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We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

The Recorder

by Kobayashi

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1.
Long Division 02:28
lyrics
A twenty-four hour-a-day heart attack A ninety-nine mile an hour collision I feel the prickle and the crawl, it’s moving down my back Under the weight of all the constant long division Atop a pyramid that covers principalities I see that history is due for some revision Let’s smooth the edges of a jagged, cold reality And be prepared to feel the glow of their derision So what if we depend On something other in the end? A single moment stretched until the very world could crack The breathless seconds of escaping from a dream A projector that is infinitely looping back The suffocation as our eyes behold the screen These are the moments of the hours of the days and years In which we live as we await emancipation How could we know that when the anaesthetic stays our fears Then life itself is cured with such an operation
2.
What You See Is 04:07
lyrics
We create our own microcosm That way we won't be forgotten We exist outside their time It makes it hard, so hard to shine We spend so long in darkened rooms We build the worlds, we write the tunes What you see it what you get but there is much more to come yet Yeah there's another part What you see it what you get but there is much more to come yet There's darkness in my heart This right here is my reward It's bittersweet, it's neat but flawed But I thank you, everyone who cares enough for what we've done Who knows what's going to happen next I don't predict, I don't expect The things we do with all the hours What you see it what you get but there is much more to come yet Yeah there's another part What you see it what you get but there is much more to come yet There's darkness in my heart To blossom into precious flowers
3.
I Need A Kick 01:07
info
4.
No More Mr Nice Guy 04:16
lyrics
I’ve got no more grace to use I’ve got no more face to lose Divide and conquer So much for the dialogue Oh conversation’s such a slog I care too much what they think I need to run before I sink No more Mr Nice Guy Social engineering Now you are the key A piper who is steering The rats toward the sea No more Mr Nice Guy
5.
Box 01:26
info
6.
Misc. 04:06
lyrics
These words just drift across me Like water over stones As if I'll find a nice way To say that we are all alone Everything else was miscellaneous We prayed to God and wished he came for us Tell me how you love your children (the system is broken) Show me all that you have done (the system is broken) My rage is inarticulate (the system is broken) They've taken out my tongue (the system is…) Everything else was miscellaneous We prayed to God and wished he came for us
7.
TPSOTEP 04:59
lyrics
If beauty is truth why can't I look it in the face? It was a noble pursuit but there's no thrill left in this chase If beauty is truth, we are ugly I don't know what the hell is happening Could it be that anyone who ever said a single thing Of any value, any time, has never known what's happening? Like me, like you They say "the best things in life a free" You buy in to that conspiracy Everything costs at any quality They lied to you, they lied to me They say "you cannot keep a good man down" It's worse than simply not profound They'll crush you deep into the ground And speak those words to make a sound If beauty is truth why can't I look it in the face? It was a noble pursuit but there's no thrill left in this chase (I don't know what the hell is happening)
8.
Effin' A 01:38
info
9.
Circles Of Heaven 05:30
lyrics
If you go to sleep How do I know you'll wake up again? If I let you leave I know you'll come back, I just don't know when Oh, it was paradise Not for long If you stay with me There'll come a point where we have to pretend Don't know which to be How can I choose between father and friend? Oh, it was paradise Not for long They say it's better to have loved and lost Than to never love at all I can't see why that would be true When I'm so deep in your thrall
10.
A/B Splitter 01:54
info
11.
Don't Drive Angry 04:11
lyrics
OMG ROTFLOL SBIA BRB ASL IMO WTF? And send Oh my god, roll on the floor laughing out loud, stands back in amazement, be right back, age sex location, in my humble opinion, what the f- In a life so filled with hope and joy Is it possible to be annoyed? Oh, you can be But don't drive angry You think that you're a princess But this right here is a republic Your terminal self-insistence Well, honey-pie, it is just sick I can die happy, now that I've banished those suicidal thoughts So don't drive angry, 'cause none of that stuff is anybody else's fault
12.
Matilda 00:56
lyrics
I fall upon a splinter I go beyond the winter
13.
Another Country 04:25
lyrics
Memory lane is a terrible place The past dispensing an entire can of mace, into your face Knife in the flank, heart in the mouth, a stitch in time A truly tragic moment searching for a rhyme How did we fit in that skin? Could we really have taken it in? My eyes meet the eyes of the former self Pity pouring from the frame upon the shelf Oh, nostalgia - it isn’t what it used to be Oh, sentiment - save a little piece for me The past may be another country But I’m a stranger in the present The rolling mists obscure the view for me The false before - familiar, pleasant Because we always look back Like it’s a matter of fact As if the memory’s exact How can we be sure of that? Oh, nostalgia - it isn’t what it used to be Oh, sentiment - save a little piece for me
14.
Another Outro 00:33
info
15.
Pictures 03:37
lyrics
Bright lights, motion, city, ocean Steeper devotion enables the notion of love We took pictures Life simply broke us We took pictures All out of focus We took pictures Smiles they choke us We took pictures All out of focus Bright lights, smiling, posing, styling Night time, flashes, distraction, crashes We captured everything, as if time itself were frozen The aperture begins to be the only thing that's open
16.
35mm 00:46
info
17.
Little Children 05:02
lyrics
We are all terribly impressed with ourselves We are delighted by our DNA We can’t remember our lives before When it was any other way Do you ever feel like there is something important That is happening somewhere else, all of the time In lives more infinitely interesting Than yours and mine Little children, little children, Little children, you are over so soon In the mainstream, cathode ray screen, Little daydreams where we once shot for the moon Eternal life I’m still obsessed But not through the doorway Between life and death Eternal life It’s still the key But not in a song That comes from me, they can’t see I have brought life in to a defunct world I’ve seen it pass from this into the next These moments don’t seem big enough Perhaps they just don’t feel complex
18.
Ribbon- 01:13
info
19.
!important 03:29
lyrics
Everything is important Or, to put it another way - nothing is Every one of us matters In other words, you’re alone in this I’ve got something I have to say I’ve got something I have to say I’ve got something I have to say Oh no it went away Every atom in the universe We share with every king and hero Matter, not created moves through us And helps us to accomplish zero A complex chemical reaction Electrical impulses rushing A hundred muscles shape the words in air All so that we can say nothing
20.
Fall In(tro) 00:54
info
21.
Fall In 07:58
lyrics
I want to fall in to you Taste the sickly sweet oblivion Let the darkness embrace us Lost in desperate obsidian Are we close to the end? How will we know until we get there? I want to fall in to you Drink from each inch, inhale every pore Forget there are those in my life Who actually matter much more Are we close to the end? How will we know until we get there? Because every man you know is a hound Don’t let him say he won’t bring you down

about

In the early days of Kobayashi, a prominent music-industry figure was asked to appraise our performance at a local Battle of the Bands. His wine-fueled but nonetheless enthusiastic response was that our music should be “buried, so that future generations can see what was to come”.

A ludicrous notion really, since music is there to be listened to, not preserved for posterity but, for a predominantly live band, making a record often feels like you’re doing exactly that. The song itself - that gig-honed collective consciousness of the group - is suddenly frozen, robbed of further evolution by the very act of committing it to tape. Even with all the marvelous technology employed in the art of capturing these sounds, there is something that seems kind of archaic about the process, as if you’re saying, “That’s it - you’re done” to the music.

But this was very much the feeling within the band during the making of this long-player. Of course we think it’s our most accomplished set of songs - musicians always do - but, more than that, it seemed as if we were deliberately attempting to cement something of Kobayashi within the amber of time.

This is technically only our second album but it consolidates the experiences of a long and flexuous journey. The first record took eighteen months to make, in many ways this one was longer. In addition to the snatched sessions and a diary-bending schedule that contributed to its writing and production, there was a feeling of all our previous incarnations flowing to this point. So yes - The Recorder: a musical instrument, a sonic reproduction device, an archivist and chronicler of these, our very best of times.

credits

released December 1, 2014

Kobayashi are Mark Durham, James Rampton, Matt Searles & Alan Stead.

The Recorder was engineered, mixed and mastered by Matt Searles and James Rampton.

Additional programing by Matt Searles and James Rampton.

Thanks to Gareth Cox for the mics.

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Kobayashi Croydon, UK

Kobayashi are a strange band.

Not strange as in weird (except, maybe, for guitarist Alan) but strange as in hard-to-define. Linkin Park, Basement Jaxx, Roxy Music, Queen, James Brown, Tom Waits, The Stooges, Gomez, Bowie and Muse are just some of the artists we’ve been compared to. We don’t try to sound like any of them. ... more

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