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Go Big Shadow City

by Alpine Decline

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1.
wake up in big shadow city open up the blinds... see the light or see the white i fortify my mind. silence is a thing that only i can talk about... out into big shadow city i must silence doubt. kindness is the kind of thing that i can do without… rules become the only thing that i can't do without: keep your heel on all the heads below you all the time; cigarettes to those above you, move up through the grind. violence is the kind of thing that i can't do without... wildness is a thing that only i can talk about. tired of barbed wired walls and tired of the fumes, tired of big shadow city, tired of the goons
2.
it's getting harder, harder every day. when i'm broken put me out on display at night i'm dreaming, at night i'm dreaming times ten. then i wake up: no more visions again then i'm over, over out of the way. talk to me normal, see if i can hear straight
3.
walk with mask i’m called a test rat / new kinds of street combat / well known for panic attacks, alright? cut down on contact / bomb shelter bivouac / this is the modern city life suck on exhaust pipe / burning out celestial lights / heart wracked and it’s straight to the mat, alright?
4.
it's called the wayside it's out of sight you'll find no profit you'll find no light but hang around the creases if you want some fire if you want some bite to be a stranger without a ride hang around the creases
5.
can't back off on foreign treasure can't back off on wild pleasure can't back off until we get it right then we try more desperate measures then we try to change the weather then we try to say that it's alright the nuclear bomb is already armed - my smokestack only burns at night then we get toxic whiteout one more day with moral wipeout ever slow adjusting to the bite then we become horror fiction then we suck the next addiction then we make predictions that it’s right
6.
hey now man wanna see the sunrise? steal their wine and race to the moon? head up man and don't ask questions. head up man while it falls into ruins. get out man get out of the city, float up like cold smoke to the moon. hey now man with slow adjustments chill your blood and you’ll take to it soon oh yeah. alright. hey now man with the empty chamber, hey now man in the empty room: head up man and don't ask questions. head up man when it falls into ruins
7.
well we finally fled from the sacred mountain, leaving all our ghosts behind. and i held my head up into the fountain, hoping i could change my mind. no way can i get by did i face my fate with a taste of doubt and flicker in a dimming eye? then erase my name in the wake of drought and leaving nothing there to find? no way can i get by so i drank the lead from the poisoned fountain, hoping i could save my mind. and the strangeness bled from the ancient mountain, leaving all the ghosts behind. no way can i get by
8.
Boss 03:04
off. my head is off off. i'm the party boss and i'm no replica no. my favorite word no. it’s mine alone
9.
still i'm just as lonely as before. still i'm just as phony as before. then i walked into a riddle… then i’m dropping through the middle. still i'm just as hungry as before. nothing left to numb me like before. walk with mask into a riddle… then i'm mouthing shameless drivel… then i'm running and i swear i’m not someone who’s come undone. still i am committed as before. nowhere else to go but go forward. then i walked into a riddle… then i'm slurring shameless drivel... then i'm running and i swear i’m not someone who’s come undone. though i'm running in a maze i’m not someone who’s come undone.
10.
pity the pacified and pity their girls and smokes: they got their hands in madness, they got their teeth in throats. pity the pacified and pity their love of wine: although we like to deride ‘em, they don’t forget their lines or mine. theirs is a cynical crime: thrive in desperate times. you don't like it, that's fine. pity the pacified and pity their love of dice: they got a taste for violence, they got a taste for vice. pity the pacified and pity the beast they run: although we like to deride 'em, if they get off they're gone. but i’m-- --i’m for cessation of thirst, i side with the cursed. you don't like it, that's fine. my mind… i’m with the ancient line: what i write survives the grime. you don't like it, that's fine.
11.
i been in places where the air is so thick you taste scum. i been in places where you let your mind slip and you’re done. it’s no fun. ** then transmission ends ** weather these curses, i’m trying my best to get stunned. weather the thirst risk and press on my neck with your thumb. go numb. ** then transmission comes apart ** ...silence comes back down.

about

GO BIG SHADOW CITY, the fifth full-length from post-LA guitar ‘n drums ‘n buzz duo Alpine Decline, is an index, a cypher for the Beijing sound. Not “the Beijing sound” of their self-selected hometown contemporaries, whom they’re into but beyond — GBSC is the sound of Beijing itself, as heard from the outside. Cigarette vapors caked onto countless km’s of 2” tape, street-level, ear-burning progress filtered through carcinogenic dust. How to survive the smokestack? ‘Walk With Mask,’ A.D. languorously implores. ‘Don’t Ask Questions.’ Guitar tones glow like neons bubbling through the proud industrial shadow clouds; they layer and loop like the city’s own Möbius boulevard of creative destruction. Drums are smashed out of rhythm with the Beijing clang, following a parallel time of Outer Ring Road modulation.

GO BIG SHADOW CITY was recorded in the underground parking garage studio of Beijing’s resident post-punk demigod, P.K.14’s Yang Haisong. Its textures are likewise subterranean, rhizomatic. Ghost vox (‘Mid-Level Functionary In A Criminal Syndicate’, ‘Hang Around The Creases’) and narcotic melodies (‘Fearless In The Face Of Fate’, ‘Boss’) emerge for seconds at a time before sinking back into the soup. In the end, as always, ‘The Transmission Comes Apart’; loop back to point 0, rebuild from scratch. This time GO BIG.

“Oh, one may, if one wishes, find Insult at ev’ry step, -- from insolten Stares to mortal Assault, an Orgy of Insult uninterrupted, -- yet how does one proceed to call out each offender in turn, or choose among ‘em, and in obedience to what code? So, one soon understands it, as yet another Term in the Contract between the City and oneself, -- a function of simple Density, ensuring that there never be time enough to acknowledge, let alone to resent, such a mad Variety of offer’d Offense.”

“... no matter what may be the note which any creature forms in the song of existence, it is made first for itself, then more and more remotely for all the world and worlds.”

credits

released February 3, 2014

Alpine Decline
Go Big Shadow City
alpine decline is j.z. / p.z.
produced by yang haisong
recorded at xiaoping beijing & psychic sounds beijing
master by ron mcmaster (capitol records)
bonus engineering by liu yi ke
fortitude: sun xia
visuals by the great nordic swordfights
North American Mountain and Wilderness Society A.S.C.A.P.
winter 2013

GR022
genjingrecords.com

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