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    Includes unlimited streaming of Leaving California via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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lyrics

Narrow Gate

Dress men in black, women in white,
no jewels or frills,
and stand with us in clerestory light
until your mind stills.
Our altar's plain, its angles are right,
our backs are straight.
The star of grace burns clean at night
through a narrow gate.

Square your shoulders now:
you are God's own hunter.
No more will you go
cowering through the day.
Bones of rectitude
pass privately through a public door.

Come crows and thieves, open your hand
and He will fill it,
but you must not talk of owning the land:
you do not till it.
You must not talk of sex or of prayer:
you will be lying.
The politic man, asleep in the square,
is quietly dying.

Square your shoulders now:
you are God's own hunter.
No more will you go
cowering through the day.
Bones of rectitude
pass privately through a public door.

This is my life. My life. What is the baseness before which death is preferable? I think it is that of the man who has put his hand to the plow and turns back.*

A fingering wind sightlessly reads
December’s last rites,
and candles bolt in windows like weeds
to seed the long nights.
Her breath in clouds, billowing past,
brushes your cheek,
and desire runs, broader than fast
beneath the frozen creek.

Enter from the West
—whispers in the architecture—
no more will you place idols at her door
Eyes upon the work,
clasp hands and stand together to your full height.

(* E. L. Ennis, 1908)


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Damon Waitkus - lead and backing vocals; acoustic, electric, piccolo and baritone guitars; hammer dulcimer; percussion; tin whistle; keyboards; electric taishogoto; mandolin
Thea Kelley - lead and backing vocals
Emily Packard - violin, viola
Jason Hoopes - bass
Jordan Glenn - drums, percussion
Ivor Holloway - saxophones

credits

from Leaving California, released May 28, 2021

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Cuneiform Records Washington, D.C.

Cuneiform Records is a record label releasing adventurous, boundary-bursting music by artists from around the world. They have always championed an eclectic mixture of musical styles and artists and have consistently danced at the dangerous intersection where genres meet. In doing so, they have become one of the most prominent labels of New Music.

Founded in 1984.
Based in Washington D.C.
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