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Small Improvements in Life and in Light

by Slim Charles

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kit weber
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kit weber A very intimate composition. Light sounds that drift between shimmering and gloomy. The delicacy of the vocals shines through over fluttering strings. Favorite track: Strata.
Amir Toussi
Amir Toussi thumbnail
Amir Toussi Slim Charles' debut full length brings us unabrasively technical instrumentation, tightly weaved guitar lines, and sweet longing vocals with hard hitting lyrics to match. These guys are deep n heavy, seemingly without even trying. Favorite track: GPS.
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    High quality CD with original artwork by Evan M. Cohen.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Small Improvements in Life and in Light via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Limited edition cassette tapes with spray painted blue and green splatters and mists for variant designs. All cassettes have professionally printed j-cards and are dubbed in real time. Hand numbered (1 through 25).

    Includes unlimited streaming of Small Improvements in Life and in Light via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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1.
Weave 02:25
I feel improved upon and while I know the jury’s out I’m waiting for the fear of everything to either wane or disappear. “What’s the difference?” you ask. I steal a second to invent the furniture we trip over on this road - it’s 50 years long - and what becomes of our youth once it’s traded for gold? He’d tell me but I’d never believe him; it’s unreal. Life and light: small improvements in both make the heavy things more bearable than before we weighed ourselves against the common sense of humankind, its memory seasonal as mud, soft as concrete, cold as cash and light as rain.
2.
3.
Strata 04:24
This time it’s cornered, this time will fly. I try to feel her with my eyes. now that they’ve killed it I’ll find the time. they’re standing outside when I arrive, but I’m sure that what you were told carbonates in the mouth. Fate is always afraid of chance running it down. Coronate what’s to be in a box with your name, open it wide to see how far it could reign. Clouds break; the outside revolving/collecting a silence, a full stop, a wait. Expecting to breathe, thought we might listen for a change. The patchworks I knew were barely stitched, fraying to pieces and marked by my confidence. And I know that what you were told hasn’t hit you for now. feel complacent to be the skin that’s pulled from your mouth - on the outside it’s me until it blisters away. Generations to be in a box with your name. This is important: can we have a word and not be inclined to make truth a piece of the whole, but rather the start? your inclination is to…
4.
Cavalry 03:53
stay till I’m gone, watch for me in the headlights. Try to resolve apathy as intermission. And in too much cavalry song I cannot remember you at all. Call out his name and never be the same. Put on display the resolve in the answer you gave. If time stood still we’d fault ourselves and I’d admit the end would change me. A lawnchair, a freeway, a sidewalk, an ashtray, a courthouse, a wording, a sentence, a turning, a ribcage, a lifetime, a routine, a high crime, a likeness, a deadbolt, a doorframe, a rebel, a taking, a landscape, a valley, a handshake, a greeting, an answer, no question, a dancer, a lamppost, a kitchen, a breadcrumb, a mission, a passing, a straight line, a blueprint, a landmine, a black hole, a rally, an anger, a tally, a casket, a carseat, a doctor, a heartbeat, a fact check, a sermon, a keystroke, a burden, “and I’m good with this or that ending,” you whisper.
5.
GPS 04:41
Sitting still with parallel palms, parking lot in a small town. Condescend and put them all out, touch the flame to the rocking chair. “So careless today” screams the patriarch, he’s always got a question for the sunrise. It’s quiet except for a revolving door sighing low with every single broken exit. We know that in the end it takes a song; does her blood run through us all? With separate tongues are we all lost? It’s not the end it’s not a suburban battle cry rang low and it rang high over a million yards can you sing like herbicide? Glitch toward the moon, dance in autotune. I’m not fucking lost my GPS told me so. Turn right into oncoming traffic in the back of a payphone. We painted halos, cut ourselves in the sides of wardrobes. There are only so many things not paved with ashes, painted gold. Cut yourself free and listen.
6.
Wan Won One 04:17
You were right: this era came too wrapped up in another time. My tendency to correct you falls far from intention once more. Reach for doubt - there’s a lot you’re not in for but it’s not for us to fret over and continue while walls share your complexion. Forward and comfortable you could be with time: stay slow, you never know. And in my free time I direct this well but it’s still late by seconds held up by picture stills to stop this accidental countering. While it’s not for us, I still can’t ignore this sense that the walls have your attention. Forward and comfortable carries the time: stay slow.
7.
Yesterday crawled up into conversational banter between us, lucid as daybreak over our heads. Calling your dogs off - true, it eats us up and after it does I guess that they fold up: despite a new wave they’re all reduced to charades. How long till you fall asleep? What would I have to do to keep you awake now? Sidelong glances at the sidewalk’s edges, casting more than looks to keep you near. I’ll do you right. Your heart in my hands tonight. I’m alive – is that stable? Realize darkness falls far from pride and if we hold our problems to the light, take this freefall in stride.
8.
Bad Jazz 03:59
Set yourself up for relapse and find your way out, paint it everywhere. It’s already too late to ask what could have been the right question to make you sleep all day and dream we burn this forest with our intention. Far too late to be alone - I heard my friend say so. If time stood still enough I could draw the end out. In the firelight painted in your hair vague reflection of a night I remember still. Leaning back to face all we seek to know, turning out the stars with a fingertip and one eye closed. When it’s light I’ll be fine, though ambition fades away it returns time to time acquiescing day by day; you wait to see. After this it’s child’s play, bring your matches anyway. Taste the evening, see the green washed out into golden leaves. Not watching whatever’s on just to ride the time away
9.
It’s the precision of the end that gets me every time. Intercepting the event, washed in light and always in the moment. No time to question or pretend that you don’t wonder what it’s worth. I’ll wrap a length of rope around the dead tree in the garden guiding life towards the sun and sinking into dirt with every rain that it sees. Sometimes the long road clears your mind enough to know you traded for fool’s gold after all. We can shade it all we like, but we all fall into light.
10.

credits

released September 30, 2014

All songs by Slim Charles
Mixed and mastered by Eric Castillo at Nada Recording Studio, New Windsor, New York
All artwork & visuals by Evan M. Cohen
Bass on Strata, GPS, Wan Won One & The Quilted Star Apple Crumble co-written by Ken Siu
Bass on GPS co-written by Gordon MacPherson
The string quartet is Colin Brookes (viola), Ariel Mitnick (violin), Keir GoGwilt (violin), & Madeline Fayette (cello)
Strata (String Quartet) recorded and mixed by Aaron Silberstein & Jim Woolf

Special thanks to Eric, Evan & Aunt Debbie

Slim Charles is Alex Jarvis, Maggie Toth, Ben Mickelson & Dominic Green

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Slim Charles Brooklyn, New York

Slim Charles is a band from Brooklyn.

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