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The Body

by Facel Vega

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1.
Living Dead 02:23
lyrics
I come to in the closed comfort of nothing to lose When you’re underground there’s no space to move No need to stretch yourself out I kick and scratch from inside, try to find a hole The body’s gone Desperate nails bloody velvet walls This body’s gotta get gone! I kick and scratch from inside try to make a hole Get this body out Desperate nails pierce velvet walls This body’s gotta get out! Dead eyes get their fill of life, whatever can be found Can’t reach the sky, no need to avoid the ground The biggest threat tonight is myself I don’t care anymore what’s left – I’m the living dead
2.
Sky Under Night 02:40
lyrics
Moving out into endless night The evening clothes an enthusiastic sky Only day lets mistakes be made Only day lights the lily’s stain Chase me into anonymity Come, chase me to a new abject perfection And we exchange through the same ratios of domination In every setting we’re still as stations I am a master and I am a slave My thirst is smothered under the heaviest wave The head’s house is built several streets away from the heart’s favela With a view skewed by its own empire And you hurt me because you can’t see me Where’s the sky under night?
3.
A Palimpsest 02:12
lyrics
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A palimpsest of dissent – the ghosts of signatures forged atop each other Faceless shapes, generations that remain unnamed Inherent oppressions born as shadows cast from greater light Our lives, visible only through retrospect Globe in gradual pirouette Loop a noose around their necks Mansions left uninhabited and riches left unspent Does the nobler man remain unpaid or sign to tragedy his name?
4.
Inertia 01:17
lyrics
Gotta tear through every fetter and then tie yourself up Arid peace isn’t freedom without the capacity for violence Inertia, oh! Not pornographic but this is candid Sensations, Repeat defeats without subjugation It hurts, It has to hurt Opening wounds for a space to move your fingers The paintbrush is pushed to the edges of its canvas There’s a fear of freedom that comes when it exceeds your interests Don’t be police: the room is bigger than you
5.
The Body 02:31
lyrics
You were born this weak Body-bag skin – the slow growing of a seed The stains of your sin and the dirty way that you bleed Do you hate yourself? An invitation to feast: Flesh is bread, eat and detest whatever you have left Flesh is bread, eat and think of the end – how much you stand to suffer in death The body aches, the body aches Nails, bloody nails And beyond, everything imperfect will burn You are dying and eternity is earned Crippled by desire, to the limits of what you know Flaws are freckles, you are ugly under clothes The body aches, the body aches Nails, bloody nails I graze my knee Nailed feet Under the burden of such swollen piety Flesh is bread, eat and detest what’s left of yourself Break the skin on your knee As you kneel and you’ll bleed
6.
Car Crash 03:06
lyrics
I am a car-crash, insatiable damage Just quieter than you’d expect A mantric state at terminal velocity, orbiting metal I am a visitor, visiting the wreck Kaleidoscopic colours I’m watching myself through splintered light And these colours must be fucking bright This movement – perpetual definition Car-crash! The world stops, comes to a halt and throws me one hundred feet My world stops, comes to a halt and makes me a victim of my scenery
7.
Gertrude 03:48
lyrics
You gave me my sight And what I saw left me paralysed I was happier with my light denied You have me my sight And what I saw left me paralysed Our world is cruel, it burdens callow eyes The water calls me unclean, its muddy colour offers peace My reflection hectors me, I’m sorry – so sorry, Amelie If I were a bird I wouldn’t sing If I were a bird I couldn’t sing I do such terrible things I see such terrible things If I were a bird I couldn’t sing I do such terrible things I see such terrible things – I hate to see such terrible things You gave me my sight And what I saw left me paralysed The world, it hurts with us both alive You gave me my sight And I saw left me paralysed We are the burden – only good should survive This is the end of my life Goodbye, Pastor, goodbye The only charity I have left is my suicide This is the end of my life Goodbye, Pastor, goodbye
8.
Instrumental 01:53
9.
I Built Myself 02:21
lyrics
Built myself, I built myself This is where we built ourselves a home Kept our belongings apart, carved a path of my own A different pile for all these pains A different mark for every name Your voice an echo now that penetrates this silent space In every shadow, in every corner of this room In every shadow… Built myself, I built myself I cut this body out of stone Sat outside your window, carefully out of view Watched the bodies fall like rain A different mark for every name I thought of joining the greater storm but something keeps me in this room You can hide in the darkest room But you can’t hide from what’s a part of you
10.
Lament 01:33
lyrics
The world cracked like an eggshell and pushing at the fractures Emerged a new pair of eyes, mirrored in my own Incomplete glassy stories that ruled themselves Tiny glimpses of the shadows inside… Callow body Shallow lungs Eyes screaming at the hollow void It feels so sure it can fill itself in – its tiny body won’t fly again The world cracked like an eggshell and pushing at the fractures Emerged a new pair of eyes, mirrored in my own Incomplete glassy stories that ruled themselves Tiny glimpses of the shadows inside pupils What I saw and what I came to see Of a figure carried by such tired blistered feet A worn out reflection that I could not call my own A hollow reflection that I – I refused to call my own Oily complexion, suffocated skin The tragedy of an unattended broken wing
11.
Labyrinth 01:55
lyrics
It’s only a question of means and an intent to survive What you’re given is without limit – but it comes at a cost: Each body comes to bear inscription, each one inscribes Don’t talk about victimization because a victim knows its worth And no Joseph – your voice will not be heard These acts of darkness betray unspoken desires Imitation is all – as you require To face the onslaught of night as the first few stars appear That room is not your own, as this declaration makes clear The alcove of night as the first few stars appear This room is not your own, this declaration makes it clear You’re not alone in this labyrinth of loneliness
12.
Cassava Poisoning 02:30
lyrics
Moonlit eyes fall upon the shore They won’t see in night what they don’t see no more The closeness of another The desperate dream of prestige The sanctified violence and a surreptitious disease Look how we come so culturiZed Look how we come so civilised Disease are cultures we breed, something I want you to see Drink the sap from the trees – yeah, you’ll be working for me Look how we come so justified Look how we leave here so satisfied Where vision is obscurity Selected histories inherent in me Our nature is not visible Kings and servants of the strongest will Oh, cassava! Look how we come so culturiZed Look how we come so civilised Look how we come so glorified Look how we come so sanitized Yeah, you’ll be working for me
13.
Copycat 02:25
lyrics
Consider me an audience Consider me in flux Endlessly responsible and endlessly influenced A singular definition with dimensions much and invisible Copycat, Copycat The patterns have all been outlined, still capable, capable to defy Copycat, Copycat There’s a body on the poster There’s bodies on the shelves Recognise the picture before you recognise yourself A single impersonation compounded from every expectation Copycat, Copycat The patterns have all been outlined, dirty water, now hard to recognise Who I am No longer know who I am
14.
Worms 02:23
lyrics
The horse of instruction perpetuates hell Hell constructs a dungeon within the self The active experience now held in suspense Your consternation is like a camera That freezes misaction, the defining eye Now the body’s diseased, it impedes on the mind You fear your fear, you fear yourself All flesh is human flesh And it gets eaten by worms Your sense of consequence has become a sense of ends
15.
Beyond Laws 03:33
lyrics
A room of my own the pleasure’s inside Controlling what I define as mine The pure are perverts, all glory fetishized Petrified in the bondage of denial When desire is policed and sex is politicised The body always looks to improvise When desire is policed and sex is politicised The body always looks to improvise There’s nothing we need to say So we say everything anyway Into my garden, lilies amongst thorns He that I love, I love beyond laws I am Solomon’s song and Sharon’s rose He that I love, I love beyond laws Devise, devise Always looks to improvise Defies, Defies Always looks to improvise

about

Recorded at Castle M, Porthcawl except #6, #9, #10 recorded at Suburban Home, Leeds. Mastered by Tim Garratt, artwork by Robert Glew.

credits

released December 15, 2011

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Facel Vega Porthcawl, UK

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