Left and Right [EP]

by Nate Belasco

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1.
03:15
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2.
03:49
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04:18
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04:33
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05:40
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about

After years of playing guitar and writing songs, I finally got my act together and recorded a proper album. Left and Right is a five song EP of psych-folk/electro-pop recorded in various bedrooms over the last year. While I've released a few electronic albums under various names (Tactical Lisp, Warriorz of Virtue, and Errands) and two hip hop albums with my old band Mammox, this is my first release as a solo singer-songwriter (albeit with an army of layers behind my voice and my acoustic guitar). It represents my first attempt at melding my eclectic and often contradictory musical interests/obsessions - songwriting, beat-making, synthesis, side-chain compression, reversing recordings of metal tubing resonances, etc. - so naturally it means a lot to me. And thematically this is an album about contrast and dichotomies: left and right, this and that, here and there, loud and soft, acoustic and electric, expression and repression, control and chaos, sanity and psychosis. Ideally, the listener will end up dancing and scratching their head at the same time. I would greatly appreciate if you took twenty-one minutes and thirty-six seconds of your time to listen to the album in its entirety.

Thank you to all my friends, family, and teachers who have inspired and encouraged me over the years. And a special thank you to my late great-uncle Harvey Edwards who donated the incredible microphone that made this recording possible. This album is for all of you.

If my songs gets you super stoked, please do tell your friends. And tell your friends who are super stoked that I want to be friends with them.

credits

released 07 September 2012
All instruments and vocals performed by Nate Belasco, except on "New Religion" which features backing vocals by Dan Gilbert and Tegan Walsh, and spoken word by Jorge De La Torre and Jason Tarkington.

Recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered by Nate Belasco

Album Art by Leni Fried (lenifriedprintmaking.com)

tags

tags: pop electro pop psychedelic folk Washington

license

all rights reserved

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about

I am a composer, producer, songwriter, sound engineer, and multi-instrumentalist. I studied music and technology at Northeastern. I've played in the bands Mammox and Holy Rattlesnakes. I've made sound effects for video games. I co-wrote the music for the iPhone game Cube Runner.

Contact me if you would like me to write you a theme song. ... more

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Track Name: Left and Right
Red light, green light, I can only see yellow.
Moving forwards, backwards in reverse.
Left and right, sometimes I have to think about it.
Which is which is still up for debate.

Fast, slow, stop, go,
Say yes, say no.
Rolling 'round from side to side
Won't help you fall asleep tonight.

Up and down, that's how your life will seem
As long as you breath.
Come together and we'll fall apart.
Consternation is a pretty big word.
Yes, this little song is full of big truths.

Like you cut yourself on a band-aid wrapper
And got run over by an ambulance.
The irony is so ironic,
A gin and tonic, hold the gin.
Well it's hard to breath
When you don't believe.

Fast, slow, stop, go.
Say yes, say no.
Rolling 'round from side to side
Won't help you fall asleep tonight.
Track Name: Stammer On
Every morning I'm a medicine man,
A Mahler fan, a million recent crimes.
I won't trade my whiskey for wine.
Early evening is my favorite time
To feel your mind inside of my design.
It won't be breath, I concede you're fine.
You can ramble, I can rid of us of pain
With some Lil' Wayne over some wobble bass.
I believe you can read my mind.

You are my weakness.
I will be your slave if you'll be mine.
Read my lips girl, I'll show you a sign.

Making martyrs out of millionaires
Is only fair if you receive a dime.
I can read your fine print just fine.
When I'm choosing to lose track of the time
Oh I will find your therapeutic glare.
Fred Astaire and Tony Blaire will dine.

You are my weakness.
I will be your slave if you'll be mine.
Read my lips girl, I'll show you a sign.
Really please, you can't be serious
If you'll be my cheese I'll be your rind.
Stammer on boy, you're wasting my time.
Track Name: Letters and Numbers
First thing in the morning
Is the last thing I'll ever say, ever say.
Just like in the movies
I'll never be true to my heart at first.
Living in the moment
Isn't easy when nothing is going on.
The future is a tease
And I can never be sure when it has arrived.

Close up on the eyes.
It's not so hard to remember all the numbers,
They're true.
Forget about the letters.

You've got windows on your bunker.
They're not shatter-proof.
It's all over for the home team,
Too much, too soon.
Mark it off, take it easy.
You try to hard to lose.

They put something in the water
That will alter the state of your consciousness.
The too much information generation
Can never retain a thought.
360 horizons kind of make you despise
All those hills and trees.
Got voted off the island
'Cause you weren't sure you'd even like to survive.

Close up on the eyes.
Its not so hard to remember all the numbers,
They're true.
Forget about the letters.

You knew them all too well.
It's hard to think in silence,
You're in hell.
It's all you've got.
You're punching in and living in a dream.
Track Name: New Religion
The mausoleum in the Colosseum
Has so many bones.
He was a trader, the gladiator
He has long since gone.

The taller the castle, the higher the wall.
But all that rises will someday fall.

I will not die (I cannot die)
But can I live?
I will not die (I ask you why).
Why do we live?

"What then, are the patterns of the cosmic Way which human beings have to recognize? The principle characteristic of the Tao is the cyclic nature of its ceaseless motion and change. 'Returning is the motion of the Tao', says Lao Tzu, and 'Going far means returning'. The idea is that all developments in nature, those in the physical world as well those of human situations, show cyclic patterns of coming and going, of expansion and contraction." (Capra, Fritjof. The Tao of Physics, p. 105.)

I had a vision, a new religion,
No one holds the throne.
He's just a creature, the holy preacher.
We all walk alone.

The taller the castle, the higher the wall.
But all that rises will someday fall.

I will not die (I cannot die)
But can I live?
I will not die (I ask you why).
Why do we live?

" When the oneness of the totality of things is not recognized, then ignorance as well as particularisation arises, and all phases of the defiled mind are thus developed ... All phenomena in the world are nothing but the illusory manifestation of the mind and have no reality on their own." (Ashvaghosha, The Awakening of Faith, pp. 79, 86.)
Track Name: I Won't Be Gone
You won't be bothered.
I won't be smothered by your love.
There's something missing.
You taste indifference on my tongue
So feel my lungs,
They do not rise and fall for fun.

I will be underground for the winter.
You know it's long.
I won't be gone, I won't be.
I won't be gone, I won't be gone.

You can be my one
And I can be the sun.
I wanna be your,
I wanna be your gun.
You could be no one
And I could be so dumb.
I wanna be your,
I wanna be your gun.

You can't be serious.
I must be delirious when you're around.
It's not your business
But your soggy kisses could quench my thirst
So do your worst
I will not try and change your mind.

I will be underground for the winter.
You know it's long.
I won't be gone, I won't be.
I won't be gone, I won't be gone.

You could be my one
And I could be the sun.
I wanna be your
I wanna be your gun.
You could be no one
And I could be so dumb.
I wanna be your,
I wanna be your lion's share.
You're high enough to appreciate the noise.
I appreciate the noise.
Well it's hard enough to give up
Something you don't want to lose.