Limited edition design screen printed onto ash Bella + Canvas shirts. Shirts are exceptionally soft and sweatshop free. Modelled here by Hailey Jansson and illustrated by yours truly.
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Limited Edition Compact Disc
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Presented in a carefully designed wallet, with photos of the album's subjects and a special insert. Run of 200.
Includes unlimited streaming of Bronze Age of the Nineties
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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lyrics
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
supported by 7 fans who also own “That Was the Best Near-Death Experience Ever!”
Listening to this album while driving at night is a cinematic experience. I was reminded oddly of "Paris, Texas", a film which combines the mythic open roads of the West, with various states of in-betweeness (of adult and child, of woman and man). James often describes his work as liminal. Liminality speaks at the edge of something, being in the ambiguous place and paving a way for new identities, new places. A rite of passage ready to occur. A wonderful album, although I wish it were longer! amoda666
supported by 5 fans who also own “That Was the Best Near-Death Experience Ever!”
A stroll down a hazy hallway of memories. Each track is a glimpse through a door at a miniature world glistening with intimate details and wrapped in a careful sonic cocoon. It's good for your soul, folks. Joshua Nederhood
Delicate and personal folk-pop from Castle Theater: honest observations and reflections presented as thoughtful, well-written miniatures. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 4, 2022