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This Painting Doesn't Dry

by Liance

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1.
You were under the weather this time last December Driving to your parent's house The night was turning blue, we were listening to The Glow Pt. 2 Before your face turned out When the first set ends all are saved The kids mean well but they still stub their cigs out in your eyes Before I slip into that television blue Can I trust you? Can I want you? Sometimes I feel it like the chain of a bike Wrapped around my index finger But tonight I’ll try to stay alive so I can sleep by your side And not worry about the government I woke up on a coliseum night From a dream that my hand sunk into my face And like Ezra Pound’s broken raft My bed was wet with residue Can I trust you? Can I want you?
2.
We’re in the Studio at Charleston Standing between four mirrors Inside the interior of a moment Divining our future selves Two friends buried together Are we concentric circles or total loss? Two halves orbiting a landmine Unable to detect true cost It’s too easy to escalate a problem in love’s economy But much harder to back down from it now Like a cat that’s climbed a tree It all adds up Even small things add up in time It all adds up Walked the Downs later without you Prayed over Duncan and Vanessa’s graves Chalk arms drawn all around our bodies Didn’t even know how to say our names Blue light over Ouse Valley Sleeping lambs in a sodden field Left the magic we had on Firle Beacon Orchids where a giant once stood It all adds up Even small things add up in time It all adds up Felt abandoned and afraid So I took a plane to Stockholm Ate with Anna and Andrew December almond scented exhaust Just three months before Patrick would take his life Standing with the sculptures in the snow Too beautiful to destroy It all adds up Even the small things add up in time Too beautiful to destroy I wore my shame Like a shadow on the subway Too beautiful to destroy It all adds up Even the small things add up in time Too beautiful to destroy
3.
Dark water filled deep circles around the town Government land sold off Entire neighbourhoods set to drown Discerned by impartial design The Lake swallowed interpretive signs Poured down for seven years always observing State lines Only some trees survived: Inheritors of light
4.
Getting used to the signs Our microwave screen is smashed in But we know it’s gonna ring Yeah we’re getting used to the signs Getting used to the signs Getting used to the signs Getting used to the signs Getting used to the signs Used to think we were all forgiven As if nothing really changed at all But since you’ve crawled out from isolation You’ve been eying exits at every floor Raised in the shadow of the Seventies Raised in the science of a song You and I could have been in New York these days But it’s the same there as London or Hong Kong My life thesis was so run-of-the-mill Courage is no virtue when results are nil A misadventure doomed from the early onset While wild beasts are swimming just beneath the onsen We’re getting used to the signs Getting used to the signs Getting used to the signs Getting used to the signs Last April we took our bikes down to the sea A group of hooded men carried a cross down to the beach Now our neighbours are out sunbathing on the street In hospitals plastic sheets cover still-living bodies Back in the palace now - trace the stations of the cross When I think of what became of us, Oh God it was such a rush
5.
Catalonia 01:52
April 2020 voice notes by Alexandria, Bill, and Gail.
6.
Victoria City In this bathroom stall I’ll write your eulogy Born to the throes of a distant empire Handed to a force we couldn’t recognise Lan Kwai Fong 2am, I don't know who I am But a coward on a sliding scale, lone survivor to a sordid tale Half the districts are coughing up blood Cyanide drifts through hospital wards Run through hazy days of innocence Before the Summer of Discontent And I've drunk from your waters and I know that you ain't so sweet And I've drunk from your waters and I know that you ain't so sweet Victoria City: it was never easy Victoria City: it was never easy Victoria City, mountain teargas people sea Secret cops beat up secret cops In a polymer pearl of shopping malls You once pulled me into your lights Shined bright colours into my eyes Who could have seen such desperation From the islands of seven million And I've drunk from your waters and I know that you ain't so sweet And I've drunk from your waters and I know that you ain't so sweet And I've drunk from your waters and I know that you ain't so sweet And I've drunk from your waters and I know that you ain't so sweet And I've drunk from your waters and I know that you ain't so sweet And I've drunk from your waters and I know that you ain't so sweet
7.
After a decade of keeping wild animals in cages I finally left St John’s Wood with a book and no expectation of kindness Blushing through post extinction events Elated by our own holy insignificance Saw myself in Untitled 92 at the NPG So I’m saving money too trading novelty pedals for therapy Last week I watched you in the mirror We were covered in pink powdered sugar and wedding cake And if you were Pavement I was the Silver Jews And in this arrangement I’m living under random rules Want to create a signet ring to signify my pain And display it for all to see on this crowded Victoria train Any moment of normalcy is a quiet victory in 2019 Feeling profoundly alone at the Cindy Sherman show I thought we should call it off, hasn’t the Lord seen enough At the livestream funeral watch you wash your hands with Purell Until they bleed And if you were Pavement I was the Silver Jews And in this arrangement I’m living under random rules And if you were Pavement I was the Silver Jews And in this arrangement I’m living under random rules
8.
If I wrote it down: The Decameron Decamp at dawn to our rooms: A private field Standing apart - fables from a lighted house in the dark Seven virtues and three fools Lord I’m so afraid (I'm so afraid) Of Edith dying (what would it take?) Housekeeping in isolation Don’t want to live through history no more, no more When I emerged I was covered by the earth The parking deck was full of rotting flowers There is a river - shimmer - threading illness back to the past Seven planets and three stars Lord I’m so afraid (I'm so afraid) Of Edith dying (what would it take?) Housekeeping in isolation Don’t want to live through history no more, no more
9.
This painting doesn't dry It's strange to have you back in life How we left then by the blood tents in the garden It wasn't right Walked down old Roman roads It's forever or it's not Just two friends on the same fence in Sussex No opting out Never asked this white fountain no context Can't work this out Blue sleeves bleached from the sea You were leading me on When we held hands in silence on the white bench Was too much
10.
TAMSY 12:05
Leave your mark on the front step There’s birdsong Bonnie shakes her head and cries Then Johnson drives you to the airport There are people you love who you’ve seen for the last time When it’s dark turn from the gate In a daze take the last bus to the city Drift around Eastown like a ghost All your friends think you’re gone Fireworks and gunshots down Wealthy Street Kids smoking on their porch like sailors on a ship Peer through the windows of your empty house In your bedroom lives twin image of your ghost Dancing around the relics of your past Transitional orange glow Where does all blood come from? When did this dark river start? Well the answer might surprise you For now we’re dogless at the dog park In my mind’s eye I can see it now Last Michigan summer - part of me now Dive in the Lake at night Back from New Mexico feeling alright Distribute possessions Make arrangements for the final show And when September finally comes It will feel like a funeral When the last note rings there’s thunder outside Spin your song - if I could see all my friends tonight Where does all blood come from? When did this dark river start? Well the answer might surprise you For now we’re dogless at the dog park 香港這個充滿悲傷的大都市,有一條隱藏的線,輕輕地聯繫著一個又一個香港人,然後又慢慢鬆開。這條線又在不同移動的點之間穿梭,形成一些新的連結。 線在這個城市裏編織出不同紋理,迅速但卻短暫,從獅子山一直伸延至太平山。 每一瞬間,這個悲傷城市其實也承載著一個快樂城市,只是沒多少人知曉有這快樂城市的存在。 Woke up with no feeling By midnight they call the law Can you hear The Ascension As panic buyers strip the store Strip mined of affection Talk like Kowloon snipers all night I’ve since made course correction Guilt alone doesn’t make things right Smoke rises from the harbour Barricades burn at the college bridge Police draw blood outside my church Childhood boundless with new violence If peace benefits our oppressor To witness is to forfeit I left the country just so I could write about it I couldn’t feel your love so I searched in different places Echoes of our time wash like waves over everything Living on reduced hours on this teal promenade I’m feeling kind of blue boys Feeling kind of blue Feeling kind of blue boys Yeah I’m feeling kind of blue Catfished by oblivion crossing out discernible futures Like Josh’s final show at Hidden Agenda The elevator broke now we’re banished to a secret floor It’s one you cannot leave but you’ve left before Feeling kind of blue boys Feeling kind of blue Feeling kind of blue boys Yeah I’m feeling kind of blue I remember my first Bay of Pigs This ocean resonates with every event that came before it We’re jack knifed between two timelines Virginia Woolf saw bombs in her room where there were none I keep believing that this must be the crux but it always escalates My excesses are still excesses So I headed back to Monk’s House to find answers and draw this thread If you can make it through 2016 you can make it through most things If you can make it through 2020 you can definitely make it through this Each oceanic moment adds up to a life And this painting only dries if you look away It all adds up Even small things add up in time It all adds up Too Beautiful to Destroy

about

This album is dedicated to the memory of Joshua Wong (1978-2020).

This Painting Doesn’t Dry, the confident and expansive second album by Liance (James Joshua Li), explores the interconnectivity and eternal recurrence of all human experience. Recorded in a small Brighton bedroom over lockdown, interspersed with stems recorded at Abbey Road Studios and damp Michigan basements, it uses intertextuality and high context narratives to honour where the personal and the universal intersect again and again.

Textual influences are diverse yet cohesive. From WG Sebald to the Bloomsbury Group, from Cindy Sherman to the Spanish Civil War, from the climate crisis to the Swedish sculptor Carl Milles, and the Black Death to David Berman; all of this invoked history deepens the unflinchingly personal stories of each song; human stories of romantic heartbreak, kindness, grief, and hope in the face of state violence. These concrete narratives span across Michigan, London, the South Downs, Stockholm, and Hong Kong. Yet for all these influences and locations the album has a distinct cohesive character, one of inventing new life after trauma, and a constant self-identification in history.

Musically 'This Painting Doesn't Dry' reflects this diversity of influences and extent of ambition. The instrument list is long and varied: Li is joined by talented Virginian multi-instrumentalist Spencer Harris who contributes banjo, dulcimer, and trumpet. It's proudly DIY yet the layered arrangements are complex and mature. The instrumentation is often loud and experimental, but the structures are familiarly indie folk. There is also a particular attention to sound design: Guitars dissolve into collages of synths, field recordings, and drum machines. All of this comes to a head in the epic 12-minute closer 'TAMSY', a defiant thesis statement combining 7/4 folk rock with alternative disco.

credits

released April 21, 2021

All songs written, mixed, & recorded by James Joshua Li

Recorded at Candy Jail in Brighton, England

Additional instrumentation and arrangements (mandolin, banjo, trumpet, programmed drums, electric guitar, pedal steel, OP-1, organelle, vocals) by Spencer Harris

Mastered by Forbes Anderson at Studio 13 with additional vocal mixing on “Used to the Signs” and “Ellie Takes a Bath” and the album mix for “The Decameron”

Additional instrumentation (drums, organ, Rhodes) by Johnson Cochran, vocals by Olivia Rafferty, additional guitars on “TAMSY” by Kyle Wayne Luck, Cantonese sample on “TAMSY” by Stephanie Ng, saxophone on "Ellie Takes a Bath" by Tyler Luce, drum loops on "Ellie Takes a Bath" and "Used to the Signs" by Ian Chang, planter by Katie Preece, layout and photography by James Joshua Li, and voicemail samples on "Catalonia 1937" by Gail, Bill, and Alexandria.

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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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