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Minutes To Manifest Destiny

by Marconi

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Four-panel digipak manufactured by Baltimore's Morphiusdisc Manufacturing with four-panel insert for lyrics and liner notes. Features original artwork by Luke Kirkland.

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1.
Coast to coast by phone is easier than yards across this bedroom. Day by day alone is simple. It’s that simple. Grady’s got a cold heart. No…that part’s just cold, Sewn inside it’s own fire, And baking Grady’s heart of gold. So don’t take it all so personal-like. The burning surfaces are caving in, With both the poles consumed in clockwise spins. With gulping gasp and grins, we faint from feigning gills and fins. Is this how it begins? The newborns nurse as confetti burns On our favorite cigars, these turgid urns Fixative enough to say “Freud would’ve been a proud man, now”. Grady’s got a cold heart. No…his heart’s just old, Bottled up in bell jars That bolder hearts have broken. I was just trying to make the last call, But the hospital guards closed All the exits around the phone stalls So I can save on a caving heart of gold.
2.
Narrow Gauge 04:11
Pressure, pent up in a pants-down, Roses-posed-with-rings-around, Wonder-how-it-pans-out… Every window in the car’s been rolled down at least once, Like every beat on every street. Every train on every track from here and back goes “clack, clack”. Irish and Chinese lay all their friends in the ground, Drowned by the sound of the shovel strokes choking all their broke hopes, Talking up the gold rush, canteens cut with coal dust, Planting with their plans out. Every window in the car’s been rolled down at least once, Like every street by every beat. Every train on every track from here and back goes “clack, clack”. We’ll shop when our ship comes in. We’ll stop when our spit’s spent on something that the cat dragged in. Other fish in the sea. Please. We’ll miss when the motion begins. We’ll kiss when the bottle stops spinning what the spin reeled in. Other fish in the sea. Please. Irish and Chinese lay all their tools on the ground, Crowned by the sound of the small change chains cut off of the train gang, Race out past the gold rush, fill their packs with gold dust, Panting with their pans out.
3.
These thieves take time to disappear. Keepsakes sold, I’m hardened of hearing in one ear. Some break to mistake the Jewry for jewelry, the austere Pray for the hold sway. It’s all down hilel from here. Rainbows, “case closed”’s, canopies, Webelos, bistros, galleries, Toupees, toothpaste, the caduceus. Trust me. These wakes feed waste dreams, favorite things. You tender the waves on down with the weight of it all. Toucans and triplets: kismet in the cares of the small. We parade for the papists in town, down a carafe, and crawl: Chiefs, braves, all…chiefs, braves, all. Wish lists, Swiss Miss, chimanees, I-Corps, semaphores, academy. It’s hog-wash. It’s poppycock. It’s vanity. Trust me. These wakes feed waste dreams, favorite things.
4.
The poison’s meant to maze The circuitous caves In fraters porches poured. Que sera soror! This is the part where the ants explode At last, as fast below the looking glass, The mass exposed expands and glows, A rose bereaved and phos released: Relief! Isolation: The oafs offend the Moors. They’re boorish brats of sorts. Isolation: The memes upend the mores. Hooray! Their camp’s a corpse. Isolation: C-c-c-c-coax your own accord. We’ve lovely hardwood floors for freshly fractured forts Heads up! Woopeetaw! Quick on the draw. Unique New York bespeaks a portly alveolar arc. Heads up! Woopeetaw! Siss poom pah! Are our oars oak in this toy boat? Toy boat. Toy boat. Toy boat. Toy boat. Heads up! Woopeetaw! Don’t you understand? The city never sleeps. And I’ve got you for keeps. A ghost garrotes the hand And boasts among the most fecund “You’ve just begun to pant”. Isolation…
5.
Senators, coax these goat meat Magistrates past the gates. Terms and disbursements and servants await. Please don’t say “No”. Let them say “If you’d found me wrapping in cellophane Lips and limbs loosely intruding on trade croupiers, I’d not feel so led astray.” Précis, policy, penalties posed. Coding the calls they keep telling me: “The one armed man complains and feigns a faux doe-see-doe.” Macy’s…Maybe we’ve a registry. Pulsing, appalled, they keep telling me: “The one armed man complains and feigns a faux doe-see-doe.” Seven years hence, here, heads bent Bursting and biliously baiting, Effete and a facsimile. Please don’t take “No”. Let us pray: “Is not our poor Sun spitting rays upon Mainlands and colonies and setting on our halcyon days?” These Brits don’t change. They never change! Paste won’t make grace slow. Man alive!! I’m terrified!! This science has a pace to prove!! Send me a postcard, a quickening thought, for tying a wasp in a knot And I’ll lasso a l’oiseau for you. For shame that mortal hand sets ayes to build and brace the post-haste Symme-try as I might my elect is all “cheval/chevaux”. And golden it seems, these cold calluses grow!
6.
7.
The way to stop’s a moment wrought well away from you. The topless tank or tease must seem, now, a bit confused. It’s only a subterfuge, a ruse, an old Shinto lavolt, A catapult’s occult opt-alt gestalt assault. The kickback throws me back ten rows. Okay, okay, okay. I get it now. The curtain of sand’s a curse. A space remains: my safe ascetic cowl. I keep a curve in my hands, a curve. I’ve run the whole conversation to a single red rut: “I cut a straight line, sucka, if you want to act up.” But what’s a vampire sucking on a St. Bernard’s muff, When I’ve chewed through a Swiss chard guard and now I’m just getting drunk? I think it’s all in my head: The stage and steed hypotheses Keep leading instead, To violent streaks of chivalry. This burgeoning rep, “Your face. My feet. They meet. We’re stompin’,” Is breaking to set and forget it In spurts at best, but not that often. “It’s Cambridge, dear. Don’t waste your ear.” Okay, okay, okay. I get it now. The curtain of sand’s a curse. A space remains: my safe ascetic cowl. I keep a curve in my hands, a curve. It’s only something I want, only something I… Only something I want, only something I don’t need. Only something I want, only something I… Only something I want, only something that’s owed me. And when reminding myself “Don’t fret and fuss, you make too much,” Is it so bad for my health To kvetch and cuss and raise a ruckus? My veteran excuse begins “If the glove doesn’t fit, you acquit!” In this system A celebrant Scrooge is Concluding “I’ll pitch my tents and ply the pulpits.” It’s only something I want, only something I… Only something I want, only something I don’t need. Only something I want, only something I… Only something I want, only something that’s owed me.
8.
I float. This mystery moat Is pitting my pince-nez against petticoats And smelling salts. But I’ll fold. These ropes won’t hold. I’m spitting my pits in profiteroles And getting old. Cold. I’m out cold, pacing the poles. I’m out cold. Nosy plainclothes dolt. Slowing down. Letting go. Heavy rowboats coast and break speed. Better winds suit sails such as these: Shining red epithets Blessed against the wilderness, Soaked through the slip to the sleeves; Pink pantyhose rosaries rolled By pressed panoply wrists to ankles; The handsome and heavy set In bosom, breast, and intellect, Fetched hence for less than the bulls. Sweet c’est la vie esprit de corps. French etiquette best to rest sure Of which enemy mists amaze more: The porches engorged Or plain white posts setting down spokes? Pay rolls, Down cliffs I’m told. So I’m setting my spoils on marigolds And betting bold. Cold. I’m out cold, pacing the polls. I’m out cold. Nosy plainclothes, pacing shadows, May be pasting pinholes, hastily, simple, clumsy. Nosy plainclothes, wasting windows, May be shaving shingles short of temples. Clumsy. Clumsy.
9.
The argument was always sound: To turn beneath your flimsy crown, The contents of your skull around And leave your sovereign on the mountain. It’s freezing at the pert peaks upon us And flooding where the water’s there beneath. A boat to free and breathe a bed of fauna And flora spread around the feet of fauns And feigning all’s a faint of weighty charge: That’s a charming way to starve. When the sea gates rose, how late had you found That the Pleistocene marine was letting you down? When the ice gates closed, how deep was the ground Where the all-terrain moraines were letting you down? Do the feet hate ice skates breaking them in? Would the limbs brave sea scapes with floaties and fins? Will the wind and rain begin to change you now? How I’m loathe to find you out. But I’m calling back to state my case aloud, All crashing light and sound: I’ve kept a cache of clothes for scenting these hounds To find and flush you out, In case there’s any doubt. Don’t go clearing your throat I swear there’s qeulquechose. Oh quelquechose! Don’t go. This aspen grove, Though pale and thin and broke, Prevails in prose: If the skies are clear and old and too cold to snow There’s a way to face the show And a face in case you don’t.

about

Marconi was born during frontman Luke Kirkland‘s first viewing of Blue Velvet.

In the film, characters played by Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper employ Roy Orbison’s masterpiece “In Dreams” as a soundtrack to harrowing performances of their sadistic urges. Referring to the song simply by its first words, Stockwell and Hopper transform the sweetness of “Candy Colored Clowns” into a twisted film memento. Kirkland explains: “It wasn’t until I was much older that I was able to recognize the difference between the meaning of that violence and the occasion for it.” Nevertheless, the recontextualization of that classic pop epic threw the subtleties of Orbison’s composition into overdrive: the majesty of the song’s many secreted sentiments radically informed Kirkland’s approach to songwriting.

Cultivating this influence in the years following, Kirkland would pen a series of solo rock compositions while drumming in Boston post-punk/math-pop act Night Rally. In the Spring of 2005, he dubbed the project Marconi, after the street that provides the main access to the one family home that had remained consistently so throughout his life: his Grandmother’s house in New Orleans. When only a few months later Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, the name proved fortuitous. As terrifying images and stories filled the news in the storm’s wake, a family member forwarded to Kirkland a satellite image of the southern shore of Lake Ponchartrain: the water had flooded surrounding neighborhoods, rolled down Marconi Drive, and stopped at the corner of his Grandmother’s block, leaving her house undamaged.

Kirkland began recording and arranging around acoustic demos in late 2005 and into 2006. In August, Night Rally disbanded and Kirkland returned to Santa Fe to complete the final year of his undergraduate degree. There he reunited with former schoolmate Robert Peckham. They quickly struck up a musical camaraderie. For about a year, the two worked together casually, sharing projects and discussing ideas as Kirkland finished recording the first Marconi songs. When Kirkland decided it was time to return to Massachusetts, Peckham offered his support to a full-band outing. By October the two had relocated and rounded out the lineup with friends from the local music scene drawn from a veritable who’s who of Boston royalty: Piles, The Bon Savants, Mystery Roar, These Thieves, The Campaign For Real Time, Drug Rug, and George Lewis Jr.

What the new recruits encountered was a fully-formed brain-child: nine meticulously crafted songs built on the mirroring of opposites. Familiar chord relations dive together through winding phrases punctuated by striking key changes. Sections combine and vacillate between softness and loudness, ease and tension, atmosphere and foundation. Equally fed by the influence of forebears and peers, old-guard standards like Roy Orbison, Scott Walker, and David Bowie engage old-soul contemporaries like Neko Case, Spoon, The Walkmen, and Department Of Eagles.

Similarly, the lyrical motifs–geography, communication, migration–convey an old-world narrative pregnant with new-world concerns. Individual stories are abstracted to mirror larger historical events. Recurring personal themes of isolation and relocation find themselves party to studies in territorial expansion. The building of the Trans-Continental Railroad becomes the scene for an impossible romance; the migration of early humans across the Bering Strait to North America occasions musings on risk and opportunity. In these artificial contexts, each song extends personal moments and periods into metaphors for the quest to achieve some measure of great and summary personal fulfillment.

The album is not much more than what its title suggests: some several songs in search of security, or many Minutes To Manifest Destiny. But as the success of the compositions will surely not suffice for the achievement of their lyrical concerns, Marconi have set their sights on breathing life into the music. In performance, the five-piece band renders the thick textures of the recording for a more visceral experience attuned to the dynamics of mood and the power of restraint. And while the band has cut its teeth on the debut album, Kirkland has prepared a bevy of new songs for the creative input of the new members. With the band hot on the trail of their growing catalog, the quality of material and their early success suggest a burgeoning whirlwind in the Boston music scene. The five are eager to combine forces to raise a project that has been gestating for nearly a decade. And sufficed to say, it’s about time.

In the end, the music speaks for itself. Marconi’s is a brave new world of wireless telegraphy and transcontinental vocal conveyance. It is a world where references to Batman and B.I.G. sit side by side an interpolation of the mythology of the Trojan War. It is written in a poetry that foregoes simple politics for the uncertainties of the human condition. It is told with yearning and tempered by poise.

And they’re leaving it to posterity for you and yours.

credits

released September 14, 2010

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composed, performed, recorded, and mixed by Luke Kirkland
mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music

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Marconi are Luke Kirkland, James Towlson, Robert Peckham, Jason Perry, and Jeffrey Walsh.

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Marconi Boston, Massachusetts

Majestic indie rock for antiquers and train buffs.

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