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Bronze Age of the Nineties

by Liance

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Connor McCabe
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Connor McCabe An engaging listen, earnest lyrics coupled with wonderful modern folk instrumentation. Favorite track: KZ Earthquake Tremor.
Andrew H
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Andrew H Always creating. Always giving life. Liance is pushing great music out to people across genre and political lines. The storytelling is mythic in it's simplicity.
Favorite track: that was the best near death experience ever!
Daniel Hickey
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Daniel Hickey Bronze Age invites the listener into the complex, often painful stories of their own life. The record doesn't shy away from extremely personal details, but it's more than just a diary. Bronze Age is a beautiful, complicated and nuanced effort of narrative storytelling in song. Favorite track: Bronze Age of the Nineties.
henry zander
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henry zander gorgeous, haunting, beautiful, a glorious coalition of the things i love in music. Favorite track: Mt. Vernon OH.
Richard Wu
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Richard Wu A courageous, tender album dealing with the experience of death. Haunting melodies, gripping narratives, and tragic—yet hopeful—humanity. Favorite track: Pine Rest.
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1.
Meg 01:48
Meg lost her mother sometime last December when she was only 19 When they found the tumor I wonder if they knew that it’d be their last Thanksgiving We’d cry for hours some nights on her sofa when she was consumed with grief But Meg is my sister and I’ll love her forever for she is family My own mother lost her own father in her early twenties He was a chain-smoker and a bus driver; his lungs collapsed suddenly I wish that I knew him, I wish that I loved him, I wish I had memories But I have my mother and I’ll love her forever for she is family We choose who we love but we have no choice over death or disease So hold close who’s left and the rest keep in memory
2.
19-22 03:16
I was nineteen you were twenty-two We were listening to Majical Cloudz in the room With the sentimentality of a Hallmark DVD you said you loved me too And all these moments will pass away And even these friendships will one day fade To be remembered at weddings, and funerals, and late nights and long-haul flights She said, “James, I’ve been in a chasm since the day I’ve met you, I’m sorry. I don’t know if I’m gonna survive but you’ve been an angel in my life to me.” A martyr for the world-wide web Shaking with the sediment I never saw her again I guess I was tired of being held responsible
3.
Call it the Bronze Age of the Nineties At least that's what the flyer said Brother Paul inhaled all those amphetamines Till his throat was dry his face masked with sweat Jenny bought twenty-two tabs of acid One for each year of her life From a high-school teacher in Kentwood Hiding from his daughters and wife And I have done bad things and called it love We signed student loans like famous authors Sang the Jesus Prayer until it stuck Drove around Michigan with no direction Exorcised Daniel in a parking lot Back home the city is in trouble Back home the students are on the street Back home Patricia's fearing for her life Oh God they've politicized the police And I have done bad things and called it love Johnson spent four months in Budapest Where he grew his hair out long Jared's manager at Chipotle now Sometimes we sleep in his basement and write songs Meg's going to get married Ericka's transferring to GVSU Justin's recording their second album Tentative release date: This June And I have done bad things and called it love
4.
Pine Rest 04:12
Woke up disappointed that I woke up at all On the hospital bed, the needle draws from my arm My mind's receding, tumor in my heart growing Like a bad Christian metaphor No laces in the ward, no blades or drawstring The light shines through the window, checks that I'm still breathing I guess I don't want to die but I want to feel alive again And I know that this aint living, I hear twenty reapers calling Love's not infatuation, it left me a mess on the floor Though we make it you still change behind the curtain Outside these walls the pressure's mounting, my mother weeps through the phone In the shadow of Lion Rock, bruised students refuse to go home I hear twenty reapers calling, oh they know me by name Angels falling in the courtyard, delight in tracing my veins Broke her leg on the subway, staggered her sorry way back home Escitalopram your sweet revenge, bottles of trazadone Lost your faith in a Christian school, where you lost your virginity too Androgynous Superman; I only want to yours Fear's your only love language, pepper spray, and the leaves of Fall My only sacred memories of you aren't so sacred at all No laces in the ward, no blades, or drawstring The light shines through the window, checks that I'm still breathing I guess I don't wanna die, but I want to feel alive again And I know that this aint living, I hear twenty reapers singing
5.
Sheets 03:39
Snowed in again Can't get out of my house for a weekend Vortex in the backyard Took all the trees and neighbor’s cars Washed the sheets today Flattened the topography of your remains And as I remained there Unraveled the history of this bed
6.
I spent a week at Johnson’s home in Mt. Vernon, Ohio To record some tracks for my first EP for a July release And see his high school friends like Graham, Andrew and Nora And spend time with Johnson before he left for Hungary They filled up quarries with water to create artificial lakes A massive smoke stack loomed over the tall, tall trees We walked barefoot through the mud and bushes to the secret hangout We took off our clothes and swung from the rope into the cold Teenage middle-school girls, awkward and self-conscious Swam close to us, swearing at each other in young voices They left when they felt what they thought was something biting their feet It started to rain, I began to shiver, limbs rotating aimlessly Four years ago the police searched the water for a murder victim’s body They never found it, just some sunken cars Nora drove us to the Edge of the World at golden hour We parked inside an empty lot through a destroyed fence and a railway track Walked down the gravel road which was littered with bones, bags and dead animals Stacks of red bricks, smashed-in TV’s and the hood of a car Then we found it a large expanse of concrete where a factory used to be Trees and long grass grew out of cracks, puddles pooled sporadically It was alien and disturbing for reasons we could not explain We stopped walking when we smelled chemicals, and ran the other way We explored an abandoned poorhouse that was falling apart Ran out of its collapsing floors when it started to get dark At the top of the Observatory Hill in the grass we went star-tipping And stumbled our way back to the car when we heard something screaming We drifted around Kenyon College at midnight where Andrew gave me the tour Walked around the Church Holy Spirit and its red carpet floors I tested out the acoustics clapping my hands and singing Victoria City A moment is infinite because every moment is unique On the last day we went to the Sunday Service where we talked to God On the last day Johnson’s mom talked about Joe; her autistic older son She wanted to build a special-needs home for three other kids and Joe And she cried when she said that‘s how she’d provide when it was her time to go Only saw Johnson one more time that year at Pitchfork Festival It was the second night after headliners Neutral Milk Hotel And standing in Union Park with harsh lights and empty plastic bottles We hugged and left separately, it feels so long ago There’s only a finite amount of times I’ll go to Mt. Vernon before I die But it doesn’t mean that it aint special or that I won’t at least try I’m not one for hyperbole or cheap clichéd sentimentality But Johnson is a friend I will keep and love for as long as I breathe
7.
Oyster Boys 05:41
Feeling obsolete in the twenty-first century Oh, how I should have listened to mother And pain unravels a thread that was sewn From your belly-button when you were only four-years old, or so I've been told My sister called from the site of her second baptism Hands covered in mace and lungs caked with tear-gas She said, "James! The police will soon have us on our knees, But the good lord is watching over you and me, and our dying city." And all the boys, all the girls, all the boys, all the Oyster Boys How I wish that I knew what I've been through I'm nobody's angel or darling or messiah My therapist says nobody waits forever But the next few weeks could change everything We're living in perpetual history, do you agree? There're not many things both pure and ethical The Paris Metro still smells like piss But for all of life's fleeting and fragile indeterminacies Something more animal still flows underneath, something terrible And all the girls, all the boys, all the girls, all the Oyster Boys How I wish that they knew what I've been through And kissing you, kissing me; ambiguity Oh how I wish that you knew what I've been through
8.
I watched the news today, ISIS burned a man to death in a cage I watched the news today, a man died at Kava House just minutes away He was only thirty-five, he had an overdose in the bathroom and he suddenly died I passed the scene on the way to work, ambulances on the street, and the coffee-shop was closed Isabelle died young at eighteen, they found her in her mother's car in the front seat Two months later I learned from Facebook that Mr. Ford hung himself in his bathroom I went to his funeral at KGV, my middle-school teacher saw me there and he hugged me and he cried They were in a band that often played The Wanch; at the service they played All These Things That I've Done Auntie Fung Yee died when I was six years old, it was a rare cancer of the blood She was in her early thirties; her parents couldn't look at her when it was her time to leave Fung Yee died in her husband's arms in the golden light of the hospital in Wellington He's doing better now, though last year they found that he has the same cancer I watched Joey Basha’s last set, Saturday afternoon at Clockenflap His next record was meant to be pretty big, but a few weeks later he went missing Our desperate friends made appeals online; his boyfriend was the last person who saw him alive They found Basha in a public bathroom; his arms poked with needles, his wallet stolen Yeah death never happens the way it should Sometimes good people die alone in the bathroom Nobody talks how it’s violent or undignified How unfair it all is, sometimes there’s no reason why When someone you love dies it stings and it bites But you’ve got to continue on, you’ve got to keep them inside Sometimes living’s the only response to loss You’ve got to keep it together, and see how things play out
9.
May 2015 Woke up thinking that I was trembling But then I saw the mirrors and pictures on the wall were shaking On the bus I saw two middle-aged guys hit on a high school girl And I left in a kind of rage that I didn’t do more If our stalkers met each other, would they fall in love? It’ll always be these warm humid nights I’ll remember When the sun sets at nine and the kids smoke on their porches Faces lit up orange and blue with their cigs and phones Last month the plumbing got broken so I went to Yesterdog to pee Slept on Katie’s sofa, cos the house was full of dirt for a week There’re rats crawling in the basement, now there’s shit floating there as well But rent’s real cheap and I’ll still be living here in the fall Spent three days in the Rat House, sleeping til the afternoon Only went out to see CARE play their release show at the Powder Room Hit my head hard on the counter when I thought I heard your voice Maybe I’ll see you at Barnes and Noble, maybe at Family Fare In the frozen foods section suddenly find myself gasping for air Your Tweets still cause me anxiety, there’re no safe spaces in these streets If I could open my mind to the world like film to camera lens I’d open it up and let everything pour in My great-grandfather died in a darkroom So I mail my film to a lab on the West Coast It’s May 2015, and all the tremors are my own There’s no witness to my life and I’m not in love Sometimes I see two divergent paths, but usually I see none Isabelle, died in her mother’s car, in the morning Her father drove down these country roads, looking for her The longest night of his entire life, I wish it ended differently In the morning you were cherry red and golden In the morning you were eternally eighteen I gave your father a painting of a koi fish He ran downstairs and they cried in the pantry Senior year of high school I took a trip to Cambodia On the bus from Phnom Pehn, Gerri put their head on my shoulder And I was devoted from the start: we listened to my iPod in the dark On the Killing Fields I rubbed the ground with my shoe, And underneath the dirt I found a child’s tooth At Siem Reap an old American played classic rock covers at the bar To an audience of one: he was the happiest guy I’d ever seen
10.
Junior year, I transferred to a new high school 2010, I was listening to The Age of Adz Left the old one because I received death threats Got suspended for wanting to jump from the sixth floor Feeling real lost feeling pretty lonely With no new friends at all and teenage anxiety I wanted to play music at Wednesday morning chapel But Steve who was in charge said I couldn’t sing at all Steve’s a math teacher from Petoskey, Michigan Every free period he’d teach me how to write songs and sing Then I learned he was married to Sufjan’s sister, Jamila All my first songs were copies of Casmir Pulaski Day After graduation I moved to West Michigan The winters are long and it’s been a tough transition But I’ve made good friends who’ve kept me through Like Jared and Meg and Johnson and Space Girl too In March I took a flight to New York City Stayed on Mark and Mara’s couch in Harlem for a week Met Marzuki, Sufjan’s brother, and talked about our music Listened to the sirens at night, the helicopter circling the building The next week Sufjan played our college Jamila had flown up from Hong Kong, specially We met up and she invited me to sit down with the family We watched their home videos on the cathedral screens The concert started in a swirling rush People were crying and awed, like a soft apocalypse When the mirror balls lit up for Blue Bucket of Gold Saw my life flash before me, felt my blood getting cold Sufjan used to drive from Hope College to here And watch his heroes play this very room Someday I’ll be playing on this stage too And the cycle will only continue After the show I did load out and helped fill the truck Ken Heffner’s my friend and he’s helped me out so much While checking the CFAC for the last lighting cart I saw Jamila and Sufjan walking towards us I said, Thanks for the near-death experience And he laughed and said you’re welcome James Then Jamila took a photo with my camera Then we hugged and said goodbye and left the parking lot Two days later I played a full set at the Cave Where Marzuki, Sufjan’s old band in the nineties used to play It went real well but I hated every minute of it I was already depressed and it felt so disingenuous After the show a friend asked me to stop playing a song He said it was about his ex-girlfriend because they shared the same name I told him that he was mistaken and that he had it wrong But the incident left me shaken and I decided to scrap that song Spent the next few days walking the neighborhood Seeing stores unchanged since the Nineties, fields where houses once stood Felt real lonely and faceless, thought about throwing in the towel Felt like a slow-motion panic attack, even waking up was hell Then I saw Jessica from my time at Pine Rest She was one of the only ones my age; she’d get sleep paralysis While awake, screaming and crying unable to move her legs We weren’t allowed to hug in the ward but we still did And there outside the froyo store on the other side of the walls We hugged and smiled and something inside me began to thaw Ran back home and lay in bed and held my guitar Felt myself plunge into the indeterminate soup of the universe The cycle’s got to continue on and on When I’m dead what’s left of me will be these songs It’s Tuesday night and I’m feeling pretty well Steve’s mastering, Johnson’s mixing the new album I sleep with the window breeze, I sleep on my side Sometimes I wake on my back, and I’m paralyzed And I listen to the blood buzz through my ears And the birds up above, they gather and disappear

about

Since Nov 2016, all proceeds from this album have gone towards Girls Rock! Grand Rapids: www.girlsrockgr.org

Receipt of donations. I'll try to keep this as updated as I can: imgur.com/a/O9s5d

Interview: bit.ly/2jwMRjC

Review: bit.ly/1U9rHRz

credits

released November 13, 2015

All songs by James Joshua Li
Mixed and recorded by Johnson Cochran
Mastered by Steve Ross in Hong Kong

2021 album illustration by Anne Pomel, design by James Joshua Li

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Liance Brighton, UK

Pronounced lie-ance

Ambient music is published under Ministry of Interior Spaces.
For sync or licensing contact: liancemusic@gmail.com

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