We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Smalltowns

by Nathan Richards

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

1.
collect the provinces like limited-edition peace coins and hockey cards but i wouldn’t part with those cape breton oilers, not for all the golden aces of the yukon or the fierce teenage poetry of a Downie-filled van, a rotting quilt, a longing for the wild west and the great white north - both ravenous - to the last inch of straw and snow  i fear and revere every coked-up mother’s son who whipped around the shaft on a length of chain shuffled from crew to crew like the jokers they are, lost amid the decks of their grandfathers’ tales "when the derricks were made of wood and when the men were made of iron" "we are not what we once were, and we shall never be so again" after i pay these tabs and settle these debts please pack up what’s left and hop it on a train an eastbound maritime-ontario two-story boxcar let me wind around the bumps of northern new brunswick, walking in a grid can’t be good for the soul no, walking in a grid for so long can’t be too good for the soul
2.
leland, climb awake again sit up straight and roll the makings tight lean back against the spruce headboard strike out the last three lines you wrote your wife sometimes dear, i drink so much coffee i can’t get to sleep spectre and fear flit beyond the frosty panes daylight creeps across the quilt stalking guilt and fear like yearling game sink back into the rotting stump throw the core into the hungry woods track your prey - bare footprints and hooves in long carpet sometimes, dear, i drink so much that i can’t stay awake and hunt all night for the right things to say
3.
we duct-taped newspaper around our wrists and bound them up in twine raised them up and brought them down, each by each, in time trying to smash every bit of glass from the yellow hummer with “fastrak” on the license plate, dirty evil motherfucker i broke my wrist i broke three fingers and my wrist  i swing a hammer, i bear a herald of a country with no name i sweep your streets, i fix your roofs, i keep you dry and i keep you clean we are the great unwashed it’s the simple truth how can you see and not believe?  it’s the fucking truth we duct-taped newspaper around our wrists, and bound them up in twine
4.
Slip Waltz 04:11
me and the ghost of my lonely take a stroll into town  every now and then when the sun is coming up or going down   past the evergreen grove in the graveyard  where we kissed in the snow at the turn of the century the tawny appaloosa light on your linen dress you unbuttoned my shirt and laid a hyacinth on my swelling chest i don’t wear a band on my ring finger just a bandage every now and then glass is sharp and the shards are quick i can see through to the truth beneath my skin blood and panes and lights and gin i imagine us old and reclining close our manes become a single thing every colour of a fox’s coat the smell of fog and evergreen i miss the solitude and assurance of first and second loves i miss the warmth of loves that never fired love in my pocket like a folding knife love in the ground for another life
5.
oak seeds and their tenders meet as autumn 'lights on clever wing clutching tightly last year’s crown of leaves to get pushed out by our next year’s spring winter’s short, we must go north some greater force can keep us kindled warm indoors sharing seas, yielding salt talk 'til dawn in humming darkness baring fault timid toes fear the cold but ignore the undertow timid toes feeling bold but afraid of letting go the cats here aren’t as forward or friendly as they are in cher st-henri but they still offer their medical advice and whisker out the settings and the nights tawny plaid, kneading paws unseeded dreams clutched tenderly in purring jaws snapdragon eggs, junior boots painted skies, seek starry nights, need berry juice timid toes fear the cold but ignore the undertow timid toes feeling bold but afraid of letting go timid toes, wagging tail, can you feel the embers glow? timid toes feeling bold as the roots begin to grow
6.
barely remember that night out on the lawn til the east started leaking light shouting aloft at the chimney pots "you sons of bitches’ll never get me in here" i must’ve fallen asleep at the farm under the branches, out of reach of the flickering warmth i woke up angry and confused as i’m often prone to do and flung my half-drunk beer at the telephone wire as i staggered home alone i thought of maybe getting going but this town still remembers my name smoking cigarettes up on the fire escape that transformer blew its load - a lawsuit fireworks display since then that block’s burned down, strewn nostalgic on the ground but that town still remembers our names i must have fallen asleep at the bar woke up drooling on my sleeve in the back seat of your car sweating death into my collar for the sun to cake as shame but that town is pretty good at that game i’ll miss the graveyard and the fog at five AM i’ll miss taking every step knowing exactly where i am i miss getting drunk at lunch and climbing back up to the roof patching that town that still remembers my name this one’s for all the girls i never kissed but in retrospect much more for the finger-full i did so few know their part in the gin-soaked rural heart  of the town that still remembers my name none of this looks any good on the resumes we keep re-writing none of this gains any ground on the self-addressed arguments i keep fighting i’m not sure what i think of the city it’s pretty fun but after a while fun gets to feeling pretty shitty i packed up and left so that some cold hard place could make a bad joke out of me (no matter how long i stay and no matter what my ways i’m sure this town will never even learn my name) and it did, and it wasn’t funny just like we all knew it wasn’t going to be "someone had better call an ambulance cause you’ve been lying on the lawn screaming at the rooftops since daybreak"
7.
the pastor’s wife baked stones into his bread the body of christ broke his teeth witness the gap-toothed parishioners' sneer as witless testimony as seen through local light-cutter’s dirty glass tales told through local bolt-cutter’s dirty breath the mill will the slice the lumber from the copse of forest as god mills the soul from the corpse or so it goes as seen through nullifying panes  pine case closed rustled six feet beneath the fallen leaves the frost and fear and bile rises in a thin voice from the congregation “murderer"
8.
Beets 05:51
we are the ones beneath the topsoil the forefathers of you and yours alike and o’er the years we push up grass and weeds so that the fat men on mowers trundle o’er our reaching out for the ones who laid us down for the sons who laid us down for the wives who laid us down and kept our names and wed again we lay and wait, we lie and compost reaching out through our narrow pine bungalows wait for the day when yous run out of room and till our bones into this rich heritage soil and plant your beets, lettuce, and potatoes between the memories of our earth-infested toes cause there’s six feet of soil above our ears and we could grow you gardens that surpass our reaching out for the ones who laid us down for the sons who laid us down for the wives who laid us down and kept our names and wed again

about

All voluntary donations (minus bandcamp fees) will go to the ALLY Centre of Cape Breton (www.allycentreofcapebreton.com), an organization which seeks to create supportive spaces that diminish risk for vulnerable populations in industrial Cape Breton.  They provide care, mental health services, and direct assistance to individuals who are stigmatized or at risk, and work to address the voids in our healthcare system. Please visit their website to get a better sense of the enormous range of services and advocacy they provide.

credits

released July 13, 2020

This record was made over ten years on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People; the unceded, traditional territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations; and the traditional territories of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Wendat, Métis, Neutral, Algonquin, and Leni-Lunaape peoples, and the Mississaugas of the Credit.

Smalltowns was written and performed by Nathan Richards with:

Pete Gielen - drums and vocals on 2,4, and 7
Carolyn Boudreau - vocals on 1,4,5,6, and 8
Albert Lionais - drums on 6
Mark Dolmont - vocals and synth on 4
Glenn Barrington - drums on 3 and 8
Jono Hunter - bass on 3

Art by Lianne Zannier

Layout by Jono Hunter

Recorded and mixed by:

Albert Lionais at Poles & Zeros (Black Lake, Cape Breton)

Mark Dolmont at Noise West (Vancouver BC) and MKII (Dartmouth NS)

Nathan Richards at Room 13 (Toronto ON), Thunder & Lightning (Sackville NB), Poles & Zeros, and at home (in Toronto ON, London ON, North Vancouver BC, and Boularderie, Cape Breton)

Mastered by Mark Dolmont

Dedicated to Jim Dinnan and Myra DZ Gielen

The following people generously gave their time, experience, advice, patience, recording gear, instruments, support and living space:

D Dinnan; Albert & Ashley Lionais; Charlie Barker & Whiskers; Mark, Ali, Silas & Fae; Pete, Ashton & Myra; Jonathon Hunter; Lianne & Tobias; Carolyn Boudreau; Scott Pasko, Victoria & Bea; Glenn & Anne; Must Be Nice Records; Donald Calabrese; Jim Scarth; James Anderson; Andrew Lionais; Dzarco & Lisa; Leila & Roshi; Diane Bradbury; and Mark Gillis, who played bass on these songs now and then.

Thanks:

Dinnan & Richards families; Alder; Scarlet & Beck; Victor, Lindsay & Jain; Bucky, Robin, Henry, Ned & Miles (and Lucy… and Sue); Paul Oleynik; Jim Meloche; Shane O’Handley; Ian MacDougall; Steve Fifield; Paul Henderson; Keith Hamilton; Fellow Project, Found Objects, Robot Orbison, Hash Jesus, Heavy Heart, Orphan Choir, Barrier, and Mhira Blood.

This is MBN024.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Nathan Richards Boularderie Centre, Nova Scotia

Somewhat bipedal animal with nostalgic tendencies and a musical history of very small, very loud rooms.

contact / help

Contact Nathan Richards

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

If you like Nathan Richards, you may also like: