ANTIC CLAY
ANTIC CLAY (full band) will participate in the first annual Terrifest to celebrate the life of our bass player David Kiesey’s sister Terri. Join us for a full day of live music, original theater and hearty discussion – Saturday, September 3rd at Waller’s Coffee Shop. Yes it’s a coffee shop, but much more, including a full stage. Advanced tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/terrifest-tickets-397080587727?fbclid=IwAR1zLXJLGUqvDMZW0MT_ClprjcqMW8Z5zQvpPjNLmHIADxpKbYD9eI8XJRE
I look appropriately sad and tired. But I clearly took the time to learn this one. So I like it.
Album 1: The Riderless Horse: https://anticclay.bandcamp.com/album/hilarious-death-blues-album-1-the-riderless-horse
Album 2: The Horseless Rider: https://anticclay.bandcamp.com/album/hilarious-death-blues-album-2-the-horseless-rider
Bonus tracks “Mechanically-Separated Blues” and “Human Sunlight” are also included with full album purchase.
“Hilarious Death Blues is a dark, smoldering journey into isolated Americana. It’s country music that’s silently aware of the impending apocalypse, and doesn’t pine over lost love and and the daily grind of an oppressive job. It’s a low and lonesome sound that holds a mirror to existential angst and rages against entropy, ennui, murk and miasma with flourishing, poetic beauty.” –Chad Radford
Another previously unreleased track from The Sweet Meat Love & Holy Cult “Mystagogue” sessions.
I did a basement goof-off lip-sync video in the basement with a great cat who was since murdered by a poodle in Colorado. That’s Wolfie you see at the end. Great cat who loved me.
Here’s the video: youtu.be/_CfIBgMESgs
MERCHANT OF SOULS by Antic Clay
Ye line your pockets with chaos
Ye wreathe my neck with an albatross
And that’s the popular payoff, merchant of souls!
Ye blindly buying redemption
Ye blandly flouting convention
See you just spreading dementia, merchant of souls!
Ye scalped our tickets to paradise
with one particular parasite
Nothing’s working but terror might, merchant of souls!
Merchant of souls
Merchant of misery
Got me tangled down, raw
Collapsed with a grimace on the visions I saw!
I saw the center collapsing
Upon the pinnacle axis
And asses betting on matchsticks, merchant of souls!
I saw the carnally minded
A god-dog mortally wounded
And my reflection was blinded, merchant of souls!
Ye profit off destruction
Ye prophet of distraction
And relative malefaction, merchant of souls!
Merchant of souls
Merchant of misery
Minister of woes
Collapsed with a grimace on the visions I saw!
I saw those butchered pilgrims
The loathsome vulture children
Woven in the cauldron, merchant of souls!
Merchant of souls
Merchant of misery
Got me tangled down raw
Collapsed with a grimace on the vision I saw
Reduced to corpus delicti
Ye use a noose for a necktie
Ye lard your language with alibi, merchant of souls
The dead are born and bred there
The social fabric threadbare
And many heads are shed there, merchant of souls!
My last request for the hangman!
I want to sing like birds again!
Never worry who listens! Merchant of souls!
Merchant of souls.
released August 10, 2022
All words and music by Michael Bradley
Recorded, engineered and mixed by Laine Pierce
Copyright ©2007 FurnaceSongs (ASCAP)
all rights reserved
Previously unreleased track from The Sweet Meat Love & Holy Cult “Mystagogue” sessions.
Video: youtu.be/YMLcOla1pDo
FIRE IN HEAVEN by ANTIC CLAY
There’s a fire in heaven
Summer in your soul
Holy days of majesty
Bestowed upon this fool
Arrive upon that shoreless sea
Breathe and be reborn
Woven that fragile tapestry
Lovely, fearful as a storm
A glimpse of unknown workings
And one uncounted star
Lit upon the waking world
Selah, selah, selah
The mourning moon should take a turn
And sing about the sun
Things redeemed and unredeemed
Days of ending have begun
I don’t see it, I believe it
In my unconscious choice
There’s a fire in heaven
A Christmas in your voice
Your heart just like a hummingbird
A love that was foretold
Can’t chronicle this miracle
Till winter wings will unfold
released August 7, 2022
Words and music by Michael Bradley
Copyright ©2007 FurnaceSongs (ASCAP)
all rights reserved
“Why Power?” A conversation between two women on a mountain.
This is a previously unreleased track from the Sweet Meat Love & Holy Cult album “Mystagogue.”
released August 7, 2022
Featuring Laine Pierce on bowed upright bass.
All other music by Michael Bradley.
Copyright ©2013 FurnaceSongs (ASCAP)
A deep cut from the double CD “Mystagogue” by The Sweet Meat Love and Holy Cult.
Video link: youtu.be/AabwUrubhx8
lyrics
This World is Mired in Lightless Fires by Antic Clay
This world is mired in lightless fires
and they all conspire to be one with you.
The holy rain falls slow, sustained
each drop takes pains to be one with you.
The coiling sun could come undone
because its serpents want to be one with you.
The maroon-rimmed moon sings blue cocoons
which bleed and bloom to be one with you.
The veins that spiral, surge and twine
emerge combined, to be one with you.
In mountain time, when all beasts are blind
you lie supine for all to view.
Copyright ©2013 FurnaceSongs (ASCAP)
credits
released August 6, 2022
Words and music by Michael Bradley
except: Upright bass by Laine Pierce
Backing vocals by Robin Hensley Pierce
Hammer dulcimer by…?
license
all rights reserved
Sing Blood | Antic Clay (bandcamp.com)
From the “Jarboe Presents The Sweet Meat Love And Holy Cult – “Mystagogue” album, released January 29th, 2013 on Atavistic Records.
SING BLOOD is one of four songs contributed by ANTIC CLAY to the Sweet Meat Love & Holy Cult project, which was a collaboration of artists primarily from the southeastern United States but also from such diverse locations as Brazil and Bali.
The project was helmed by Jarboe (of SWANS), who also sang backing vocals on this track.
The physical CD is difficult to find, so I’m happy to share these tracks for the first time on Bandcamp. There are also a few outtakes which weren’t included on Mystagogue that I will upload here. I hope you enjoy them.
SING BLOOD by The Sweet Meat Love & Holy Cult
Written by Antic Clay
You’ll watch your father hanging from a lesser tree.
Their hands all frantic about his business and all love reduced to effigy.
And every visage is all malice and bland catastrophe.
Hate for which there is no ballast but lightless fire and hollow creed. Hey! Sing blood.
Feed the swollen god.
Prod the bodies, lance the lords.
Plunge your song into each advancing horde.
Sing blood! Fuel the rising flood!
Prick and goad the bloated waves,
til something red is wrought from you and tossed into the grave
you crave yeah, along with your song.
Appeased by a yellow need for all to sing along!
So come on! Come on! And sing blood!
You’ll watch your father hang and then you’ll dance on by his grave. You’ll breathe one baleful breath before an idiot makes you a slave. At gunpoint. At moneypoint! To shit. To shine. Touché!
And now you stand here and christen me with a bloody black toupee.
Hey: Sing blood! Fellate the flailing god!
Prod the pumpkins, spear the gourds.
Stroke the warwhale and douse the drowning hordes!
Sing blood! They can’t stanch your song!
All that happens, it happens in spades,
while one red thing is wrought from you and tossed
into the grave where you composed one holy song.
Afraid for tomorrow when they eat your only son!
So come on! Come on! And sing blood!
Come on! Hey come on! And sing blood!
(Sing a shallow gallows song. Sing along to the wrong song.
Around here we devour our own. Around here we eat what we’re shown.
Swing on the gallows, shallow throng. That’s you where the shadow is long.
Down here we devour our own. Down here we eat what we’re thrown.)
Lyrics and Music by Michael Bradley Copyright ©FurnaceSongs (ASCAP)
released January 29, 2013
All instruments and vocals by Michael Bradley except bowed/upright bass by Laine Pierce. Additional vocals by Jarboe.
all rights reserved
https://anticclay.bandcamp.com/track/take-this-tongue?from=fanpub_fnb_trk
From the “Jarboe Presents The Sweet Meat Love And Holy Cult – “Mystagogue” album, released January 29th, 2013 on Atavistic Records.
TAKE THIS TONGUE is one of four songs contributed by ANTIC CLAY to the Sweet Meat Love & Holy Cult project, which was a collaboration of artists primarily from the southeastern United States but also from such diverse locations as Brazil and Bali.
The project was helmed by Jarboe (of SWANS).
Kris Force of Amber Asylum contributes violin and vocals here.
The physical CD is difficult to find, so I’m happy to share these tracks for the first time on Bandcamp. There are also a few outtakes which weren’t included on Mystagogue that I will upload here. I hope you enjoy them.
TAKE THIS TONGUE by ANTIC CLAY
Take this tongue, this tongue has lied
Take these hands that make things die
and take this blood that it abide
Abide.
Take this tongue that thrice denied
Take this heart made wood with pride
and take this blood that it abide
Abide.
I know why all rivers go to the sea.
Apathetic stars align
Devoid of consequence consigned
by blood or destiny combined
Combined.
Eyes that weep as they record
All our children are restored
Stake this blood that it endure
Endure.
Come the turning of the tide
Gone in mourning all who died
Who seek this blood that it abide
Abide.
I know why all rivers go the sea
Constantly.
To arrive upon the shoreless sea
To abide
To be restored
To be reborn
All things pass
But in their passing they clasp
And they abide
They abide
They abide
I know
Take this blood that it abide
Take this blood that it abide
Take this blood that it abide
Take this blood that it abide
Let this blood like heaven’s bird abide
Let this blood like heaven’s bird abide
Let this blood like heaven’s bird abide
Let this blood like heaven’s bird abide.
released January 29, 2013
All words and music by Michael Bradley
except violin and vocals by Kris Force
all rights reserved