Outside, the Great Drought

by Hyena

Outside, the Great Drought cover art
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about

"Outside, the Great Drought"

is Hyena's first full length LP. The album, over two and a half years in the making, was recorded by Laughable Recordings in Maine, New York, Paris, Ghent, and some other places. It will see a vinyl, CD, and digital release in fall 2010 by Smeraldina-Rima.

thanks,
Laughable Recordings
Kennebunk, ME

Smeraldina-Rima
Ghent, BE

credits

released 11 February 2011
for this record, Hyena is:
Colby Nathan – voice, nylon guitar, many other things
Dylan Kumnick – drums, percussion

with lots of help from:
Spencer Murphy – upright bass (2, 7, 8), electric bass (1)
Zak Botsko – electric bass (3, 4), pedals and effects
David Bartner – electric bass details (1)
Nick Noto – electric guitar (1, 3, 7, 8)
Luke Einsiedler – electric guitar (1), cassette noise (1)
Lizzy Cook – cello (1, 7, 8)
Lauren Hastings – violin (2, 4, 8)
Spencer Rudolf – violin (7)
Floor Penne – violin (6), violin details (7)
Tom Hopkins – violin details (7)
Gabriel Jasmin – trumpet (1, 3, 4, 5, 8)
Owen Murphy – trumpet (1, 3, 4, 5, 8)
Gregory Dunn – trombone (2)
Isaac Nault – trombone (6)
Ian Schmidt – tuba (6)
Archie Carey – bassoon (2, 3, 5), bassoon noise (3), flute (2)
Timothy Cushing – vocals (4)
Dante Deleo – vocals (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8)
Lena Deleo – vocals (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8)
Nealy Bowden – vocals (3, 6)
Eve Axness – vocals (7)
Greg Hartunian – vocals (7), Tascam
Mac Sargent – vocals (8)
Christian Schwebler – vocals (4)
Carolyn Murphy – vocals (4, 5, 8)
Allie Yeatts, Colleen Pardue, Nealy Bowden – female group vocals (1, 4, 5, 8)


Tracked by:
Zak Botsko – electric bass (3, 4), trombone (2), bassoon/flute
Greg Hartunian – violin (7), upright bass (2, 7, 8)
Brian Crimmins – drums
Owen Murphy – trumpets
Joshua Kirby – nylon
Nick Noto – electric bass (1)
Colby Nathan – everything else

Mixed by:
Zak Botsko and Colby Nathan
with help from Greg Hartunian

Produced by:
Colby Nathan

All song written by:
Colby Nathan, yet
all arrangements established by various processes of give and take.

Mastered by:
Steve Berson
Total Sonic Media
Brooklyn, NY

Artwork by:
Monsieur Pimpant

tags

tags: experimental hyena laughable recordings smeraldina-rima experimental folk folk krautcider no wave punk

license

all rights reserved

feeds

feeds for this album, this artist

about

Laughable Recordings was started in Kennebunk, Maine.
It no longer lives within boundaries
so limited
as any one town.

so much more to come, but for now -
and proudly:

discography

contact / help

For help with downloads, click here.

For all other inquiries, including help with merch, click here.

shipping and returns

Track Name: Salutations
Come all to see me
in all your common clothes.
The closest of you are strangers
bitten by a fine-toothed comb.

Oh, hold your feet from tapping.
Hold your hands from clapping.
Applause with glossy eyes.
It’s fine, say, It’s Fine, Say, IT’S FINE!

Oh my –
you see,

So many ice cubes I’ve eaten;
I only feel defeated.
Our fears are so deep seeded -
they bear our tainted beaming

smiles – gleaming!

My stomach’s simply screaming,
“Oh fine, I’m full! and spoiled! and fat!”
but my hand’s are simply freezing,
could you warm them with your smiled cries

mild tried attempts at –

la, la-da-da, la-da-da, la-da-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA!

So long my dears!
So long my dears!
So long my fears!
I give them to you my dears!!!
Track Name: Portraits
I’m working on a self-portrait,
but my limbs are being torn apart, yeah my heart is being pulled at every angle.
You can reach me at any time of the day…

So, I’m loosing focus,
of what is best – for me.
What’s best for everybody else,
and what is left – for me
to define my self

portrait!

I’m searching for an answer.
I’m searching desperately for all the answers.
And I’m doing my best, I’m doing my best, I’m doing the best that I can
so we can all come out of this is one whole piece!
Oh please!

But what can I say?
If I ever have kids, the television’s gonna teach them to count with casualties
and that’s no way to learn –
how to count on the ones who
promised never to hurt, but is seems like they’re all out to hurt you,
like they packed up their things to desert you,
and I’m sorry but I’m just trying to figure out what I can do to save my own
sanity!
and finish the final touches to a portrait that clearly has no sense of clarity –
Darling, I’mmmm –

Sorry!!!

But what can I say?
What can I say?
NOTHIN’.

…at all. at all. at all.
Track Name: Fiction
He sat in the parlor with a plastic battery powered cat
he had purchased of an infomercial in the middle of the night!
He laughed when it sang! and his rosy drunk cheeks ordered the drink I drank down
sank down into an empty stomach.
Santa Clause outside blew smoke in the face of a small-child-girl
who would cry through the night as the impostor slept in an alleyway…
Back at the café the old man bought a flower from a charming street vender:
a purchase! an investment! a flower! a flower!

Mother!!! Fiction has taken my life!
Mother, why do you bother (with me)?
Fiction has taken my…life….

In a park a kilometre away from all of this, two teenagers kissed for the very first time in a gazebo and talked about how lovely the weather was!
Even though winter was coming and their teacher said it looked, it looked like London, but London was still a train and a tunnel away…
In a train! a man’s passport was stolen…
Over train tracks his identity was stolen!
He never thought much of it anyways,
with a new beginning he starting a popular clothing vending company that
employed
children
in lands far away
for an underpaid wage!

Oh! you know, Fiction has taken my, my, my…
Mother! why do you bother with me? cause fiction has taken my…life…
But I just cannot understand!

why –

fiction and fantasy are what they are,
photographed moons leave out the stars,
the couple in the park give up kisses for cars,
protestors’ brothers empty credit cards,
the park is covered with beer cans and trash,
in ten years I’ll be tapping cigarette ash,
mothers and fathers weep in empty beds,
people in costumes forget what they’ve said,
old men fall asleep on the stools of cafes,
withering flowers in their hands lay,
young men end up on late busses home,
regretting comments made to the old,
pet cats die with batteries,
writers romance tragedies.
Track Name: I Eat Your Words
I eat all your words and make everyone dumb,
the air feels heavy let’s call it a cultural sublimation.

I dreamed you alive into this world,
but we polished and we polished and we washed it all away.

Like how I live in fear of filing all of my thoughts away –
I haven’t done a single day’s work, but I’m feeling oh-so-lazy.

I dreamed you alive into this world,
but we polished and we polished and we never even left a single stain.

My heroes are bloated and their egos are, as well (oh well)
but my spirit here is the thinnest of all –
diamond studded and dull.

I dreamed you alive into this world...

but we polished and we polished
and we left you nice and garnished
with lace and flowered harness
you were left until you tarnished
trapped within our treasured chests,
yes, we promised you the best,
but time would surely be the test,
and careless in our unrest, we
came to rely on you to keep us cheering,
hearing words that kept us
steering for the goal – the grand revealing, but our
eyes turned large and green
and monstrous, or so it seems,
and we kept you out of beams of light
that should have made you sheen,
and suddenly
you were old – and better yet – you were told,
“you look stunning with your parasol,”
but to keep out of the light
and they were right! yes, you were tired,
no longer easily admired,
you had simply long expired,
no longer had what was required,
and when we saw you later pass,
we never gave a second glance
we kept at a safe distant stance,
and sickened you with nonchalance!

But we will pay in time you see -
Outside, the drought is thickening!
The weight of our own piety
will shatter our poor fragile knees.
Track Name: The Long Way Home
Oh, the thread in the grass
start pulling -
trees pop off,
and float away...
ah, the oceans drain, drain, drain.

Oh, the dirt
oh, the soot
on the workers'
hands washed off
and washed away...
oh, the back pain from a long day.

And oh, there's got to be a fire
when I get home -
there's got to be thorned rose hands...
la la - something - la la

Oh! the sun's so yellow!

Oh! the sun's so yellow!
It's shaking in it's sky -
moon comes up and says,
"hey, you know, ya might need some
shut
eye."

And the rain, the rain, the rain, the rain...
the long way home -
it's the only way home...

oh, there ought to be a fire
when I get home!
There ought to be lit lamps
there's got to be a way to see you...
and oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

and oh! I lost my gold...
I lost my golden grin...
ah, where to begin?
where to begin?
EVERYWHERE!
EVERYWHERE!
...fading
...fading
...fading
Track Name: Pomegranate and the Dreamy Boys
I used to work in
the belly of a pomegranate
on the days when God took his naps,
and the chill of the air kissed our lungs
gently – gentle and brisk, and so familiar.

I used to survey the parking lot from
the multi-windowed spot above
the home that held my mother’s pride
and love. And the women with the cancerous skin –
splotchy, loose, and desperate – came in.
I, I, I, I wrung their wallets dry just to
help keep them alive – to give them purpose.

All the ants, they’d come to see me:
a spectacle on Sundays,
a feast just for the taking and the leaves oh so forsaken
and the trains eating the quarters, quarterly magazines have written,
“oh, these days have stopped their growing!”
News that I guess is worth knowing. And the
seeds that I’ve been stowing, oh, the pomegranate
birthed from me, burst from me, like syrup from the maple trees
keeping everyone so very, very, very, very close
to my
heart.

I don’t usually say things like this you see, but I’ve been very,
sigh,
quite
tired lately –
the words just ramble out of me and seemingly
they’re shades of orange and red and
golden yellow brown and quite
lonely sounding.
An anvil of thought strikes bells in my neck –
oh! bellowed cries ring right out of me, despite of me,
and they say – they say – they say – they say,
“dreamy, dreamy, dreamy!
dreamy, dreamy, dreamy,
dreamy b-b-boys! Dreamy boys! Dreamy boys! b-b-boys!
Come swallow me up and steal me away jubilantly
from all my timidly held trepidations – oh!
they make me very tired.”
and on with autumn fires.

(repeat from “I don’t usually…b-b-boys!”).
Come swallow me up and steal me away jubilantly
from all my memories -
they make me weary every now and then.
Track Name: Balloons
I walk the white haze
eyes like vending machines
devouring quarters
doubling, distorted, from here I can see all the
heat, all the debonair hysteria
cool off, walk slow
CRACKED legs, CRACKED teeth
death sweat, dry lipped
desperation…

Clear back, clipped on
slid off, curled up, waist clench, broad chest
lungs press – neck a string
head balloon
I’m all balloons these days!
I’m all balloons these days, I’m all balloons these days!
I’m pressure and salt, I’m all burst open
waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting,
waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting –
I’m all delirious when nobody
notices I’m colors and lights!
I’m all balloons these days – I’m all pop! pop! pop!
I’m all pop! pop! pop! (etc. etc.)

Let me take you in my stomach:
a beauty picnic basket, oh! I love to hear you laughing.
I am nothing but hot air, oh-oh-oh! to lift you up
and swallow the sky, oh my, we must clear our minds!
Cluttered with helium
I’m healing ya’
with all that I have.

But we’re all balloons these days…
We’re all balloons these days…
We’re all balloons these days – oh-oh-oh, oh-oh
Put the meaning back in the words
or give it away to
La la LA la la La LA LA la La!!!

la, la, la – we’re pop, pop, pop
la, la, la – we’re pop, pop, pop
la, la, la – we’re pop, pop, pop…
Track Name: Stilts
Well, oh my,
the flowers have died -
they were thirsty,
but in your eagerness to please
you flooded them.
How every street light,
in their vague manner,
tried to mock the sun
and dry them out...

but they're all burning out,
and no success...

So, you pick 'em,
dry 'em,
for your dress -
oh, the selfish, selfishness!
It's just a half-hearted guess
but
you
must
have been birthed -
birthed from a raincloud...
from a raincloud...

Oh, the oils will rise from the ground
and we'll slip while we're running home -
bringing the bouquets to our mothers.

AND OH! here comes the Great Drought,
and everybody on their stilts...
ah, get over it.
why don't you get over it.
get over it.
ah, why don't I just get over with it already alright.