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The Immateriate

by Ethan Holbrook

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1.
Immateriate (n) - he who is not.
2.
I passed the back road, said I'd hack it on my own this time because I saw a moment last two years last time I took the wrong shortcut You told me you were cautious 'cause if not, Your vision of the future just might fade But what's the point if passing time is still an agent of this change? Two half-lives ago I was whole but you know, I've decayed, now I'm just empty space With one clear condition, a dignified mission This code that I should not erase So look out through your window I love the way you point out each new star But they're dimmer than the dash tonight so, I see you My will won't listen to pure reason even though my heart's set to obey All the ravings of this mad mind fueled by lust and love and rage Remember I was born to function, bred to bleed just like the rest So it's time to reinvent my purpose and then put it to the test
3.
The Stranger 01:03
He leads me away Drags me through time and space He'd make me think I'd never known you I float through the abyss He checks you off the list I can't understand using reason When I come back My eyes are matte black They betray not a single emotion You draw up your charts Doing research to start You organize with endless devotion You said "slip from your pallor Remember spring showers Whatever it takes to compel you To shake off the black, Bring the older you back I just can't explain why you're crying"
4.
The Elephant 05:16
Red leaf season There's an Elephant in my room And he wants to see what is on TV Wants to watch it in the gloom Maybe I'll go out Try to change myself since the last time failed But he says "yeah right, fuck you!" Days begin to drag Did an hour pass? When did night come back? Hard to tell inside this tomb Throw the curtains wide Thought I missed daylight, Thought I missed the sky But the Elephant told the truth So why did I decide to break the mold To care at all which foot fell first? Since I met you by that streetlight, I have reversed Everything I thought made me the man With whom you'd share the sky above But my new friend made me a monster With eyes as dark as a heart in love "It's time that you and I sat down and talked" You're the Earth writ small or a pearl writ large "There's something else I think you know I want" But how could I ever not see you girl? "Give it time enough and things might change" Could you repeat that thing I just heard you say? I'll undo my mistakes with a journey through your brain
5.
Informal dissonance Takes away my innocence A surcharged, gold-leaf, deadpan lie Black ink tendrils Pollen-tongued, vengeful Always on, never wrong A fall into the thin-iced pond You take me out, it goes away Comes back stronger the next day I could run or I could hide, But even then, what's the point? I'll still kneel tied under the streetlight A spark flickers next to a vat of gasoline A sordid reckoning of my entire being A one way struggle with both my arms cut off Imagine a snake bite that spreads through your liver And all that you see are these blue, blue tears That amplify doubts and multiply fears A backwards journey and you can't come along I spoke to the future and saw it was lying The past and the present have muddled my truths A rainstorm is coming so cover your skull 'Cause what's real and what's not is dependent on you If there's one thing I'd ask her, It would be to call Analyzing all this crying There's nothing left that I can do But break this down And bring back what makes the truth true A rainstorm is coming so cover your skull 'Cause what's real and what's not is dependent on you
6.
Time means nothing when your brain is bled Is my memory unfolding inside of your head? Though nothing looks different, as strange as it seems I conclude that I must be insane It's night in the city but why am I here? The chain links that locked my mind have disappeared So what could be better than swimming in chronological decay? Today is yesterday Every time I see you here Your smile seems to disappear Your shadow starts to fade Like a ghost of yesterday Are you standing next to me Or have you left for a while? Were you here preemptively For something I have yet to see? I'm lost in this place That seems familiar As it was, were, is, will be someday Time divided difference Beneath all of the city's insolence The dissidents go punished for Crimes that have yet to happen Or all in all were no one's fault Their cause was lost to time So what was I doing here? Who was I chasing? I feel like I'm floating, like I don't exist There's no use for reason inside of this twist Though I won't admit it, I think that everything that I've learned Will be so sorely missed It's night in the city but why am I here? The cracks in the pavement all start to appear Psychotic time difference, I'm in the midst of this Year after year, enter a new frontier To the station Dim the lights For every day, a thousand nights On the way we jump the rails But my vision splits, we hold the trail Is what I see what happened though? This moment's now an hour old Dissonance controls my mind Monochroma, black and white Where could they be taking me? On this train that rolls beneath the sea To another void with pain inside? Or that rocky cove where I can hide? Show me what it means to be You when you lock eyes with me Or rightly call me hypocrite To try to change you to make me fit That's what seems to happen though Every time I get this close There's something fucked inside of me Something I want you to see
7.
(instrumental)
8.
(instrumental) ----------------------------------------------------------- Solo piano performed by Aaron David Taub
9.
The Elder 02:29
"Do you ever dream of forever?" he said Sitting in his chamber With ocean overhead He was a grey and wizened man With robes of ivory cotton My rage was glowing red I asked and he answered with infinite tact Where did that train take me? Am I far from the tracks? The last I remember is ocean spray foam And the mutter of gullsong lasting moments days long He said, "I am the Elder here, But I'm only in your mind, I'd like to make that clear You've disturbed a brittle force You turned your world inside And mapped a tangled course You endured a troubled past But the future will be worse, If you don't learn to make the moment last" "I'll teach you a trick to prevent the insane Thoughts that would squander The worth of your brain The past and the present and future are one You'll travel between them, Ignite and extinguish the sun" "A blackening mirror's still showing your face You were never lost, You had just been misplaced So now let the sunlight collect in your eyes You'll precede your birth, And live past the length of your life" "So carry on Carry on Try to remember the things that you see Will never be real unlike what you believe So go to the future, have a journey through space, Or open your eyes and exist day to day"
10.
Thrown 09:08
There you go, you're back to this role You know I've got to move myself forwards (But what it takes to make the sun fall from the sky) Thoughts won't flow, this viscous mind drones You've got me riding your palm print (Restore the moon his rightful claim upon the night) It's always been tradition If something's wrong or something's missing Check your head and check your wallet 'Cause the answer might be there My subconscious seems to want this Seems to need to feel this darkness I told her in the moment that the dawn might never come For the first time in a minute I could see her start to get it I could see her understand that I'd been left out for the bears Though I'm comfortable in warmer weather, Rain and snow they go together with the way I think The way I like to be alone (With the way I think, the way I like to be alone) But instead of shutting down again Instead of terming me a friend She opened up her heart, I felt that love begin to flow Then I knew that's what I needed All these times I'd tried to read into it Caused me to forget that we'd been equals all along This notion I'd been pouring into all of my exploring with you Taught me that the problem wasn't me and wasn't you It was ignorance, indifference, and only ever listening To calendars and clocks when all their answers were dead wrong (To calendars and clocks when all their answers were dead wrong) To calendars and clocks when all their answers were dead wrong I was left with seasons As a million moments scrolled within eyesight It's time to say hello again, to greet you every day My mind had left the scene Let it roll, could you be patient with me? You were the one there when time broke down When the world cracked through and our dreams leaked out But you took that pain away Taught me not to chase today Now we tear through town with the sound all around And the notes and the words keep the worst things down It's time to get to know you, let that glow become my own You know I'm thrown We took a single car home Through the window tint did I glimpse first snow? I can see your face in the edge of my eye Is it time to speak my mind? I know you wanna let things change at their own damn pace Let the future come once the past's in place But moments quite like this one only come once in a while Still you've got the sun up in the sky in the middle of the night And I can see by the look in your eyes it's still not the right time So can you see this theme Born in streetlight beam Can you please give me a sign? 'Cause I've been waiting long enough and now it's Time
11.
Tonight with you There was a sharp internal warning That came after the thrill And did you doubt this sign? There's an old rocky cove In my mind, a place I like to go I want to show you Like you showed me That city you were sleeping on I wanna bring you back on a memory path Sinking down to the bottom where my enemy's trapped Where the worst of me might raise an eye Will you stare right back this time? I wrote a letter and erased it A stupid song could not replace this This between the lines shit is pointless Though words once had their use with you ----------------------------------------------------------- Keyboards performed by Aaron David Taub
12.
Just Roll 04:31
Oh, you're reminding me why Would the worth of the risk be denied? When the width of this table Is shrinking so surely between you and I And all my life I've been waiting for this one to come The moment I see in your eyes And I see you Break the brakes and just roll Do what you need to let go To let yourself lose control And I don't mind Past the walls of this room we can lie Leave the truth of the moment denied Then I see you Shift your neck and your bones Let me into your soul And I'll do what I want, 'cause I want you And I've been waiting for a long, long time So if you've got the feeling that you want it too Then let me give it to you, give it to you right And I don't mind Past the walls of this room we can lie Leave the truth of this moment denied Oh, shift your neck and your bones Oh, let me into your soul Oh, I want to lose control I want to let you know ------------------------------------------------------------- Vocals performed by Kerrianne Thomas Background vocals contributed by Phil Halpin and Aaron David Taub
13.
You, you, you, you, you I saw your signal and caught the trace Erase it they said, knowing what I'd do Enough fuel in a ship to go lightyears away But I knew I'd have to wait For waves of change to set the stage A shifting of worlds or my drifting through age, Some colossal disaster reverberates through space I will still answer your call, though that signal's since lost I wrote it down on an ancient paper page But when I arrive, and there's no sign I will, I'm realizing I won't know what to say My brain is in this basket With your coordinates locked in Third moon is on the rise and I Begin to sink below my strange subconscious In circles Change forms Crystal groves and You Don't calculate the difference using molecules and mass It's this planetary distance that might make us burn too fast Even with precision know that everything might change Your orbit's an ellipse and you don't want to disengage So with all these systems that are keeping me in place If this world wasn't an issue, we could return to distant space Don't bother writing down the year, it's just like sleep, the stars are near Though words are pointless, there's something I should say What could I ask her?
14.
The last crop drowned in the first strong snow Is it winter yet? I can take the cold With a coat so warm and a mask of steel I'll reflect on you how you make me feel The old man said this would have to stop I was in your head and forgot the clock But this morning came, now you're in my brain I'm so stuck on you that every thought's the same Last night I dreamed a future Where we both would fly through space It was so long before we woke, But still your face had hardly aged And I think I know why Every moonrise reflects sunlight (Brings all this love in tune) Morning shifts to afternoon Month to month, a crucial constant Dreams in check, moments unmoved Why should you care 'cause you know we're dying? Take a shot, this is still worth trying Changing your eyes in your own reflection What are you? Not a mirror entrance Time's just a word that you could believe in I'll remind you that path's worth leaving All of your hopes, every aspiration Write them down, don't let this replace them Let's go back home I'll take you at face and let your words fill in the rest Dream of snow For soon comes the winter I know how you like that streetlight glow I was the one in the rain and cold With the worthless words and the tales untold Now in the night I can finally see With a mirror mask and a streetlight gleam

about

Highly recommended that you download for free to avoid gaps between the songs. The flow from song to song is important.

The Immateriate is a concept album written between 2011 and 2015, and recorded/produced in my bedroom in Keene, NH between the summer of 2014 and winter 2015. Thank you to everyone who gave me feedback, and to my roommates and neighbors who didn't kick me out after even the twenty-fifth take on a part.
Special thanks to my family, to Phil Halpin and Aaron Taub for their endless input, and to Rachel Lanza and Kerrianne Thomas for allowing me to finish mixing in their apartment.

And thanks to YOU for listening.

credits

released January 9, 2016

All music and lyrics written by Ethan Holbrook.

All guitars, bass, keyboards, vocals, and drum programming performed by Ethan Holbrook except where otherwise noted.

Solo piano on "Empty Study Grand", keyboards on "Between Lines", and additional vocals on "Just Roll" performed by Aaron David Taub.
Lead vocals on "Just Roll" performed by Kerrianne Thomas.
Additional vocals on "Just Roll" performed by Phil Halpin.

Produced, mixed, engineered, and mastered by Ethan Holbrook.

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Ethan Holbrook Boston, Massachusetts

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