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Slow Medicine

by Slow Medicine

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1.
2.
CLOSURE ORDER Shut down like a coal mine Shut down like a local railway line Shut down like a Woolworth’s Store Shut down like the Clyde’s south shore Shut down like a Victorian baths Shut down like a public path Shut down like premature hype Shut down like a stereotype Shun novelty and shed your friends Be your own prison warder This property is not condemned It’s preserved by closure order Shut down like a village pub Shut down like a strip club Shut down like a Norton factory Shut down like a Hollywood finale Shut down like a cobbler’s shop Shut down like Top of the Pops Shut down like an Italian cafe Shut down like a stock clichè Shun novelty and shed your friends Be your own prison warder This property is not condemned It’s preserved by closure order
3.
A Safe Place 03:40
A SAFE PLACE Keep your eyes to yourself if you want to see them again; Stuff ‘em in your pocket and save them for later Until this has come to an end. Keep your hands to yourself If you want to feel them again - Hold your peace and try to hold onto your hat Then we can all be friends. There’s no time for any brave faces You know where the only safe place is. Keep your thoughts to yourself If you’ve got any thoughts left to keep - They might be the only things of value to you But to us it all comes cheap. Keep your self to yourself If you’ve got any self left to keep; Pieces of you keep falling away While you breathe, while you sleep. There’s no time for any brave faces You know where the only safe place is.
4.
ORGANIC SHRAPNEL 1. No misery like happiness – Hated for love. Envy abounds at the love we’ve found; Hawks preying on doves. We build high our fences To keep the enemy from breaking in; From breaching our barbed defences, Keeping unclean out and chosen in. What’s mine is yours, is ours. What’s yours, is mine, it’s ours. 2. No misery like happiness Got the best, fear the worst. But to live inside a bubble and hide Is to fear it will burst. There’s no respect for piety, No respect for righteousness. In a loveless society What is cursed is what is blessed. What’s mine is yours, is ours. What’s yours, is mine, it’s ours: Keep away. But you can’t trust the jealous To fight fair in love or war, To forge alliances to quell us Organic shrapnel, upright whores. What’s mine is yours, is ours Keep away. No misery like happiness No hatred quite like love. As we look askance ,across our vulnerable flanks Who’re the hawks and who the doves?
5.
6.
LULLABY FOR IDLE LOVERS She’s a thing of beauty And a joy for now, Bold of décolletage But vague of why and how. He’s a piece of work He’s a work of art. Shrugged out of pretty nothings That come straight from the heart. Quiet now, the idle lovers are sleeping It’s all they know and all they need to know. And later when they wake with sleepy kisses They won’t remember where the hours go. He’s got nothing to say: He wants to write a constitution. Commit it to amnesia, Commit it to an institution. Quiet now, the idle lovers are sleeping It’s all they know and all they need to know. And later when they wake with sleepy kisses They won’t remember where the hours go. She believes in nothing But her right to be believed in. So on this empty vessel They’ll set sail for the four winds. Quiet now, the idle lovers are sleeping It’s all they know and all they need to know. And later when they wake with sleepy kisses They won’t remember where the hours go.
7.
NOTE TO SUBS That’s not house style around these parts - Too formal when what we want is chatter; Too long for headline, too short for standfirst, Best just dump it with the over-matter. Use ampersands and acronyms Shrinking pages mean shrinking words. Sentence the chaff to the margins – Widows and orphans first. It’s elementary, dear boy, it’s the rule of thumb Being too clever is just dumb. But I can’t seem to twist myself To prize medium over message. I can’t seem to cut myself To fit this crooked usage. Don’t fret about the substance It’s already on the chromalyn. A schoolboy error, to labour sense That’s not typing, that’s writing It’s elementary, dear boy, it’s the rule of thumb Being too clever is just dumb. But I can’t seem to twist myself To prize the medium over message I can’t seem to cut myself To fit this crooked usage
8.
9.
FROM THE VAULTS I don’t have designs to define you To try to catalogue or confine you; I don’t want to express myself And end up sounding like everyone else. I don’t want to pick words from stock And feel that they are left, left in hock I don’t want to be in anybody’s Debt but yours. So I give you these. Like a vintage wine or inherited wealth These words come up from the vaults. By design and not by stealth In their perfection, in all their faults. Not kept in the dark like last year’s apples Not rusting away like hoarded scrap metal, Sequestered, deformed, decayed –  Blinking into day, pale and afraid. More reliable than recovered memory More valuable than any stashed currency: Words that unearth that uproot Words that open up like a parachute. Like a lost film reel, or an analogue spool, These words come up from the vaults. Unearthed by feel and not by rule In their perfection, in all their faults. Does this sound familiar? Have you heard it all before? Too pedantic and old fashioned Because listening to words is a chore. Like a tapped desire, like a channelled id These words come up from the vaults, Always aiming higher, keeping nothing hid In their perfection, in all their faults. This one comes up from the vaults This one comes up from the vaults.
10.
11.
SLOW MEDICINE She is slow medicine – A spoonful of sugar won’t make her go down. An erotic empathogen: What she withholds is the thing that resounds. Words are slow medicine, Distilled into cliché and bland platitudes; Shake the alembic again – To see what rises when the dregs are subdued, It’s not getting, it’s not getting, It’s not getting any better. She is slow medicine, No quick fix, placebo or palliative. Cautions of toxins – Always harder to take than to give Words are slow medicine, Leisurely working their way through your system; An active allergen, Always easier to talk than to listen. It’s not getting, it’s not getting, It’s not getting any better. Neither poppy nor curare, Ergot or agaric, Stupefying or visionary, Hallucinogenic, soporific or ecstatic. It’s not getting, it’s not getting, It’s not getting any better.
12.
Memory Tag 04:11
MEMORY TAG Remember me, in case I should forget myself And think I’m somebody, or just somebody else. Do I treat every offer as if it’s my last spree? Or curl up on the sofa with that special DVD? Identify me in the line-up parade. Indemnify me from choices I’ve made: Decisions delayed. Am I holistic or atomised, organic or digital? Freelance or franchised, analogue or chemical? Am I proactive or reactionary, roundhead or square? Social wolf or lone butterfly? Who am I? What am I? Who cares? Identify me in the lifestyle parade. Indemnify me from choices I’ve made: Decisions waylaid. Write it on a post-it note, Take a polaroid to remind me, In case I should lose myself And need some clue to find me. Identify me in the mortuary arcade. Indemnify me from choices un-made: A life I’ve mislaid; a life I’ve mislaid.

about

Slow Medicine creates music that ranges from art rock to ambient, avant garde to piano ballad, with the results tweaked and twisted via electronics and sound-effects.

Recording in flats, streets and lockups in London, Slow Medicine's debut album blends band instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums) and orchestral instrumentation (clarinet, oboe, cello, violins, piano) with electronics to create songs, instrumentals, wordless songs and instrumentals with words.

Slow Medicine blurs the lines between live and studio, outside and inside, electric and acoustic, organic and processed, analogue and digital.

credits

released December 20, 2016

Recorded by Slow Medicine in the living room (and through the window) at Cazenove Road, London.
Distilled, catalysed and alchemised by Slow Medicine.

Slow Medicine plays:
Telecaster electric guitar, Martin Sigma acoustic guitars, Saul and Nial’s basses, clarinet, oboe, cello, piano, organ, synthesizer, harmonium, DIY Mellotron, harmonica, glockenspiel, xylophone, tambourine, castanets, maracas, triangle, claves, woodblock, electronic percussion and slowly looping feedback.

www.slowmedicine.co.uk

Invaluable lab assistance:
Milan Adamik: co-production, co-mixing, mastering, advice, patience.
Oliver Betts: drums on Closure Order, From the Vaults, A Safe Place, Organic Shrapnel, Slow Medicine.
Paul Cook: drums on From the Vaults, Note to Subs.
Stephen MacLachlan: drums on Memory Tag.
Jamie McCarthy: violins on A Safe Place and Memory Tag.
Daniel Lea: additional engineering; advice.

Mastered by Milan Adamik, London, www.masterworksaudio.co.uk
Sleeve art by Molly Stevens, New York, www.MollyStevensVisualArt.com
Sleeve design by Penn Glendinning, London, www.iampenn.com

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about

Slow Medicine London, UK

Slow Medicine creates music that ranges from art rock to ambient, avant garde to piano ballad, disco to folk, tweaked and twisted via electronics and sound-effects.

Slow Medicine blurs the lines between live and studio, outside and inside, electric and acoustic, organic and processed, analogue and digital.
... more

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