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Love Songs

by Winterpills

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1.
Incunabula 04:08
oh me. hide behind my sleep me oh my hide behind my eyes hey hey hey hide behind the day but I’ve been true. I’ve been true. been so true. ooh ooh ohhh day breaks. sky falls. fires are everywhere. no one ever calls. cloud fleets. heart beats. nothing. oh never. nothing ever dies. it’s so lonely inside love. it’s so lonely inside love. it’s so lonely inside love. so long, love so long, love but leave our ruins ooh ooh ooh.
2.
at the end of time theres a friend of mine took me at my word on my private line and the sun was round as a dandelion and you followed me out of grace you followed me out of grace push you off the wall and you fall and fall then you hold me down then you push me round i heard every sound as your family drowned and you followed me out of grace you followed me out of grace whooooooooooooooo-whooah come on wanderer white! wheres your fiery spite? now's your time to shine its the afterlife you seduce all your friends on their wedding nights and you follow me out of grace you follow me out of grace you follow me out of grace whooooooooooooooo-whooah!!!
3.
my baby bird’s broken she hasn’t spoken for days i carried her body through the darkest part of the maze as she cried oh she cried i am thinking of her eyes as the all branches waved goodbye you don’t even know him you won’t ever show him your face you cover his eyes while you’re filling his head with your days i’m in twain i am surgically slicing up the rain i’m inspecting every link in the chain i’m erasing every dream in your brain da da da… sometimes in the summer I sleep with my doors open wide was on such an evening I learned Celia Johnson had died and i cried oh i cried i am thinking of her eyes i am thinking of her eyes i am thinking of her eyes as Trevor Howard says goodbye.
4.
all their faces were dull and faded blues all washed out and pixelated there’s no proof they were serenaded but i will keep the camera on you i will keep the camera on you freeze your light. dreamed he dragged from his starlight motel a cardboard box with a broken handle filled with lenses and roman candles and i will keep the camera on you i will keep the camera on you freeze your light. i love forever your guilty praises hidden letters in smoky mazes all the way down all the way down i will keep the camera on you i will keep the camera on you freeze your light.
5.
once round the moon then broken down i remembered what it felt like to be young and free, in my body’s memory running, never out of breath dying over and over and in my death the seven seas blood running down my knees and i have this picture of your older sister as she’s running down the drive after kicking in the hive but i can’t sell you this New England deluge will you meet me down on the floodplain? billy eino was my tiny friend he followed me around until he gained my sympathy at seven he was 3 foot 3 gym time, he rode on my back cackling as the jocks kicked back the soccer ball he begged me, ‘please don’t fall” but his aorta blew up one morning my mother whispered in the car of the murder of a star but i can’t sell you this New England deluge but will you meet me down on the floodplain? And i drove for hours and i brought you flowers and i got down on my knees begging baby please but i could not sell you this New England deluge will you meet me down on the floodplain? will you meet me down on the floodplain? oh will you meet me down on the floodplain?
6.
my lamb, my sheep you confessed it talking in your sleep you know that nervous system isn’t yours to keep my love, my pet you know i memorized your silhouette the way your eyes follow me like some bad debt your fails, your doubts your sit-ins and your fade-outs you need a parking lot to keep you hollowed out and clean, my queen you spilled your whiskey in your magazine why did you wait so long to get your sad vaccine? held up held down between the swimmers and the drowned the bread you steal between the hunger and the meal now you see the known through your faded rods and cones alone your arms, your cries I still dream about your tired eyes the way you always bitched about your low supplies held up held down between the swimmers and the drowned the bread you steal between the hunger and the meal now you only see the known through your faded rods and cones alone
7.
so the wind told a lie you were deceived by the sky the sun refused your call the moon denied it all grew a wall i hardly knew you at all i slept for six days on the steps outside your hall couldn't reach the high note lost your only glasses swimming across the moat grew a wall couldn't move couldn't talk the only thing i hear is the clock and the footfalls of the firefighters but i never reached the typewriter grew a wall grew a wall grew a wall
8.
Chapel 03:48
i am beaten your silk worm has eaten my mulberry heart i’ll go underground i’ll go underground and the wind will drown me out i was blinded the path sealed off behind me how long will it last? i am under glass i am under glass i am under glass, glass i left bitter apples for you in the chapel no sugar in these trees i have burned them down i have burned them down i have burned them down to the ground
9.
oh maria bringing down the body count oh can you lift your hands up into the rude sun? i'm counting the compound eyes staring at you and your face behind the glass oh maria bringing down the body count subtracting one death from every life you bring better luck to those you thought were dead the corpses walking through the snow seventeen, sixteen, fifteen oh maria bringing down the body count oh can you hold your head up under the dead moon? how could you kiss me on the mouth when my wife was sleeping under you? seventeen, sixteen, fifteen oh maria bringing down down the body count oh maria bringing down down the body count oh maria bringing down down the body count oh maria bringing down down the body count
10.
the fire blew through the tiny town, the walls we knew were melting down video tapes, super-8 movie reels photographs of love’s appeals a jar of dried out hawthorne leaves a note inside, said: ‘what the hell do you believe?’ and i have been your eyes i have been your eyes i have seen through your eyes and will these dreams reprise? the secrets we kept we all wrote them down while the others slept in their stolen crowns we all witnessed the winds as they pulled the trees back into the earth and us upon our knees god i need those words to remember you when you were the one i could not see through and i have been your eyes i have been your eyes i have seen through your eyes and will these dreams reprise? will these dreams reprise? will these dreams reprise?
11.
with my hat in my hand and my ozone sigh i made everyone kiss me goodbye i was overdressed at the farmers ball i had my nose in the air thought i was above it all i sold you silverware for a good price a handshake and a wink would buy you thirty knives but i was scared of you i was scared of you i introduced you to my father-in-law before i knew your name you told the same joke to everyone who came we were all stuck on a bus with no license plates the driver shared your flask and i walked home alone in your ice skates someday if you let it it will all come back to you someday if you let them they will all come back to you someday if you let it it will all come back to you someday if you let it it will all come back to you someday if you let it it will all come back to you someday if you let them they will all come back to you

about

Over a decade ago, singer-songwriter Philip Price scrawled the name “Winterpills” on the wall of The Bay State Hotel, a now-dead but fabled Northampton, Massachusetts watering hole and music venue. Initially, it was going to be the name for a dreamt-of electronica project, but, somewhere along the line, it blossomed into a critically acclaimed indie band with a deep catalog of elegant, dark chamber pop.

Now, the quintet gives us its seventh album, a provocative entry in its catalog, Love Songs (Signature Sounds), out March 18th. Recorded and co-produced with Justin Pizzoferrato (Dinosaur Jr., The Pixies, Lou Barlow, Speedy Ortiz), the album showcases an invigorated and raw Winterpills. This new release marks ten years as a band. To commemorate this career milestone, Winterpills will also reissue its self-titled debut on vinyl. Together, these releases bookend a freewheeling psych-folk-rock continuum.

“Without even trying, over time the canvas has just gotten bigger,” says Winterpills’ principle songwriter Philip Price. "Time stretched us.”

The Northampton, Massachusetts quintet are consummate masters of the slow burn; they’ve nurtured a singular aesthetic with lush and sometimes gritty instrumentation, emotive and literate lyrics, sublime vocal harmonies, and cinematically structured songs that stealthily pull you in and then destroy you. Winterpills has prompted favorable comparisons to Elliott Smith, Low, The Go-Betweens, Fairport Convention, Pernice Brothers and Big Star, among others. The five-piece group is singer/songwriter/guitarist Philip Price, singer/keyboardist Flora Reed, guitarist Dennis Crommett, bassist Max Germer, and drummer Dave Hower.

Winterpills formed as friends, musically comforting each other during one particularly miserable winter after a year of breakups and deaths. Price began performing as a solo artist in the vein of Elliott Smith and Leonard Cohen after his power pop band, The Maggies, disbanded after nine years. Initially, Winterpills was an outlet to combine his quieter, heartfelt songwriting with a richer array of synthetic textures. Winterpills took something of a left turn by becoming a full band that conjured the vigor and sophistication of power-pop and folk-rock with subtle electronica flourishes. As time has worn on, Winterpills has peeled away that ambience in favor of a powerful and graceful live band aesthetic.

There’s a circularity to the group’s newly reissued self-titled debut album from 2005, and its latest, Love Songs. Both albums have the feeling of euphoric artistic self-discovery. “We hadn’t recorded together in awhile, and we felt refreshed when we went in the studio this time.” Philip admits. Whereas 2005’s Winterpills is a raw rock album with delicate moments, 2016’s Love Songs is a much bigger sounding rock record played with swaggering musicality.

Love Songs is tightly thematic. "At first the thought of calling it Love Songs was intended as a whimsical nod to the other million albums of the same title," Price says, "but then casting that light on the existing songs made them jump into stark relief: they were all love songs after all, though arriving at that place through strange portals and unused back roads." The tracks are definitely not your standard missives of affection: within the 11-song album, Winterpills explores love of the idea of love, love of unrealized love, love of the dead, love of family secrets, love of the concept of eternal return, love of ideas, and love of celebrity.

Standouts in this prismatic survey include the single “Celia Johnson,” “Freeze Your Light,” and “He Grew A Wall.” The track “Celia Johnson” bursts forth with a scruffy Jeff Magnum-like elegance conjured from the contrast of skyward Byrds-like harmonies laid over propulsive drums and garage rock guitars. The track was inspired by Philip's fascination with the late English actress, Celia Johnson, (best known for the 1945 British romantic drama Brief Encounter).

Lone celestial harmony vocals open “Freeze Your Light,” reminding longtime fans of the power of Philip’s vocal interplay with co-writer, keyboardist, harmony soulmate, and wife, Flora Reed. The song majestically unfolds from a fragile intimacy as it gathers burly power with lumbering drums and dirty guitars. The chorus has a gospel purposefulness that feels cathartic and spiritual; the embedded and quixotic desire to freeze all our loves in photographs, pixels and 'cardboard boxes with broken handles' saturates the song.

“He Grew A Wall” is about a suicide that shook the local music scene. “I watched that loss confound us all,” Philip reveals of the song’s subject, “I woke up one day with most of the words in my head laid out for me.” The track features some of Philip’s most poetically poignant lyrics against a mournful descending guitar line: “So the wind told a lie/You were deceived by the sky/The sun refused your call/The moon denied it all/You grew a wall”.

The album’s emotional resonance and fresh energy comes from the environment it was created in. Philip produced and engineered three albums in a row for Winterpills in their home project studio; but Love Songs was recorded in a professional studio buzzing with music gear curiosities, setting the stage for intrepid sonic exploration, including a slightly out-of-tune vintage Vose & Sons upright piano used liberally on many of the albums tracks: Love Songs bids farewell with the early Elton John-esque “It Will All Come Back To You.” The song’s arrangement is richly emotive—it sweeps upward from plaintive piano and voice to vigorous full-band accompaniment with stacked vocal harmonies, noise guitar, and trumpet. Co-producer Justin Pizzoferrato forged a telepathic connection with the group where he could intuit their aspirations, while providing fresh perspectives from the many different genres he’s worked in.

It’s been an unexpected journey for Philip, chasing the ghost within that moniker he scribbled on a bar wall twelve years ago. But what stands out to him as the most meaningful part of the journey is the deep ties within the band. “We feel lucky we’re still good friends after all this time. And I’m in awe of what everyone in the band brings to this weird table we built,” he says. His most profound connection, though, is with Flora Reed, his wife, and creative ally. “We totally have all our eggs in one basket, and it’s been great. I highly recommend it. We do save a little money on hotel rooms.”

credits

released March 18, 2016

Engineered and mixed by Justin Pizzoferrato at Sonelab, Easthampton, MA. November 2014 – November 2015. Produced by Winterpills and Justin Pizzoferrato.

Mastered by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering, Chicago, IL. saffmastering.com

Philip Price: vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, piano
Flora Reed: vocals, acoustic guitars, keyboards
Dennis Crommett: lap steel, backing vocals.
Dave Hower: drums, backing vocals.
Max Germer: bass, backing vocals

Anders Griffen: trumpet & cornet on Celia Johnson, A New England Deluge and It Will All Come Back To You

Kris Delmhorst: Cello on Bringing Down The Body Count and Diary, Reconstructed

Band photos by Henning Ohlenbusch, Max Germer & Sharon Esdale; photo-collage by Philip.
Actors, makeup and general helpers: Lesa Bezo, Sharon Esdale, Matthew Kloman, Sarah Knox, Seth Lepore.

Intense Fox by José Iñesta Vaquera (500px.com/jose_inesta). Foggy Trees by Patrick Hendry.
Meteor Mezzotint: Wellcome Library, London Astronomy: a meteor shower in the night sky.
“A Telescopic View of Donati's Comet, Oct. 15, 1858” From A Popular Treatise on Comets by James C. Watson, PUB. 1861.

All Songs By Philip Price Copyright © 2016 Lalablahblah Music/ASCAP.

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Winterpills Northampton, Massachusetts

Massachusetts-based Winterpills have released 7 albums. Literate songwriting, a lush dream-pop palette, anchored by the voices of Philip B. Price and Flora Reed.

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