murmeln um schiffland (physical book and EP download)
Murmeln um Schiffland: the debut book/EP by murmeln (otherwise known as Ben Osborn, multi-instrumentalist and award-winning composer and writer).
This book of poems and drawings is released by Bristol’s Moot Press and comes with a five-track audio download of the EP released on Berlin’s WANDA Portal. The EP is produced by Berlin artist yr lovely dead moon and mastered by cult songwriter-producer Emperor X.
The EP and book is released 18th of April 2017 – Pesach VII, the final day of Passover. WANDA and Moot are releasing individual poems and tracks from the collection on each of the days of Passover (10-18th of April 2017).
“Murmeln’s vast history of composition has led him to a subtle sonic blend of electro-acoustic, classical and slacker folk. Haiku and Tanka guide the listener through a dreamlike landscape of modern day archetypes, between the lines and off the page” – WANDA.
“The text of Murmeln um Schiffland drifts tide-like between the connected poles of autobiography and dream-narrative, or back and forth along the route of passage between poem – lyric – song. In their playful fluency, the poetry and prose recall the anecdotal lyric of O’Hara’s Lunch Poems, with a handling of minimal form reminiscent of Snyder, Rexroth and late American engagements with Eastern poetics. Yet lurking within Murmeln um Schiffland, too, is a stonier, Rilkean sensibility open to ‘holy vision’, to the terrible and divine as they are revealed in the ecstatic of the modern city. Winter transfigures into spring and Berlin is afloat, the singer-poet ‘muttering at ship-country’.”
– Moot Press
E-Book versions of the book, and CD-R versions of the tracks, are available on request.
Includes unlimited streaming of murmeln um schiffland
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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lyrics
these torn jeans tarmac-black replace the stars with more darkness
I’m on my knees I’m crawling back tearing skin & drawing blood
the morning knows it’s spring
only humans sleeping in
like rocks adorned with shipwrecks
there are things I should have said
these red eyes rubbed to tearlessness replace the sun & float above
in this room it’s just the two of us but we could crowd a universe
there are animals singing
not awake for no reason
nothing escapes its context
& things I should be saying now
that makes a torture of each breath
& it’s poisonously laying low
but this too shall pass & there will come some sunny day
when you will smiling say
‘I got away at last!’
credits
from murmeln um schiffland,
released April 18, 2017
written and composed by murmeln
played by murmeln & rowan coupland (harp)
produced by yr lovely dead moon & murmeln
mastered by emperor x
an old EP of rowan's but still my favourite. a brilliantly energetic acoustic musician, who also played harp on several of my songs, this recording ably showcases his skills as arranger & lyricist. Ben Osborn
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