The Wiser Moon
by A.p. Harbor
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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital AlbumCompact disc in a sturdy jewel case featuring artwork from Robert Gaunce and Wesley Hunt.
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1. |
The Overthere Chair
04:00
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We're without care in the Overthere Chair;
arrived at new heights on the Everywhere Stairs;
doing quite fair, neither here nor there!
We're all together now in the Overthere Chair!
Wrap myself up in your sunshine-
bonsais hovering through the walls.
The prelude of the Happiness Moon,
verdant hills, albescent skies, and the smiling of familiar dolls.
In the swampland buds the Violet Root
to supplement my appetite.
There's no one else I'd rather share this with.
We look out over the Strawberry Ocean from the pier all night.
There are maps of the world drawn in vibrations.
Meet me at the edge, in exaltation's breath,
and all else will pass.
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2. |
Fiction
03:01
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A stolen storybook is tucked beneath my bed.
My grandma read me that to sleep,
and the things I've loved, I'm allowed to keep.
Does the library know
that I lied when I came home?
They don't know the secrets that I do,
that my grandma lives in the pages too.
I'll never let her go,
so I'll keep it on my shelf.
Someday, I'll read it by myself.
Should I tell my children that my stories are all fiction?
Someday when I am old,
I'll tell my fishing tales.
They'll write them down and bind them up,
and I'll sell my stories with a dash of dust.
And I'll always think of you.
I may never pay my dues.
If my prayers never do come true,
should I tell my children that my stories are all fiction?
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3. |
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To the ends of the Earth, I'll rove,
if that is where I'm meant to go,
for the tempest in ire does grow.
To the home that I will see no more,
I'll think of you through the frightening storm,
and when absence bites, will you keep me warm.
Goodbye my wild wind passing by.
In the roots, should you find
the language of time,
will you think of me for a while
when the wind blows through its branches?
Through the eyes of a mask, I see
beyond the cypress where the rivers reach,
and the old ones speak.
When I'm gone and the saplings rise,
and the figs all bloom and the branches twine,
will you dream of me sometimes?
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4. |
The Mountain Wayfarers
03:36
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I know when I grow old
I'll grow like hazel in the cold, wet snow.
I did not foresee a lonesome soul,
who'd melt me even when the cold wind blows.
A voice as deep as the river runs,
he told me, “Sir, I've lost my gun,
I've lost my home and my stores are none.
I'm wayfarer with the waning sun.”
Well, I said, “Friend, please come this way,
to the camp where my daughters wait.
We've come to trawl at the river's base.
We're wanderers too, these days.”
He came with me in the shade of night,
a pair of mossy eyes in the moonlit pine,
a lion's mane and a tender smile.
“Got the wild of the mountain in you, child.”
My youngest ne're did leave his side.
My eldest grew to be his pride,
for a vacancy he did subside.
We met beneath the wintertide.
On our fifteenth winter year,
he said to me, “my darling dear,
you must retire and leave me here,
for a dreadful wind is approaching near.”
Our children too soon had aged,
when we plucked a hazel bloom bouquet,
knelt at ease near a quiet grave,
wherein my finest memories lay.
I know when I grow old,
I'll grow like hazel in the cold, wet snow.
There I met a lonesome soul,
and I still melt when the cold wind blows.
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5. |
Cycles
03:32
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I saw a rabbit die today in the imprint of the ceiling tile,
and carved into the ground below, I saw the heads of Easter Isle.
They'd fixed themselves on floorboards freshly swept by staff or boot,
and gazed skyward at the hare clinging to its mother.
Conventions of direction have no place in tricks of light,
but propagate a thinking in between a birth and life.
This is what I rehearsed as she hatched me with her pen,
a holy quill brandished by my goddess mother hen.
Cycles...
And I, a yellow piece of paper stapled to the wall,
on the laundromat bulletin board,
a sanctum in a scrawl.
“Looking for a Christian man. A man who'll work and slave.
I've got three kids for him to love.
I'm here midweek at eight.”
Awash amongst the cycles, I hope she does succeed.
A sturdy man of 43, her duties shall he heed.
I see her often after close, her linens in her arms,
homeward, she will fold them up and keep them safe from harm.
She pinned me here a week ago and I've waited for a while,
but I saw a rabbit die today as I flew to Easter Isle.
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6. |
Hunting Hound
04:05
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I worship you, my loving God,
and sublimate my gold and straw.
This has been my token for all my years.
I catch a glimpse, familiar faces;
spinning masks in Brahma's guise.
I'll meet their eyes to pay my toll.
No recognition from the sky.
I have built an elevator.
13 floors, I stop at each,
door to door, to sell my soul.
Please get in line to have a piece.
My colleagues have their bottles upright.
I am drinking, want for praise.
A waiting room devoid of sound.
I am an empty-handed hunting hound.
Soy naufragios del mar, ya ves?
If only someone could take my place.
The ship is nearly anchored now.
I am an empty-handed hunting hound.
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7. |
Cranberry Lane
02:30
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Snoozing time at Cranberry Lane,
I've been asleep for all the day.
My family's awake and laughing downstairs,
but I'm asleep in Cranberry Square.
Cranberry Lane, snoozing away.
At first I was sad when the sun went down,
but Cranberry Lane saved the day!
Nothing like napping in Cranberry Town.
Slumbering time at Cranberry Lane,
that drowsy old daylight has faded away.
That's okay, just sing me to sleep.
The sun will soon rise over Cranberry Street.
When I wake up in the early morning,
my family will still be drooling and snoring.
That's okay, they're giving it a whirl,
all happily asleep in Cranberry World.
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8. |
Ariel
02:59
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A redeemer walks through the halo of the sun.
The pyre of his hair and the pine in his eyes meet mine,
and the reeds from my throat grow wild.
Naked from the river, we have wrapped him up in patchwork-
plumes plucked from arrows while the bow remains unstrung-
wrapped black as the night in a sable to dry.
I had never before opened up my eyes.
I pretended that my mother had read us a tale
of obsession, invention, frost, and flowers for sale.
A redeemer climbs up out of the deluge.
A serpent slumbers on her skin beneath the moon.
Prisoners and purity and piety in bloom.
I cried.
I had never before opened up my eyes.
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9. |
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The amygdala goes, “Auck! Auck! Auck!”
all the way to the hypothalamus,
and the hypothalamus goes, “auck!”
Enter: CRF.
The anterior pituitary says “hello, CRF!”
“Meet my friend ACTH!”,
and sends him on his way.
ACTH stimulates the adrenal cortex at once.
It promptly sends out cortisol that our body does not want,
because the hippocampus thereupon is attacked by gluccocordicoids.
You forget stuff when your mind is fraught
because the amygdala goes “Auck! Auck! Auck!”
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10. |
The Trumpeter
04:04
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When the fox gets hot, it crawls into the hole.
All the fellas in the evening say the horn will blow
to signal the drunks of the time to go.
The trumpeter says he's going to save my soul.
Well I ain't no drunk, does a drunk think he,
but he bellows gold and he's rough as the sea.
Those big black eyes are going to set me free
when the trumpeter blows his horn for me.
I knew my place and I knew my time-
in the black of the night, a burning spine.
“God almighty!” howl the men when the trumpet whines.
I am sailing endlessly in my ship on the foggy sea.
I can't escape that hallowed key.
The trumpeter is hollering.
“Come now, sailor, sing your plea.”
The cadence beckons restlessly.
In the hurricane, I'm free.
The trumpeter is hollering for me.
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11. |
A Hook
03:54
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Prancing on the boardwalk of the table,
where underneath swells a carpet sea,
stirring in the sun.
Dust waltzing in the beams through curtains-
particles, I can see them.
I wish that I could be them-
careful little circles turning.
I'm a cat chasing a yellow string.
Out of my reach
like God and the sea.
I found a hook.
When I saw the ocean for the first time at night,
I think I lost myself in the eventide.
I had written about the sea before.
I thought I'd gotten the details right,
but it turns out my poems and my songwriting
are no truer than my science.
I found a hook and it hooked me.
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12. |
The River Drane
02:00
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The river only takes away.
The river breaks and bends.
I'll set adrift my aches and burns
before the river ends.
The river in its youth does sing
like rebels in the choir.
to carry me far away
and douse a nearing fire.
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13. |
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My best friends are raconteurs of the culinary kind.
They're confection connoisseurs,
baking parables into pumpkin pies.
They're ghost chili ghost writers all through the night.
They tear down the scarecrows and dine with the birds,
trading quill pens for biscuit tins and bread crumbs for words.
There are trotters and talons and twigs at the table,
but don't dare heat the oven up past the point of no return.
Don't burn that bread, so help me god.
Don't burn that bread, old friend.
She taught me that applesauce belongs in cornbread.
He spiced up my sentences with coriander.
They've got the patience of a saint in the scullery.
Welcome are those who heed the recipe.
Just scale down the flour by half.
Don't be scared to add the vinegar in last.
The crucial provision is the cast iron skillet,
you can't deviate from the cookbook on that.
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14. |
10 Watt Moon
03:21
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When I stirred in the afterlight,
I found myself in the dusk, and I knew.
As the light ebbed out, I saw that broken bulb.
My heart did croon for the midnight moon.
The bad men had come so fast.
I should've waited up and stopped them myself.
Where a brilliant sphere once hung so high,
they replaced our muse with a 10 watt moon.
We woke up. It was very, very late.
He was gone so soon, he was gone too soon.
Had we known this would be his fate,
we wouldn’t have sold our tune to the 10 watt moon.
The weavers spin from nocturnal thread
a semblance of our familiar friend.
The astronomers have done us right,
sold us photographs of our former light.
The wisest advised us to persist.
“The 10 watt moon will help our eyes.”
But, I can’t see a damn thing in the dark.
I suppose that’s why I’m not wise.
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15. |
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Me and Hawn, somewhere in winter's yawn.
Towers far as little eyes can see.
All the world is white as pearls.
Shoulder deep in a silvery sea.
We got lost in the spires and snow,
and I don't think I've yet come home.
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credits
released April 8, 2022
Musicians:
Josh Atkins - mandolin
Stacy Baker - tuba
Denise Barbee - sound effects
Shayna Blackburn - sound effects
Melissa Caskey - upright bass
Megan Gregory - fiddle, sound effects
Harrison Hobart - vocals
Matt Holleran - drums, spoons, djembe, tambourine, bongos, shaker, nut shaker
Michael Jarvi - electric and acoustic guitar, electric bass, electric piano
Gabrielle Keith - recorder
Jeffery Kestner - saw
Raymond McLain - fiddle
Sarah Kate Morgan - dulcimer
Mary Morris - trumpet, vocals
Marco North - banjola
Gianelli Pizarro - vocals
Andrew Preston - acoustic guitar, piano, harp, synthesizers, accordion, banjo, violin, ukulele, harmonica, melodica, kalimba, mandolin, upright bass, tin flute, percussion, kazoo, Otamatone, B. Toys Meowsic, flexitone, bells, sound effects, vocals
Brenda Preston - vocals
Charles Wallace Preston - vocals
Rita Preston - voice memo
Anna P.s. - flute
Wyatt Smith - vocals, whistling, jawharp
Joe Suttles - bamboo flute
Artists:
Victoria Agosto-Gonzalez - disc art
Robert Gaunce - cover and insert art
Wesley Hunt - tracklist art
Alex Pace - photography
Recorded at home and at CoffeeTree Books.
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Andrew Preston and Michael Jarvi.
Music and words by Andrew Preston.
Published Woodsheep Music (BMI).
Musicians:
Josh Atkins - mandolin
Stacy Baker - tuba
Denise Barbee - sound effects
Shayna Blackburn - sound effects
Melissa Caskey - upright bass
Megan Gregory - fiddle, sound effects
Harrison Hobart - vocals
Matt Holleran - drums, spoons, djembe, tambourine, bongos, shaker, nut shaker
Michael Jarvi - electric and acoustic guitar, electric bass, electric piano
Gabrielle Keith - recorder
Jeffery Kestner - saw
Raymond McLain - fiddle
Sarah Kate Morgan - dulcimer
Mary Morris - trumpet, vocals
Marco North - banjola
Gianelli Pizarro - vocals
Andrew Preston - acoustic guitar, piano, harp, synthesizers, accordion, banjo, violin, ukulele, harmonica, melodica, kalimba, mandolin, upright bass, tin flute, percussion, kazoo, Otamatone, B. Toys Meowsic, flexitone, bells, sound effects, vocals
Brenda Preston - vocals
Charles Wallace Preston - vocals
Rita Preston - voice memo
Anna P.s. - flute
Wyatt Smith - vocals, whistling, jawharp
Joe Suttles - bamboo flute
Artists:
Victoria Agosto-Gonzalez - disc art
Robert Gaunce - cover and insert art
Wesley Hunt - tracklist art
Alex Pace - photography
Recorded at home and at CoffeeTree Books.
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Andrew Preston and Michael Jarvi.
Music and words by Andrew Preston.
Published Woodsheep Music (BMI).
license
all rights reserved
tags
discography
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Mar 2024 -
Dec 2023 -
Aug 2023 -
Jun 2023 -
Jan 2023 -
Apr 2022 -
Jul 2021 -
Jul 2021
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