Serious Light EP, by Michael Zapruder

Serious Light EP

by Michael Zapruder

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1.	Serious Light 04:34	lyrics	buy track
The hand that you offer holds one small apple you promised hats full we could pass around This place wants to own me its noise is useless relentless ruthless pointless world of sound Hand holds an apple drawing a line crow in the sky that brings no sign There isn't a bird that no one has heard only fools wait for you to say a necessary word What do you hear now? Why can't I break it down? Burn it up or tear it to the ground Stuck in this serious light Mirrors mirrors all the way around Sad hand and dark mind Turn around and run from my own kind Out of this serious light Everything that I love is blind Everything that I love is blind Everyone that I love is blind The hand that you offer holds one small apple you promised hats full we could pass around
2.	Mission Drift 03:07	lyrics	buy track
Chaparral and train tracks to the sky Early fall the plants and flowers dry Sad and bold a story getting old When we left the homelands for this place Golden strands fell across your face Sad and bold a story getting old Mission drift it's another day walking away Then the great command was handed down Campfire light the people passed around Sad and bold a story getting old Mission Drift it's another day walking away Now the rain and flowers come back in Where we walk they struggle to begin Sad and bold a story getting old
3.	The Spirit of the Valley 03:13	lyrics
I was talking to the Spirit of the Valley we were drinking in a little bar she was jealous of the spirit of the heavens cause he drank on a faraway star she said this used to be a better situation the animals and people were cool nothing changed for a long time everyone knew the rules but the river developed an affliction his water ran hard on the rocks people grabbed stones from the creek bed and made bricks and buildings and blocks and her hair was cut into a patchwork things like that went on for years until finally she wound up in the Eazy Stop selling cigarettes and souvenirs she said tell the river if you ever find him if you're ever in the same crappy bar that I almost have enough for the starfare to go see the Spirit of the War and when I find him I'm gonna bring him down here let's see what he makes of this scene tell the river I said old friend it's starting again he'll know what I mean
4.	Sharon, I'm on the Wrong Side of the Light 04:30	lyrics
Sharon, I'm on the wrong side of the light for the first time I let myself lie straight out You said Michael you're American male and white there's a good chance everything will turn out all right But this isn't what I want This isn't what I wanted when I started Once I walked in some snow canvas shoes and listening to music You put your tongue in my ear and it's always been there through these many years Whispering this isn't what you want This isn't what you wanted when you started And those conversations we had Those conversations I remember About how to live a good life How we should live in a world With shit up to our ankles Shit up to our knees How do you do it? Sharon you wanted to be free Why did you go back to DC? Why did you leave me to the old fight Saying this isn't what I want Want Want Sharon, I'm on the wrong side of the light for the first time I let myself lie straight out

about

Howells Transmitter is excited to release this EP of new songs by Michael Zapruder. Shaped by the uncertainties and sorrows of the past two years, SERIOUS LIGHT emerges as a sinuous, moody meditation on life in the midst of collapse.

After Howells Transmitter Records released Latecomers (“…a singer-songwriter album at its core, but a remarkably creative and sophisticated one, both musically and lyrically” - Peter Blackstock, Austin-American Statesman) into the pandemic-ravaged world in October 2020, Zapruder found himself mired in 2021: bleary days at home, his kids on computers from morning until night, everyone living in a nightmare world of para-social facsimiles. While preparing several additional tracks from the Latecomers sessions to be released, Michael realized that the fundamental context had shifted so much that the music that had seemed ready to release a few months earlier now felt wrong. Looking for something better, Zapruder tore down those tracks and, through the unfolding disasters of 2021, rewrote lyrics and recorded new vocals in his home studio, as Scott Solter (Superchunk, Mountain Goats, Folk Implosion, Okkervil River) contributed sonic nuance and textures and mixed the tracks.

The EP begins with the eponymous track “Serious Light” which, with its twisting modal guitar figure and extreme shifts in tempo, explores the bad bargains in American life, and Zapruder’s sense that the goods we are sold are almost always of less value than they purport to be. Mission Drift” examines “sad and bold” American narratives from the vantage point of migrants in a neo-dustbowl kind of scenario. “The Spirit of the Valley,” in its lush, cinematic and somehow humid sound-world, narrates a conversation between the singer and a temporarily-displaced but angry and resourceful nature spirit who is soon to re-establish her dominance. Finally, “Sharon, I’m on the Wrong Side of the Light” speaks to the long story of life between two friends who drift apart, while trying to maintain senses of purpose and meaning in different ways.

These four tracks, made and then unmade and remade again, show Zapruder at the beginning of an exciting new phase of his work, even as the social structures in which we live, and the very earth itself, is in danger of collapse. The SERIOUS LIGHT EP is part shout, part accusation, and part cry: asking what a good life might look like, and how we might find it in America in the 2020s.

credits

released September 16, 2022

Produced by Scott Solter and Michael Zapruder

Michael Zapruder - vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, programming
Kevin Seal - keyboards
Steve Hogan - keyboards
Joe Davancens - guitar
Adria Otte - violin
Emily Packard - viola
James McAlister - drums

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about

Michael Zapruder Austin, Texas

“Michael Zapruder makes beautiful folk-pop ballads resonant of the voice of Rufus Wainwright and wordplay of Andrew Bird" – Pitchfork

michaelzapruder.com

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