Get all 7 SPANISH CASTLES- AKA James Summerfield releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of THEM, Doubt, Analogue Tales: Sounds From Arden, Count To 10 & Start Again, Paint The Road, Hailah, Hailah, and Hailah, Hailah Live E.P.
1. |
The Block
05:35
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1. Enter the lift, a lozenge moving vertically in the throat of the block,
always swallowing and coughing up, it never stops.
Soundproofed silence, changed only when the shaft is climbing or falling,
in a riot of clicks and hydraulic groans.
2. Jaundiced, dead air sewn with Bisto and bleach smells, are blown in your face,
like an annoying friend trying to irritate you into action,
from dormant fire hydrants and unused exits.
Quilted analogue sounds,
a quilt of analogue tinny sounds;
only single numbers leave at once.
Beware loan sharks; notice common room opening times;
call the mobile hairdresser after 2pm.
Do you remember the ‘50s?
Foyer messages disappear as you rise.
Fifth floor bare-walls-paint-in-’9-7 with European money.
It won’t last.
Suspended lives on high, no front doors are ever opened fully.
Quilted analogue sounds,
a quilt of analogue tinny sounds;
only single numbers leave at once.
Seventh floor: he worked for The Times, they say.
He wears a cravat after 6.
He doesn’t watch television.
He listens to analogue sounds on the radio.
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3. |
Jewellery Quarter
05:00
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5. |
Stechford (Iron Lane)
03:26
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Verse 1
On Winter's timid offering for a day,
the air is a trench, from which she can’t erase.
A ride in her car is a type of escape- when stranded is
(quick) snared by the shadows from-the dis figured snooker club’s face,
It’s a stalemate of immovable conditions pitched against unachievable wisdom.
Verse 2
She avoided the collage of Iron Lane's
windowless buildings,
graffiti tats were third-rate,
offering promises,by looking down
at the fresh-lit cigarette rolling around
no hand could manoeuvre.
Bright hot ash pit,
-like sparks from an anvil traced behind it;
Instrumental mid-8
Verse 3
she just had to join dots,
and follow the path
to the teenager,
who had fell upon the grass
Her bravery is no servant to mediocrity.
Leaving her car alive --and ru--nning,
she can prevent death ---from smearing its
intended consequences---- on him and
others, by holding the boy--- firm to her body,
as she waits ---for the mania --of the convulsions to hide.
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6. |
Centopath
01:13
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7. |
Feral Cats Of Longbridge
03:02
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Twilight rain is sprayed on the sweaty pewter-stained window panes
from Portuguese man o’ war clouds,
The entrails of the North Works and South Works being gnawed nightly by rats
Decaying veins of computer cables of Austin’s motor masterplan
So the feral cats go hunting - working for the rat race
Feline after beast after dark: a manmade Mother Nature hunt
Humans hail the feral outsiders as ‘miniature lions’
And they wait and claw, and claw, and wait
Standing with stillness
by the toilet door
Scanning the tea-coloured urinal,
Silently moving on down the oily corridor
The rats days were numbered, but then so were the feral cats,
Because the plant’s owners see their pest controllers
As an untidy and unnecessary waste of cash
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8. |
River
01:47
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Zeal and money didn’t win.
The Avon’s banks were without footprints and windows
its lands remained unconquered
The Avon’s banks were without footprints and arguments
it revelled alone in the Forest of Arden
with no crooked landowners,
or dying visiting monarchs
who’d ruin its poise
by building a bridge
in their swollen names.
The Avon’s banks were without footprints and voices
but it had dragonflies
in arching flight,
embroidering the shallows,
stealing sunlight,
caught in their stiff,
sugar syrup wings.
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9. |
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The lost water’s
camino is
subsumed at Salford
Park into a clash of scrap yards.
What would the (tom ser at)
and (pen ser at) tribes say
of the lost water?
Sewed beneath
the ugly usefulness
of the present.
The efforts to
castrate it
culvert it
canalise it
are all completed.
Its tributaries
act as tourniquets
on its journey.
What a thing to do to a river,
in the plait of planes
of (con va lesing) gritters
and a brewery for potent cider.
Punished for flowing;
guilty of nothing.
Being in the wrong place
all of the time.
Knuckles On The Window Of The Cross City Line
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11. |
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SPANISH CASTLES- AKA James Summerfield England, UK
James Summerfield returns after a few years of side-project distraction. There’s a new line up and a 7th studio album, THEM
(Say ‘Aargh’ Records 2023)
James’ music career began in the band Buick 6, later renamed The Toques. They recorded 2 John Peel.
James would go on to release 7 studio albums and played with the likes of Alistair Roberts, John Renbourne, Scott Matthews and Joanna Newsom.
... more
SPANISH CASTLES- AKA James Summerfield recommends:
Bonnie "Prince" Billy & broeder Dieleman - Split 7"
by Bonnie "Prince" Billy & broeder Dieleman
Will Oldham is the greatest songwriter in the world.
go to albumIf you like Analogue Tales: Sounds From Arden, you may also like:
The new EP from denitia specializes in big, hooky pop songs that put her smoky voice front and center.
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Phenomenology
by The Mining Co.
Inspired by John Carpenter’s 1974 film “Dark Star,” the beautifully moody songs on this LP present a voyage into the unknown.
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The Ohio songwriter navigates gender, queerness, class, and privilege through a powerful mix of country rock, folk ballads, and bluegrass.
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Notes From The Wonderground
by The Reflection Box
Irish singer-songwriter Sarah E. Cullen bares her heart over pastoral folk arrangements enshrouded in a dream-pop haze.
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Written as she was coping with an auto-immune disease, the new EP from Rachel Angel offers hushed, silvery ’50s-style Americana.
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