Tangled Star
“something that ripples, radiates and blossoms amid a dressage of shimmering keys and softly burnt riff cascades which had us much in mind of Hefner shimmying with the Clientele at times.” – Losing Today
Distilling elements of indie rock and alt country married with Craig Hallsworth’s wonderful dust and liquor coated vocals and twisting lyrics, Tangled Star weaves their own magic place. Through the musics exultant shifts and wandering detours the band manages to make once familiar territory foreign and offset.
Discography
Let’s Adjourn To The Garden
June 2013
Let’s Adjourn To The Garden sees Craig Hallsworth’s Tangled Star project shift gears while continuing to distill the inimitable songcraft Hallsworth is so well known for. Let’s Adjourn To The Garden is, in typically contrarian fashion, their least bucolic offering yet, blending more driving power-pop flavours into their distinctive soup of song. Hallsworth’s wonderful dust-and-liquor-coated vocals and twisting lyrics combine with exultant shifts and melodic detours allowing the music to make once familiar territory somehow foreign and offset.
Tracks such as ‘Head In The Sand’ and ‘Hasn’t Made For Freedom’ streamline Tangled Star’s brilliant hooks and melodic turns into immediately addictive and electric slices of slow burn power-pop. ‘Attic Space Conversion #1’ exemplifies the band’s compositional and stylistic shifts even more, stitching rousing ramshackle rock with almost Doors’esque cosmic guitar pop. And there amidst the fuzz and driving drums lay some quiet gems in the beautifully stripped back, drumless guitar pop of ‘99% Ok’ and ‘Someone’s Walking’. Just when you think you have the album pegged, the final track ‘Theme’ takes a left turn employing sweeping synths and electronic percussion in some sort of beatific yet melancholic final postcard to the world.
That Time
June 2009
That Time sees Tangled Star at their most immediately accessible and deliciously hooky. Like a trapdoor spider hidden by a welcome doormat, the band lay an easy invitation to the unsuspecting listener, only to unleash a series of inimitable pop hooks and subtle detours. The EP typifies Tangled Star’s ability to craft songs that reveal fresh dimensions with each listen.
That Time features the stunning single ‘seabirdtown’. The track opens with the expansive open-air sound of Pink Floyd-style organs and spatial guitars before falling into an earthbound shuffle and a taste of a lush, full-band sound for Tangled Star. The song’s gradual build to a towering edifice of glowing overdriven guitar, droning organ and harmony vocals is topped off by an echoed guitar line that sketches glistening arcs in the stratosphere. The single is indicative of That Time’s strengths as a louder, more flowing version of the melodic, evocative spaces of Tangled Star’s twilight pop songs.
Our Man From Eden Hill
February 2008
Our Man in Eden Hill sees Tangled Star building on their wonderfully received debut outing through Hidden Shoal, It’s Now or Later. Musically the EP toys with the frayed edges of country, pop and indie, while in part infusing a sense of space and possibility familiar to fans of the classic Dark Side of the Moon. As with their debut EP, Our Man in Eden Hill’s surface often belies its musical and emotional interior. Through its gentle shifts and directed detours, the EP manages to make once familiar territory foreign and offset. As chief songwriter and lyricist Craig Hallsworth explains,
“If these songs are simple, they are only apparently so. To me, they are only beginning to really work when they are able to express a space of becoming… There are strange warnings and advice, mysterious imperatives and entreaties… I see the lyrics as working for and against themselves, as well as for and against the music, generating a plane of momentary, shifting affective states. There is comic desperation folded into offhand profundity. There is something depressing and defeating suddenly transformed into a rare kind of pleasure and privilege. There are secrets with nothing to hide. There is one last chance after another…” – Craig Hallsworth
It’s Now Or Later
February 2007
It’s Now or Later charts a journey across once familiar land yet through its exultant shifts and wandering detours manages to make everything feel new again. The album’s title talks to the wonderful paradox that is infused within each song both musically and lyrically. This is the apathetic’s guide to caring too much.
Biography
In the late 90s, Outstation (Craig Hallsworth, guitars and singing; Jim Butterworth, bass; Jamie Hamilton, drums), a sonic monstrosity, began playing a lot of quiet tunes, and eventually turned into Tangled Star. Lorne Clements (Hammond Organ, Piano) became involved. Then Jamie Hamilton left, and was replaced by a drum machine, and Jim became its programmer.
The T-Star quietly went about its business for a few years in Jim’s back shed and in Lorne’s living room. They played only a handful of live shows, but recorded two albums with Alan Smith from Bergerk! Recordings – the self-titled debut, and It’s Now Or Later (to be released through Hidden Shoal Recordings November, 2006).
Craig Hallsworth:
Born 1964 in Collie South-West Western Australia – land that belongs to the Noongar People. Fatally infected with AM radio that plays constantly throughout childhood, in the house and in the car. Begins playing guitar and writing songs around 8 or 9 years of age. Magazines and records. Sitting alone in a room playing and singing into a cassette recorder. String of bands. Loses virginity after a gig at the Narrogin Hotel. Moves to Perth in the mid 80s upon completion of welding apprenticeship in the coal mines. Over next 15 years or so plays in The Bamboos, The Healers, wild palms, Zuvuya, Outstation, Tangled Star, as well as many solo performances and recordings. Currently writing an experimental book-length poem and playing in The Slow Beings.
News
Hidden Shoal in Textura’s Ten Favourite Labels of 2018 List!
Hidden Shoal is incredibly honoured to have been selected as one of Textura’s Ten Favourite Labels of 2018. Textura is, in our opinion, the premiere new music magazine and favourite of the label team for unearthing and exposing new and exciting new music. This is the second time Hidden Shoal has been selected in Textura’s best labels list and as always we are nestled against some other very special labels, all of who you should check out.Now for a very brief and unnecessary acceptance speech – we are nothing without our incredible roster of artists, who continually amaze, inspire and surprise us. Thank you all!
Continue reading →Craig Hallsworth Announced for RTRFM’s In The Pines!
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We have more exciting live news for you. Craig Hallsworth has just been announced as part of the In The Pines 2017 line up. He and his excellent new live band will playing alongside the likes of Jebediah, Sodastream, Institut Polaire, Childsaint, Doctopus, Tangled Thoughts of Leaving and many more. In The Pines is an RTRFM and Perth yearly institution with the line up and even never failing to impress. It all happens on the 30th April with pre-sale tickets available now for a ridiculously cheap $35 or $30 if you’re an RTRFM subscriber. All details available here.
Craig Hallsworth AMRAP Metro Australian Radio Chart Top 10!
Craig Hallsworth’s brilliant solo debut What’s The Story With This Hole? has landed in the top 10 of the AMRAP Metro Australian radio chart. The album has been getting plenty of spins across Australia’s fine independent stations and has been a featured release at RTRFM Perth, 4ZZZ Brisbane, Edge Radio Hobart,FBi Radio Sydney, and Triple R and Mountain District Radio in VIC.Check out the album here and be sure to check out Craig’s body of work as Tangled Star.
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Apricot Rail and Craig Hallsworth in Tone Deaf Best Of List!
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Apricot Rail’s ‘Scarecrow’ and Craig Hallsworth’s ‘We’re Too Far Away (My Other Future, My Other Youth)’ have been featured in Will Backler’s (RTRFM Music Director) “The 8 Best Aussie Songs You Haven’t Heard” list over at Tone Deaf. Nice!Eat Your Friends: A Hidden Shoal 10th Anniversary Compilation
Hidden Shoal is excited to end the celebration of its 10th year of existence with the new compilation album Eat Your Friends, comprising remixes and covers of Hidden Shoal artists, by Hidden Shoal artists. This freely downloadable album not only showcases the wealth of original music released through Hidden Shoal, but also the creative ingenuity and deft musical touch of the remixers and cover artists.From searing solar-flared adaptations to delicately reconstructed covers, deep space jam reworkings, and shimmering ambient tapestries, Eat Your Friends reimagines the Hidden Shoal discography in new and beautiful ways, playing to all the strengths of the roster’s dizzying array of talent.
Includes remixes and covers by: Antonymes, Arc Lab, Glanko, Wayne Harriss, Liminal Drifter, Makee, Chloe March, Markus Mehr, Erik Nilsson, REW<<, Slow Dancing Society, Tin Manzano, Willem Gator, and Zealous Chang of music by: Arc Lab, Brother Earth, Cheekbone, City of Satellites, Medard Fischer, Gilded, Glanko & Daniel Bailey, Kryshe, Memorybell, Erik Nilsson, perth, Slow Dancing Society, Tangled Star, Umpire, and Zealous Chang.
Eat Your Friends is available now as a free download via Bandcamp and is also streamable via SoundCloud. Listen and then throw yourself into the wormhole as you explore the originals and more work by the remixers and cover artists. For all the filmmakers, games designers and others in need of engaging music, don’t forget that all tracks in our catalogue are available for licensing (film, tv, games, compilations etc).
Continue reading →New Craig Hallsworth Single!
We’ve been itching to give you a taste of the sublime debut album from the inimitable Western Australian songwriter Craig Hallsworth and now the itching can cease! ‘We’re Too Far Away (My Other Future, My Other Youth)’ is the first single lifted from What’s The Story With This Hole? which will see release on the 24th of October 2016. Many will know the man from some of Perth’s pivotal seminal outfits such as The Bamboos, The Healers, wild palms, Zuvuya, Outstation, The Slow Beings, Tangled Star so this solo outing should rightly come with some level of excitement and expectation. We can guarantee that you’ll have your expectations and me and your appetites whet! Stream the single here and download it for free here. More on the new album below.With over 30 years of songwriting experience under his belt, Craig Hallsworth makes What’s The Story With This Hole? feel effortless yet boundless. Recorded and produced with long-time collaborator Al Smith (DrAlienSmith, Bergerk Studios), the album represents the most musically developed and fully realised recording the pair have delivered to date. On the surface, these are perfectly composed and innately melodic pop/rock songs, with Hallsworth’s guitars alternately shimmering and snarling around his unmistakably keening vocals. The real magic, however, lies a little concealed; songs often end up somewhere very different from where they started, and Hallsworth’s often surreal lyrical excursions act in striking counterpoint to the music.
It’s this juxtaposition that makes What’s The Story With This Hole? so special – musically rich and familiar sounds taken into unrelated narrative territories. In Hallsworth’s own words, “To me, the mysterious undecidability in the words plays a crucial part in the overall experience of the songs, making them events of sense and sensation. It isn’t so much that I consider the lyrics to be poetry, but I think a sense of poetry would be useful in approaching these songs.”
“Craig Hallsworth knows his way around a tune with this set of sparkling power-pop, set with a country twang and cosmic touch” – 2ser on Tangled Star’s album Let’s Adjourn to the Garden
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New Craig Hallsworth Solo Album Out Late October
Continue reading →We’re excited to announce that the inimitable Craig Hallsworth (Tangled Star, The Slow Beings, The Bamboos, The Healers and beyond) will release his debut solo album, What’s The Story With This Hole?, via Hidden Shoal on October 24th. With over 30 years of songwriting experience under his belt, Craig Hallsworth makes What’s The Story With This Hole? feel effortless yet boundless. Recorded and produced with long-time collaborator Al Smith (DrAlienSmith, Bergerk Studios), the album represents the most musically developed and fully realised recording the pair have delivered to date. The first single from the album, ‘We’re Too Far Away (My Other Future, My Other Youth)’, drops on the 13th of September.Hidden Shoal is 10!
Hidden Shoal is extremely excited to be celebrating its 10th birthday this month. It’s hard to believe that back in May 2006, Perth-based musicians Cam Merton, Stuart Medley and Malcolm Riddoch began Hidden Shoal Recordings as a means to put out releases by local artists. Tim Clarke, based in Melbourne, joined the team in 2007. Hidden Shoal has since gone on to become a much-loved independent label and publisher, releasing over 120 albums from a diverse range of international artists and licensing music from its catalogue across film, tv, web and compilation.Stay tuned for special anniversary announcements in the coming months!
Continue reading →Outstation's "Let The Mess Shine In" Now Available For Streaming and Download!
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Hidden Shoal is excited to be able to share the brilliant 1999 album Let The Mess Shine In from the Craig Hallsworth-led, Perth-based Outstation. Loud, brash, melodic and always engaging, Outstation lit the stage up wherever they played. Let The Mess Shine In captures this raw power beautifully. The band consisted of Craig Hallsworth (guitar, vocals), Jim Butterworth (bass), Jamie Hamilton (drums).“…one of the most ferociously heavy live bands going round in the mid-90s. They played ear-splitting indie rock and were killer live. Critically acclaimed, sadly underappreciated, they were a true gem, delivering top shelf servings of gritty indie rock.” – Life is Noise
Thanks to the band, the album is now available in full for streaming and download via the Hidden Shoal SoundCloud. Fans of Hallsworth’s work should also check out his current project Tangled Star and his previous band The Slow Beings whose releases are available now through Hidden Shoal.
Four Hidden Shoal releases in the KBRP top 30!!!
The wonderful Arizona based college radio station KBRP can’t get enough Hidden Shoal at the moment. We now currently have four releases in their Top 30 chart!
16. Liam Singer – Arc Iris
18. Todd Tobias, Robert Pollard, Circus Devils – I Razor
26. Jumpel – “Bloc4”
30. Tangled Star – Let’s Adjourn To The GardenNice!
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Reviews
Craig Hallsworth “What’s The Story With This Hole?” Out Now!
We’re excited to announce the official release of Craig Hallsworth‘s brilliant new album What’s The Story With This Hole?. The album is available now as a limited edition CD and in digital format via BandCamp, iTunes, Spotify and all the other other usual suspects.With over 30 years of songwriting experience under his belt, Craig Hallsworth makes What’s The Story With This Hole? feel effortless yet boundless. Recorded and produced with long-time collaborator Al Smith (DrAlienSmith, Bergerk Studios), the album represents the most musically developed and fully realised recording the pair have delivered to date. On the surface, these are perfectly composed and innately melodic pop/rock songs, with Hallsworth’s guitars alternately shimmering and snarling around his unmistakably keening vocals. The real magic, however, lies a little concealed; songs often end up somewhere very different from where they started, and Hallsworth’s often surreal lyrical excursions act in striking counterpoint to the music.
It’s this juxtaposition that makes What’s The Story With This Hole? so special – musically rich and familiar sounds taken into unrelated narrative territories. In Hallsworth’s own words, “To me, the mysterious undecidability in the words plays a crucial part in the overall experience of the songs, making them events of sense and sensation. It isn’t so much that I consider the lyrics to be poetry, but I think a sense of poetry would be useful in approaching these songs.”
Continue reading →Tangled Star's "Let's Adjourn To The Garden" Featured at 2ser
“Speaking of craft, there’s no more immaculately dealt out in the guitar stakes this week than from Tangled Star. Leader Craig Hallsworth knows his way around a tune with this set of sparkling power-pop, set with a country twang and cosmic touch.”
– 2ser
Continue reading →Tangled Star – 'Head in the Sand' Reviewed at Luna Kafe
”
“Head In The Sand” is the brand new single from Australians Tangled Star, and an excellent pick to promote the forthcoming album Let’s Adjourn To The Garden (due out June 18th). This one’s a little gem, yet again presenting Craig Hallsworth’s skills creating melodic pop-hooks and mild and affectionate power-pop.
Former records, the mini-album Our Man in Eden Hill and the EP That Time have proved Tangled Star to be waiters of catchy and accessible pop songs. “Head In The Sand” is no exception. In fact it’s one of the better songs I’ve heard from them, besides “tosleepingpeople”. Again they make me think of some of Flying Nun’s kiwi poppers, and briefly a fuzzed and rockier The Go-Betweens. This is indie pop at its best. Sugar-coated, yet a bit raw. Rich-sounding and many-flavoured, with a surprising piano outtro. A true pop gem, but as the world’s unfair, I guess the world won’t listen.
I’ve got a new friend and it’s name is “Head In The Sand”.”
Continue reading →Tangled Star – 'Head in the Sand' Reviewed at Sonic Masala
“It’s been almost four years since we’ve heard anything new echo out of the chambers of Perth’s Tangled Star. Fair enough, seeing as their front man Craig Hallsworth has been busy over the years with bands like The Bamboos, The Healers and The Slow Beings. Ive never really had a handle on what Tangled Star do – the best I could come up with is through obscure comparisons, so I’m going to avoid that today. Instead, Ill state that ‘Head In The Sand’ is an elegiac traipse through a sepia-tinged 90s, where indie guitar pop in
Australia had a distinct edge (see: Pollyanna, Gaslight Radio, Smudge, Bluebottle Kiss, about 100 others). It’s dusty, dreamlike and rustic, loud in the shadows, hushed and sated in the light. Hallsworth’s vocals provides that rich timbre that those excellent 90s bands all possessed also, leaving us with a song that sounds pleasantly nostalgic and unabashedly modern also.
Perth label Hidden Shoal Recordings have always delved into the hushed, considered echelons of guitar rock (their reissue of San Francisco trio Half Film’s two albums last year was a particularly pertinent coup), and have ensured that Tangled Star’s new album Let’s Adjourn To The Garden (out June 18) is one to monitor closely.”
Continue reading →'A Million Square Miles' – The Dwarf
Excerpt: “Turn the clock back a few years and most people were convinced there was something in the water in WA because of the sheer number of excellent acts who called that piece of Australia home. Fast forward to 2010 and it seems our short attention spans have been diverted elsewhere in the search of the source of the ‘next big thing’. A Million Square Miles is a compilation…. Drawing together 16 tracks from eight artists, it successfully navigates the folk, indie pop and rock genres….A Million Square Miles is a pleasing and mellow offering that is easy-on-the-ear and reaffirms the fact that there is something in the water out west.”
Continue reading →"A Million Square Miles" – Adequacy.net
Excerpt: “This is the rare exhibition of musical aptitude that delights from start to finish, with nary a disappointment to be found. Being tagged by some as Australia’s answer to the British label 4AD, Hidden Shoal (HSR) does indeed specialize in a brand of music that places atmosphere, ambience, and texture high on the priority list. With an onslaught of reverb and delay effects that would put the Edge to shame, this album features eight acts that run the gamut from quirky playfulness (Toby Richardson) to hypnotic melodrama (My Majestic Star). Hidden Shoals’ impressive roster on A Million Square Miles is bound to shore up some buzz, and deservedly so: it’s an exhilarating listen from beginning to end.”
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Adequacy.netTangled Star "That Time" – PopMatters
Excerpt: “Tangled Star’s approach is to be too trad for indie, too rock for country, too unpolished for top 40, or too rocking for folk, but this confluence will wind up being the kind of thing that appeals to most fans of those other genres rather than shutting them out…Tangled Star make another good case for being an uncomplicated, satisfying band who is as at ease with what one presumes to be a Townes Van Zandt homage (“Pictures of Lefty”) as it is with a stunning Damien Jurado-esque ballad about the inexorable pull of small towns that has an intro straight out of Pink Floyd’s Meddle (“seabirdtown”). That’s a lot of ground to cover, or range to exhibit, and Tangled Star makes it look and seem not just easy but natural.”
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Tarcutta "Tarcutta" – Cyclic Defrost
Excerpt: “Tarcutta’s first outing on Hidden Shoal Recordings is an impressive debut that nails (in one hit) the post rock instrumental form that this label so diligently champions. [The organ/piano combination] lends Tarcutta a distinctive sound and aids their movement into compositional domains beyond the boundaries of visceral rock sport. Indeed, a furtive maddening organ solo during ‘You Gotta crawl before you walk, before you waltz’ demonstrates clearly the distinctive possibilities of this oft neglected instrument. Tarcutta’s self titled album will provide a thrill to post rock friendly ears out there who prefer their music with intelligent compositions, wide vistas and the odd modicum of raw power.”
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Tangled Star "That Time" – Luna Kafe
Excerpt: “more of Tangled Star’s sympathetic mixture of mid-tempo, mellow indie pop/rock with a slight, slight touch of alt country/Americana… Quality songs. Solid material. In fact, music for bigger masses, without being too mainstream. Just catchy and accessible pop songs. The smashing (single) song this time is ‘seabirdtown’, a mini-epic pop song, stretching over 6 minutes. A lush and mellow piece of well-balanced rock with the right edge… A solid little record by Tangled Star.”
Continue reading →Tangled Star "That Time" – Losing Today
“Tangled Star ‘that time’ (hidden shoal). How could we honestly resist, another case of a band seemingly so far escaping the affectionate gaze of our usually slightly off tuned radar – until now that is. Led from the fore by a certain Craig Hallsworth, Tangled Star have been something of a much admired fixture on the Australian indie underground for a few years now releasing in that time a self titled debut full length and several EP’s and singles the most recent being this demurring 4 track set entitled ’that time’. blessed with an acute ability to have you all at once marvelling aglow in subdued awe at the spectacle of their delicately calibrated caress like airy drift pop while simultaneously drawing you low amid the affecting undertow of bruised hurt, ‘Pictures of Lefty’ is particularly cast as such, an absorbing and yearning beauty dimpled with porch dreamt reflective sea faring opines and that self same cosy toed bitter sweet melancholia of wallowing crestfallen country tweaked tides that at one time a few years ago appeared to be the sole trademark sound of both Pavement and Garlic. Similarly affected is the woody and mellow ’seabirdtown’ with its welcoming opening ambit a simply plaintive ‘fuck’ soon given way to something that ripples, radiates and blossoms amid a dressage of shimmering keys and softly burnt riff cascades which had us much in mind of Hefner shimmying with the Clientele at times. ’I had something good in my life and didn’t want to lose it’ should prove particular interest to admirers of the criminally underappreciated Kelman with its 60’s sourced hollowed soul pop drive and distant nods to early career Go Betweens though all said for us best moment of the set is the parting title cut ’that time’. a gorgeously bespoke slice of numbing classicism brought on by the souring serenade of an introspectively cast key braid, all at once mellow and elegant and of course surrendering and teasingly tearful. Tasty stuff.”
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Lyrics
Let’s Adjourn To The Garden
Lyrics by Craig Hallsworth
Crazy Bit O’ Truth
so don’t build a stage so high
way up to the sky
and expect me to climb up there and play
like a dream it’s crashing down
way down to the ground
in the middle of the night I heard you leave
you can’t see where you’re going
who’s tugging at your sleeve
a sorcerer of death’s construction
baby you’re the last to know
hard won insights turn into throwaway lines
well dressed gentlemen sidestep a dying world
then a cold calculating slob
meets a bitch with no illusions
atrocious pessimism
well I’ve never heard it called that before
maybe I’m the last to know
it’s not so wonderful anymore
so sorry children
life’s not beautiful anymore
your inheritance is grief
you might want to borrow a handkerchief
oh
so they say they’re searching for the one
whose signs are in disarray and fading now
so they say there are ten bottles of champagne
in the car but we can’t remember where
we parked it now
so they say they’re searching for the one
whose signs are in disarray and fading now
so I say I’m cool with it
I’m not trying to make the pieces fit
I got a crazy bit o’ truth in my eye …
In Bed With The Averys
do you want to know what’s stronger than death
what always wakes up with wonderful breath
and do you want to know what’s stranger than fiction
and the facts of life put together?
out of focus autumn branches
rubbing against the sky
she’s at home in the kitchen with a stranger
he’s out catching a lady’s eye
the fricassee is burning
and you’re in bed with the Averys
ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
in bed with the Averys
they’ll introduce you to Figaro
his friends call him Mike
then you’ll meet Susan and Lydia
what’s not to like?
there’s nothing they can’t study your face
and not hint at
nothing they won’t exactly deny
until your mind is reeling
coz something in this world wants to kill you
you have no defence
it gets in your head like the man said
it makes perfect sense
it’s black and white
it’s as clear as it can be
then somehow it’s incomprehensible
and you’re in bed with the Averys
Someone’s Walking
someone’s free and someone’s got it together
someone’s lost in someone’s head forever
someone’s dead and someone’s dialling a number
someone’s dreaming someone’s coming
someone’s passing someone’s staring
someone’s waiting someone’s walking home
someone’s turning away
someone’s just walking home
someone’s famous someone’s youth is stolen
someone’s cool and someone’s feet are aching
someone’s bad and someone must be joking
someone’s crying someone’s changing
someone’s begging someone’s smoking
someone’s searching someone’s walking home
someone’s running way
someone’s just walking home
Hasn’t Made For Freedom
it’s been all right for a change
but it hasn’t made for freedom
they’re hitting the bottle about it at least
you and I were restless dreamers
in another life
to tell the truth I’m falling asleep on a bus
and it feels like someone else’s life
and it’s all about capitalism
it’s been all right for a change
but it hasn’t made for freedom
as far as impulsive gestures go
taking your hand as we ride
gazing out the window
is right up there
with jumping off at a random stop
as if I’m being followed
and it’s all about patriotism
just another eerie dawn
I know what you mean
but how’re you gonna mean it all day?
oh yeah I know what you mean
but how’re you gonna make it pay?
just another spooky coffee break
takes a plant to understand your longing
and your pain
oh well I know what you mean
that doesn’t mean I’m not politely insane
it was all right for a change
but it didn’t make for freedom
it was the sun now it’s about to fall
it was just an optical illusion
and it wasn’t really there at all
don’t feel bad
and don’t get crushed in the rush
for the experimental poem
my guess is it’s about capitalism
Painted Days
painted days have found us
in some seaside town
with the blinds pulled down
lying low
supposing we mustn’t have died
at 27
we must have lived
oh we must have lived after all
painted doors have opened and closed
and packages have arrived
there’s something mysterious about it
but ours is not to reason why
ours is but to squeeze the stuff
out of a tube
until it’s all used up
painted whores have loved us
and worried about our health
when we didn’t deserve them at all
they never pushed us away
and the things we would say
were just the things we would say
Attic Space Conversion # 1
send a beam of light into the world
and pour the tea
all your heroes were so lost
without your penury
and you were just this skinny little girl
who dug the sound
audacity not veracity makes it all go ‘round
not everything with rings can be called hoop-la
and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Anastasia
are they with us or against us?
send a ray of hope into the night
and scrub the pan
keep a summer breeze inside a rusty old tin can
but to be more beautiful you have to concentrate
on the mystery
like a revolutionary becoming escaping
all the failed revolutions of history
hundreds of smiling people
rode the silver tinselled escalators
one was a soft metal killer
I remember I wasn’t feeling well
I want to lose you in the morning
in the deserted city
I want to lie down any place
and slowly forget your face
I want to explain all of this
but not if it takes all night
this darkness is not endless
only everyone you know
filling their pockets full
this darkness is not endless
only anyone who knows you
flying out for …
99% OK
it was 99% OK so I plucked it out of the air
99% OK sounded better than only fair
but what about the darkness that spreads her wings
and what about the darkness that makes her sing
so what about the darkness that sips her wine
so what about the darkness that makes her shine
in a galaxy of faces
in love and out of line
the vandal and the valentine
forget that you and I were one
forget what’s wrong with having fun
here’s to the tears that burn
we’re never to return
don’t break a heart and drop a hat
they’ve got servants here for that
and though the names may change
a thief will call
just to bring back the crystal ball
don’t you feel like a weathervane
that’s never known the wind and rain
but even psychics make mistakes my dear
and bones point the way out of here
forget that you and I were one
forget the places in the sun
here’s to the tears that burn
we’re never to return
forget when you and I were one
those days were like shots from a gun
here’s to the tears that burn
we’re never to return
go find someone to park your car
and tell these dead men who you are
Head In The Sand
so dry your thighs and don’t worry anymore
listen to all my outlandish proposals
smile when you slip through the cracks
take an abyss for a walk and never look back
you’ve got an hour to kill in the heat of the day
how many mornings are fresh and new
and here you are wondering what to do
shall I go against all my principles for you
shall I draw a diagram or something?
how many nights do you feel like praying
but you never learned how to pray
how many nights do you feel like praying
but you wouldn’t know how to pray
like a rich man washing his hands
you had an hour to kill in the heat of the day
an hour to kill in the heat of the day
like a daughter of this holy land
but don’t sleep with the messenger you understand
the carotid artery is severed as planned
I can say I’m not burying my head in the sand
I can say I’m not burying my head in the sand
Theme
now the wind picks up
the door creaks I think my cup
is overflowing
a triumph of the human spirit
to wake at 7
and lie in bed until 11
bring me your altered states
and what exalts
and bring to me your heaven
don’t wait for the ironic undercut
nobody wants to wait for that today
for all anyone knows you really are
passionate and driven
you’d go all the way to the mountain
if only you could leave the room
now everything’s changing
it’s like gazing through a splotch
on the window
is anything behind everything
is it wrong to wonder
is it just to keep from going under?
embrace the worthless life
if it falls into your arms
let it reveal its charms
so slowly
you’ll lose your taste for clever subtle things
and I’ll go hungry analysing things
I might decide to take up the guitar
and there you are
let’s adjourn to the garden
Our Man In Eden Hill
Lyrics by Craig Hallsworth
tosleepingpeople
Don’t say goodnight to sleeping people
Tell your secret to sleeping people
Never wave from the platform to sleeping people
For all this may convey
Don’t hang on the sighs of sleeping people
Try to open the eyes of sleeping people
For that train is bound for sleeping people
Many miles away
There’s a naked stranger stranded in the light
Of the refrigerator in the dead of night
Too strung out for an epiphany
And a far-off whistle blowing
So don’t measure your dreams against sleeping people
Sing this song to sleeping people
Never paint the faces of sleeping people
By the light of the moon
Once I met a punk rock girl with psychic powers
She told me that I had a lot of work to do
That this would eventually provide me
With a wealth of some description
But she didn’t say
I’d give it all away
To sleeping people
To sleeping people
To sleeping people
To sleeping people
The Skaters
And it’s oh so pure I know
A chapeau of snow
So we melt away the hours
Come to in a pool on the floor
I no longer recall the song
But I can’t forget that introduction
There’s a name going around tonight
Taking women and men
Don’t you wonder how?
As if they want the same things
Lovers caught in a shower
Stepped out of a life
They no longer recall
What they expected to find here
What they dreamed of
What they hung on the wall
What they sang about
What they sang about
What they sang about
Sunny Day Losers #12 & 35
Courageous Cat lay around watching television
Everything was all about how he just didn’t scare and
Brother Ray and Miss Torso went out and got hammered in some dive
See them slumped on barstools
Their cowboy boots and long hair
Stanley and Oliver got divorced on a night in June
Beulah peeled a grape and shut up shop for the afternoon
Gilles Deleuze was flying over an unheard-of Paree
He never lost any sleep over the likes of you and me
Thin Lizzy laughed and turned her face away
Once upon a time in the underground
You knew more people than I’ll ever forget
We passed it back and forth
Perched upon that gentle mound
Oh we were feeling bad
About a sunny day
Because the land needs rain …
Turn Me
No one to lock the door
If it wasn’t for these tattoos
Wouldn’t get anything about me
Riding around’s the harder part
And the sweeping views
Someone has no sense of mystery
How could I always be on this side?
As if there’s everywhere to hide
From a glance before it’s lights out
Up ahead before it’s lights out
Show me again before it’s lights out
Tell me why
The blind eyes couldn’t turn me
Tell me why
The blind eyes couldn’t turn me
How could I always be on this side?
As if there’s nowhere left to hide
In this dream before it’s lights out
Steal you one before it’s lights out
Before it’s lights out
Before it’s lights out
Before it’s lights out
Before it’s lights out
The Waiter Is Deceased
Kids will play with a ball by the busy road
Who’s that shadow boxing under the streetlight?
My cousins Desley and Altina are coming to stay for awhile
Thanks for last night
If anything it wasn’t dark enough
It wasn’t dark enough
A conversation between the unheard and the unseen
When a world butts in
Audrey Hepburn was the last to sing Happy Birthday to JFK
Not Marilyn Monroe
Janet Leigh was the last to sing Chariot Choogle in the shower
But baby you know who you are
All the barnyard academics that never waste an emotion
Never waste an emotion
Never waste an emotion
Never waste an emotion
As the mist leaves no tip on the bright pink hill
So my body irons a shirt
Oh where is the city we loved that made us pay
So dearly for one small mistake
So we live and learn that there is always more to earn
That there is more in a foreign bank account
Can I pinch another beer oh lugubrious beauty?
Can no one else show me?
Can no one else show me?
Can no one else show me?
What is this thing called paparazzi?
What’s its shame? What’s its claim to fame?
Shall we leave you in the parking lot pushing coins into a slot?
It’s no crime take your time
But the news travels fast that the secret of a man is nothing
In truth nothing at all
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Licensing
Tangled Star’s music is available for licensing (master & sync cleared) through Hidden Shoal. Please contact us with some basic details about your project and the track(s) you wish to use and we’ll be sure to get back to you straight away.