Beautiful gatefold card case, with artwork featuring an original painting by Tamara Gangnus, sleeve design by Rebecca Gangnus.
Includes unlimited streaming of Republic of the Weird
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 5 days
edition of 250
Purchasable with gift card
€10EURor more
about
Produced by Peter Murphy, Dan Comerford, Johnny Fox. Engineered and mixed by Johnny Fox. Mastered by Fergal Davis.
lyrics
Years into the civil war that none declared a civil war, a rumour carries on the wind, word of a gathering, a burnt-out ballroom in the basement of the Federal Hall. From all over the state they come, huddled like cattle in the backs of tarped up flatbed trucks.
Here they come, brothered by blood, by grief, bearing woes like humps upon their backs, sorrows individual and sorrows common, sorrows with no name. Up the steps and through the lobby, past the check-in desk, metal detectors, basement lifts.
The door’s pulled back. There is music, light. The cones of those ole Bose speakers throb like small black hearts and overhead the silver mirror-ball spins and shimmers, spins again. Some drink, some dance, some prefer to watch. Some pair off and pull their partners close, and if you’ve credit there are rooms to let in the gutted upstairs wing, discretion guaranteed. Every soul among their number knows the score: it could all be over in the time it takes to squeeze a trigger or to thumb a detonation code, so steal a little sweetness while you can.
For here is where they’ve set it down, the weight they’ve borne, the penance done, where they array their woes like tributes at a grotto, offerings to be burnt. That weight too great to carry is a cosmic sadness, vast, ineffable, that big sky sadness that laments for all things gone, of histories cancelled out, the ache of how it was before the war. All gone.
But not just yet. Because the hour’s come at last. They gather at the podium, all these women, all these men, not just to witness but imprint upon their minds the image of the memory as its formed, that they may tell the many others of their witnessing.
House lights dim. Drapes draw back. A beam takes form. An image of the singer, captured in his prime. He is returned, his breath revived. They hear his pick and strum. Now pass it on.
And when this rite’s complete, and when that silver mirror-ball quits its spinning and the song concedes to silence and the house lights flicker on, those assembled here will drain their drinks and say goodnight and then disperse, to suit up and boot up and scatter back into a night barely lit by the fading moon, where a day will come with a pitiless sun, or maybe no sun.
They’ll bear his song upon their coms, they’ll pass it on, it will become all songs, the sounds of some revival mass or chain gang holler or a widow’s cry for her lost-at-sea, the soldier’s foxhole prayer.
And if you weep, well that’s all right. And if what you see here makes no sense, then ask yourself, would you truly want this mystery undone. Enough to know he sings. No difference if he takes the form of a lantern shadow show, a hologram, a shared hallucination: he is among you, you can look into his two blue eyes, eyes that bear the light of death. You can watch his bony fingers twang the strings and hear the raw song in his mouth like that of a wounded wolf. You can be mended. And if only for this hour are you consoled, if only for this hour are you mended, then this hour only it must be.
credits
from Republic of the Weird,
released November 4, 2022
Written by Peter Murphy, Dan Comerford.
Her voice is a beautiful instrument, listen you'll see what I'm taking about Great beats, melodies. Not just a great Rap/ Hip Hop album, great album period. BetoR
Really been looking forward to the vinyl release of Sinners and Lost Souls!!
Now waiting for the first one on vinyl and a rerelease of that mysterious 7”. Åke K
An album well worth it! Great lyrics to make you think and the music is talented! I am sure these Basceviille will keep on rocking as long as they want to. My favorite track is hard to pick out but I guess Calvary is a good one for new listeners. 😊 Thanks Basciville for your album Hyns to the Air. elly-t
There’s a mighty cinematic sweep in the songs on the latest from Badlands, the big and imposing orchestration with dreamlike vocals. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 27, 2022
Krautrock meets ambient in the full-length from Youth Team, a lone producer twiddling knobs in one of Scotland's most remote locales. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 5, 2021