Get all 4 Badlands releases available on Bandcamp and save 90%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of FLOODS, Dark Dreams, Split Tape with Ripe Mangos/Housings, and So Little.
1. |
How Do We Know
02:35
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How do we know what we really want to do, or we don’t?
Doesn’t matter anyway, we get through it and we find our way
I like Cs I like Es I like sighs I like whys
And I like getting high
I like dos I like don’ts I take my time I keep on trying
I keep on getting high
And every time I find myself
spinning around falling through sounds
I know I’m finding out
how to shape the world I want to see
how to shape the world we need
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2. |
Almost Alright
03:37
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You have gentle eyes and they look at me
and I fall every time
and the wind’s blowing outside
blowing at my door
and when it blows every time
I want to wander with you by my side
You have a way with words and they speak to me
and I fall every time
and the rain’s pouring outside
falling on my porch
and we knew all along
The waves would come for us all one day soon
and our neighbors might not recall we were cool
our friends are there but they’re overwhelmed too
but there’s you...
there’s you... and your eyes...
and your ways with words... and with me...
and the world that’s gonna be almost alright
You have the things you like and they’re not all mine
and I think it’s alright
cuz when the wind’s blowing outside
blowing at my door
I call on you every time
and I want to find out with you by my side
You have the plans you made, and they’re not all mine
and I think it’s alright
cuz when the days bake us in the sun
giving no relief well we knew all along
The heat would come for us all one day soon...
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3. |
Protect the Night
03:51
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The moon slowly rises
over Starr Pass Road.
I wait for light to leave me
I fall into the unknown
the wanderers of the night,
the planets, stars and moon
quietly raging from afar but they came
and they knew what to do.
A sky so dark she holds your hearts
she comes at dusk and needs your dark
Give me stars, give me dark
turn off the lights
give me stars, give me dark
protect the night.
I wanted to feel something
that was old, that was new
a distant light to remind me
of the time before the blue
we let our memories fade
when they’re just too much to hold.
Now I’m sifting through the grey,
the spectrum changes
and we might not ever know.
A sky with memories and maps
revealing her most distant pasts
Protect the night, before she goes
protect the night, she knows
we’re not who we ought to be...
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4. |
then we hear the song
02:39
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The desert landscape is hot and dry, and it bakes under the raging California sun.
Its infinite earth tones;
rusty, salty, sandy, deep, rich browns,
are perceived as a monolith,
as an absence of life.
To see the signs of life within this arid landscape requires slowing down, becoming quiet, deep listening, focused observation.
Through the act of gardening, tending to plants,
watching them transform in their own time, we slow down.
Here we watch the towhees, we smell the Artemisia,
we hear the rain drops dropping into oak leaf cups...
this is an old form of music
and we can’t hear it if we don’t speak the language.
This song, of water to leaf, describes a relationship.
One that we were once part of, and can be again.
Not as a hero, not as a villain,
but as a student, as a witness,
as an agent of compassion.
So, I am trying to learn this language
in which the oak, the rain,
the sage, the bobcat, the thunder and the stone
are our teachers, our siblings, our community.
And when the landscape becomes our family
then we hear the song.
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5. |
Thunder and Stone
05:35
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The ways that I can hear your voice are finite.
You left us only what you had to leave.
Scraps of paper with your handwriting,
parts and pieces of our memories
but you planted the seeds of deep listening,
you showed us how to slow down to see.
I’ll never get to ask you new questions
but the way you taught me how I have begun.
You taught us not to try to be the hero
just by showing us we’re not the only ones.
A language so old, of sound and light and stone,
a language we had lost for so long.
We hear the rain drops dropping into oak leaves
we know the story of the winter rains.
Their dance is mostly done when no one’s watching,
and they hold the keys to what we’ve failed to learn.
That we were never not a part of it,
but we’ve forgotten that they are our family.
I traveled out to see the great Mojave
the light reveals the infinite earth tones
salty, rusty, chalky, dusty, sandy browns and reds,
signs of life and love beyond our own.
The Artemisia floods our breath
I remember things you said
I remember slowing down
and listening to the quietest sounds.
A beginning and an end / the loss of a friend.
The bobcat and the oak
the thunder and the stone
the water and the light
and the colors and the sounds
of being part of the world that cradles you,
of being part of the world that made you,
of being part of the world that changes you,
of being part of what sustains you.
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6. |
FAFO
02:37
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Gotta try if you wanna know
Gotta fail if you wanna grow
Gotta sink before you swim
Overthink and you never win.
Fuck around, find out
Gotta live until you die
You’ll never break to the other side
Gotta feel every bit of it
It doesn’t end cuz you’re sick of it.
Fuck around, find out
You’ll get there if you go through it
you’ll find out, you’ll find your own way to do it.
Or you’ll stay where you just feel safe.
Take no risks, no chance,
make no thoughtful mistakes.
There’s ten million ways to fuck around
there’s ten million ways to find out.
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7. |
WORLDS
01:13
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Stretch your worlds you’ll see
limitless possibilities
Pluriversal ascension
Collective imagination
We need everyone
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8. |
Don't Take it to Heart
01:43
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When you find out
what you thought that you knew all along.
Call me, tell me,
send me all the answers right and wrong.
Seems we’ve lost our way now
and the night is still so young.
Tell me it’s gonna be alright
I don’t wanna be the one.
Don’t take it to heart,
don’t take it to the grave,
we’ll find out who we are,
our losses make us brave.
At least enough to say
when we’re wrong.
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9. |
Pretty Quiet
03:52
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Pretty faces, pretty hills
I’m pretty fargone now
pretty skies, pretty boys
pretty unsure of it all.
Pretty grasses, pretty dreams,
and it all seems
so pretty pretty good to me,
so I’m ‘a just let that be...
We could take it on tomorrow
or we could go on, gimme all night
or we could shut it down right now
or we could talk about where you wanna be.
Quiet spaces, quiet hills, the quietest regret,
quiet clouds, quiet girls,
quiet on the Western Front, quiet deals.
Quiet choices, quiet cracks,
quietly changing air, quietly swaying trees,
silently dropping leaves, covering city streets,
swimming around your feet.
Quiet answers, quiet questions asked,
forget about the past.
And it all seems so quietly deafening...
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10. |
Our Hearts Our Heads
02:44
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We just feel too much to know
When our hearts or heads implode
Why is it so hard to tell how to get up when you already fell
too many times before?
How do I let it go?
I wanna see what you know
How do I forget it all?
I wanna be here tomorrow
But our hearts don't match our heads
Don't speak to our bodies at all
And our words don't match our thoughts
Don't give us any way out
We just see too much to know
When the world is caving in it shows
Why is it so hard to tell how to get up when you already fell
too many times before?
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11. |
Unmapped
03:35
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If there was time to waste
I know I would, every day
but there is none, no, not even one,
not even a little bit.
If there was a way to know
before we made our minds to go,
I know I would do it all perfectly
the second time.
If there was a place where we could go
where all our fears just disappeared,
I’d stay away, you know that place
sounds fake as hell.
If there were endless ways to love
for each and every one of us
then maybe we wouldn’t be so scared
to lose it all.
If there was a Sea of Love,
it’d be the part that’s still
unmapped and unexplored,
hearts on the ocean floor
filling the endless roar.
It’s all too real, it’s all right now,
it’s all right here, there’s no way out.
We face our fears, we persevere,
or we run like hell.
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12. |
FLOODS
01:43
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Here comes the water again
here comes the fire again
here I am in shadows again
reaching out into light if we can
Flooding us through...
Flooding us through...
Flooding us through...
Flooding us through...
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Badlands Los Angeles, California
Songs about ecology, time, space, love, life, and death. Written (except for the occasional cover) and recorded by Tenney tracking instruments and vocals to create soundscapes inspired by landscapes.
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