Get all 9 The Orbweavers releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Edges of Memory, When it Rains in Broken Hill, Pull the Thread (Susie's Theme), When the Sky is Grey, Silos on the Hill, Deep Leads, Ceiling Rose / Match Factory, Loom, and 1 more.
1. |
The Dry
04:46
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It will be dry
For a long, long time.
For a long,
Long,
Time.
I’ve let things die -
I’ve watched them die,
Wondering if we will survive.
Cracks all around,
In the walls,
In the ground;
Lightning without sound.
I stretch my hand
Across the widening spans,
And wonder where you are?
We once grew well,
When the rains fell.
Camellia, magnolia, ornamental
(I’m so sentimental).
Ravens wheeling overhead
As my own hands tremble,
River Red Gums remember -
How we once grew well,
When the rains fell
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2. |
Cyclamen
04:18
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I will stay these winter days,
With cyclamen as torches,
Beacons against the grey weathering in my head.
Clay feet,
Sink close,
Sleep deeply.
Evening falls,
Unfamiliar ways;
With cyclamen as torches,
Lead me back to where it was I first heard your name.
Clay feet
Proceed,
Fearlessly.
Scarlet, purple, crimson and white,
Give me a vision to take through the night,
Where you return is where we are heading,
Earth is a bed,
And sleep is remembering.
Scarlet, purple, crimson and white,
Dormant receiver storing the light,
Who is a thief and who’s a collector?
I invoke you:
Be my protector.
Remembering.
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3. |
Poison Garden
03:45
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They said
‘Do not play in the poison garden’
Foxgloves sway,
In the poison garden.
Melia berries fall like marbles,
Now crushed and broken
As the ground there hardens.
When I was younger, I used to marvel,
When they would warn me about the poison garden.
Belladonna, sweet deadly nightshade
Oleander, you make my heart break.
Red angel trumpets, pendulous glory,
Pupils dilate with a midnight story.
Oh ancient yew tree, laden with berries -
Medical pardon, from the poison garden.
And as I shelter, beneath this bower,
Beauty and power in the poison garden.
I’ll take my hours in the poison garden.
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4. |
Nitrates
01:52
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In the cool store
I wait,
Alone with the nitrates.
Vinegar -
A telltale
Imprints
Life projected.
Cannister Confines
First print - a modern life.
Volatile
Hot light
Unspooling hopes protected.
Mind full of sounds.
Cinema - shaping the dreamers.
Together or alone,
In the darkness
I used to believe in other things.
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5. |
Radium Girls
04:40
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By 1923 there were a hundred in the factory,
Girls from all round town
Saving for a new way out.
There they worked by day, painting in their careful way,
Dials for the sky,
Clocks and watches bright for night.
“Bring the brush up to your lips, keep it with the finest tip”
Little do you know where that paint will finally flow:
Straight into your bones, that’s where heavy metals go,
And there it will love on,
Far beyond the time when we are gone.
And where you rest your head,
Will be a box lined with lead,
And in a thousand years,
You will still be glowing here.
In a thousand years, you will still be glowing here.
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6. |
Blue Lake
04:11
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Blue Lake, where is it you lie?
Hidden, on the north-west side
Beneath bitumen, I heard they filled you in,
Drained you out,
Covered over,
Driven further away,
Concrete over clay.
Blue Lake, fringed with pink and green,
Saltwater, rise and then recede.
Now only myth,
Under South Wharf, could you persist?
Driving home, over Dynon,
Lost my bearings, and then,
Caught dreaming again,
About that Blue Lake.
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7. |
Invertebrate City
04:15
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I turn over your picture searching for an inscription,
Letters formed out of angles,
Keener than a scalpel.
When will time never matter?
There’s always something cruel within me.
Drawing breath from an archive,
Heaving with your missives.
Now the envelope is closing,
A seal upon this house.
Some words last
A very long time.
So, is this what you wanted -
Final preservation:
Letters piled in a shoe box
(I’m farming silverfish to graze them).
When will time never matter?
Always something cruel within me.
Every mind is an archive.
Every season has a meaning.
And when the gable falls,
And the bearers crumble,
Oh Invertebrate city!
You will inherit it all.
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8. |
The Reply
05:46
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This is why I cannot reply to your letter:
The bridge is burned, I couldn’t return
If I tried.
Like fruit that is fallen and brown,
We’ve left this so long it’s now part of the ground,
And there
My bitterness
Grows anew;
And so I cannot write to you.
Pick and spade, I’m digging away every evening,
Through the veins and fossil remains
Where you lie.
A crucible I keep inside,
As black
And as deep as a silver mine,
Is where
My bitterness
Melds anew;
And so I cannot write to you.
Leaves will turn, the sun will burn,
Maybe forever.
I will go - I know that is true.
But whether my heart stays of stone,
We’ll never know ‘til I’m dirt and bone,
And all
My bitterness
Has turned to blue.
Perhaps it’s then I’ll write to you.
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9. |
Mine
03:42
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Coal of the east,
Ore of the west,
Aluminium scraped from my chest.
Mine.
Tailings steep,
River runs sour,
New accretions form on my brow.
Mine.
Methane seeps a plume of fire.
Beneath the wheat fields, vapours rise.
Mine.
And there we plunge into the heart:
Beneath those ancient rivers,
Dredging hardened secrets
Of poison
And of gold within.
And where desire has been forged
By heat and time beyond my grasp,
I walk the crumbling perimeter -
The chasm yawns
To meet us.
I leave the churches and their chores,
And in my dreams,
I leave the banks, and buildings too,
And walk away,
And down my tools,
And in my dreams:
I do not work for you.
And down my tools.
I do not work for you.
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10. |
The Hook
03:26
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As sure as wood will rot in the rain,
Some things will never be the same -
Like you and me.
And the rising sea.
Some things roll on,
Some things run out,
You can see patterns from the old look out:
Tracks in the grass,
Where we used to pass,
Over
And over again.
There is only so much time,
Pulling like a fishing line.
Whether I’m right there on the reel,
It’s the hook
I always
Feel.
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The Orbweavers Melbourne, Australia
The Orbweavers are Marita Dyson & Stuart Flanagan, multidisciplinary artists working in song, performance and visual art.
Their work responds to history, memory and place. They are interested in local waterways, industrial history and environmental change.
They have written and recorded 3 albums, co-produced by their greyhound companions, Fern (RIP 2018) & Susie, released through Mistletone.
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