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Pity Slash Love

by Prince Nifty

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1.
Build of green glass windows Build in the red Leverage the neighbourhood Mortgage the shadows with simple plans and neutral tones Strip this city of its bricks and stones. Rise from the smoulder from dead industry upwards from downturns and wide as the broad side of a barracks Phony growth no rhyzome build this city on buried bones. Thank you, Doubledoubledoubledouble land Fuck you, Ontario Municipal Board You poisonous mushrooms, Phil Pick and Richard Florida. As every crane can raise and spin so everybody's moving to Berlin. Pity love Silly shitty city pity city pity pity love As every crane has boom and jib so everybody's moving to Brooklyn. Heavenly trees Grow in the crease where asphalt meets fences where houses meet weeds. Through foundations through the streets all these new beginnings explode Business is business on rich sandy lome Bury your dollars and harvest a home All that cheddar All that cheese Grow that debt to income ratio Pity love Silly shitty city pity city pity pity love
2.
3.
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5.
Naab (edit) 04:25
6.
Body Irony 07:59
7.
Who writes songs For the bankers and stock traders? Who rhymes on behalf of negotiators? What of the prattles and shakers of speculators? Lately I've been having the strangest dreams. I'm in the middle of the street I'm rich and I'm naked Adam naked. Like the morning miracle There was something in the air I was awoken by fear. Like the Emperor's New Clothes Like an empty barber's chair Save for a hair I was barely even there Like a painting upside down Hanging on a wall that is bare Turn it around Don't just lie there. So I got up Feeling charmed by good luck Squeezed the lemons Quenched the demons "The Mind will wander The will to be too will be blocked But don't let's not make a little more music" Difficulties! Retreat! Retreat! Return -come again Fuck up and repeat Defeat! The demons and the skeletons step behind and take a seat Lately I've been making faces Running over and over all those blushing moments had I remember the other day Trying so hard to relay it in words but I could hardly say Another morning miracle Another paralyzing fear Another day Another dollop Another dentist-less year Another self-destructive phase Another ornamental tear Down my face Falling fast Into my trappist beer Another stanza on the page In this barn-board café.
8.
O, how the world, with you, does wax dreary, As the ocean's drawn, like tears, by pale moon, So white, so deep. How mind and voice do croon And swirl in ceaseless eddies, You, weary, But nonetheless connected as the tide, And thorough as a summer's day, and wide As continents, spanning ages, grinding Jagged stone to grain, all without changing. Yet, comfort is a precarious thing, Chalked and hollowed it may appear, So weighted are these words, they do not sing To distant virgins, rather, to your ear They whisper gently, with a will to be, And in an instant float back out to sea
9.
“this valley[.]” “hereabouts[.]” “Come to Galilee for that” “Capernaum” “six funereal plumes of palms[.]” “six funereal palms[,]” “palms” “six funereal plumes of palms” “We reached Tabor” “We reached Tabor safely” “We never saw a human being on the whole route” “never saw a human being on the whole route” ... “Nazareth is forlorn” “accursed” “ruin” “to-day,” “Saviour’s[.]” “sang[,]” ... “Peace on earth, good will to men[.]” “living creature” “Chorazin[.]” “Chorzin[,]” “them[.]” “Saviour’s[.]”
10.
O Sluggard 07:46

about

I cannot say for certain whether or not Krautrock producer Conny Plank ever met Scott Walker but if they had met the collaboration might sound like Prince Nifty’s Pity Slash Love—a synthesized ice storm of polyrhythms, R&B, Soukous guitar, and shoutouts to local art collectives. As the title implies this is a love album, replete with hormonal sax solos and white soul pleading, but the object of desire is as obscure as its creator.

Prince Nifty is one of the many project names deployed over the years by multi-instrumentalist Matt Smith whose mercurial arrangements have always called for explanation by creative writing. With his new album you’re in an Ethiopian restaurant; you’re with an ex you shouldn’t be talking to; the last shreds of injera have been cleared and a solo performer on a wedge of a corner stage turns on a DX7. A cracked speaker powers up. Pity Slash Love is the sound that comes out—a portable world music for cities, because that’s where the world is now.

Check this interview over at As Is No Way for a more info on this record:
www.asifnoway.com/blog/music/prince-nifty-pity-slash-love/

credits

released May 7, 2013

all songs written, recorded and performed by Matt Smif except Naab; Colin Fisher's sick pysch wah wah wha wah guitar and Thomas Gill's dirty digits on the keys on Pity pt 2; and Brodie West's Alto sax on BODY IRONY.

Pity, love and thanks to Thomas Gill, Colin Fisher, Brodie West, Liz Peterson, Rob Gordon, Owen Pallett and a special thanks to the Ontario Arts Council for their support.

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