways, this was a quick demo recorded for myself just after I finished writing it. I have a lot of these. I record these just to make sure I don’t forget them. Lyrics, MP3, and more below.

Download MP3 (Right-click & save)

Here are the lyrics. Some of it involves a story I heard about a mouse discovered living in an ATM machine. This song will be on the new album “Person Number” later this year.

500 BPM, I can make a home in an ATM
But you’re on the run again
Just me and Andrew Jackson
Living out our lives on security cam
But you’re on the run again

Jump the equator, then
Double-dutch with the prime meridian
‘Cause you’re on the run again
Last seen in Bogota
Your passport was dressed in polka dots
‘Cause you’re on the run again

Hello from Göteborg

alex — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:46:05 +0000

Hello, world. Setting things up from chilly Göteborg, Sweden. Lots of editing and adjusting going on around you. Will post some demos and things to listen to soon.