DEZHTIHAVAZHKOSTZHINARA

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from Bandcamp:
1998.A stone’s-throw to the end of the Century. Everything somehow felt so URGENT.
What if the computers stopped when the clock struck 12 on the fateful night?
Would we playi “spot the lemming” pointing at high towers? Would Arnold Schwarzenegger save us by punching Satan?
It was hard not to ignore the calendar and The Dots created this album in a very swift month before dashing off to America to promote it.Sometimes the energy is enthralling, sometimes it sounds like a little more time was needed. But this was a RACE against time.
So much to say…so little time to say it…

Reviews

Overall impression: excellent! LPD are back with a wonderful new album, just one short year since “Hallway of the Gods”. I was a bit afraid that the level of psychedelic splendor and beauty achieved by the previous album would be difficult for the Dots to match or surpass, but “Nemesis..” has indeed surpassed “Hallway..”, and is yet another great album to add to the huge 14 year backcatalog of great albums. This album is a nice assortment of the various LPD styles which, generalizing, could be split up into two categories:  drum propelled “rock” songs such as “As Long as it’s Purple and Green”, “Is it Something I Said?”, “Zoo” and “Abracadabra” and quieter, more subdued and achingily beautiful melodic songs such as “Ghost”, “A Sunset for a Swan”, “Fate’s Faithful Punchline”, “Cheating the Shadow” and the lullabye “Slaapliedje”. Everyone and everything sounds perfect … Edward’s poetic tales and vocal delivery, Niels horn melodies and Edwin’s guitar (which really shine on “Fate’s Faithful Punchline”, my favorite track), the Silverman’s loops and melodies, Ryan’s loops, bass and funky drumming … everyone plays their part perfectly. The result is sublime bliss:  jazzy, psychedelic, folky, experimental at times … the balance between playful, sad and manic moods is just right and there are no bad tracks (although “Is it Something I Said” does get a bit too noisy and hectic). The artwork by Elke Peucker and Robert Osten is equally beautiful. One of my favorites of 1998. Mp3 snippets of all of the tracks are available at Brainwashed. Sing while you may … -Brainwashed.com

Lyrics

Dissonance

Driving the pack, from the rear, with a trumpet, with an axe. Driving to the precipice, windswept and wet with starving neglect. Eternally carving my cause on a landscape that’s blighted and scorched. I’m blighted and scorched with the truth, we don’t listen, we shoot, from the blindside. It’s a landslide, but in hindsight, I thought it was easier. But it’s all much too late to turn back, I must face an eternally fateless way in a place where my orders echo my torturous ghosts. In a space with no windows, I’m counting the touch. All this time to reflect on my crimes to humanity. I’m screaming profanities, just give me a chance to start over again. I confess, yes, I’ll do it again.

Jasz (instrumental)

As Long as it’s Purple and Green

There’s a riot in the cell block… bugs are sliding down the phone. Mutating sores and spores and shellshock-virus Martha hunts alone. We’re wearing spacesuits on the subway. We take our pleasures from a screen. Care you for something intravenous? Go ahead! I’ll plug you in … Christ I need a cigarette but there’s no door etched on this glass. You see, these standard regulation suits are cheap – they have no class. I’d like to ride a horse through Utah blowing smoke rings five miles wide, but they cordoned off the airport and I cannot get a ride. “Get a life!” you say. I’m trying. I’m insured up to my neck, and if the whole world just capsizes, just be sure I’ll collect. And if I want to visit Venus all I have to do is click. You see, this mad chaotic universe is at my fingertips. And one day I will bring you discipline. I’ll save you with this disc. Like me it is incorruptible. Like me, it takes no risks.

Ghost

Blood on the door, blood on the stairs, blood on the floor, blood in my hair, turn around and white light guides me twist and fall and kneel beside me nothing is sure, visions impair, I’m sick to the core, and walking on air Nothing is real, no one to hold, nothing to feel except for the cold.

Under Your Wheels 

Your white eyes, they never judge me, they just fix upon a place that’s far away, deep inside you, and I wonder will I ever have the chance to walk there too? But you’re tongue-tied, you always have been. Our conversations, they have been far too few. No going back now, at least we have the time now to explore what’s happening deep down inside you, what’s going on here inside me too. We’re not dock-tied, we’re individuals, and angel, all I asked was “set me free”. But not this free.

A Sunset for a Swan 

Johnny with the roving eyes sits bored upon the riverside, as Juliet, his future bride, jumps naked in the water. Figure eights and scuba dives, deep down she’s blowing suicide. She squeaks and metamorphosizes movie stars and slaughters. Johnny’s staying serious, his face is kind of frozen, one eye is completely closed, and one eye is wide open. It swivels from a sunset to a swan. It weeps for every goddamn thing that’s wrong. When Johnny’s holding Juliet, it’s like I hold my cigarette. I squeeze it, choosing to forget the warning on the carton. I flick it from the window ledge and stuff it on the waterbed. The black smoke rises overhead, then settles over London. I am staying serious, my face is kind of frozen. One eye is completely closed, and one eye’s staying open. It swivels from a sunset to a swan. It weeps for every goddamn thing that’s wrong. When Johnny’s holding Juliet, it’s like he holds his cigarette. He hangs her from the window ledge, and blows her over London. She’d pick a star and pirouette, she’ll turn a cartwheel on my head. I grit my teeth, put up with it, because it’s all for fun.

Is it Something I Said?

The phone rings… 3 A.M. I’m pretending I’m asleep – could hear you creeping .. And laughing as you dropped my name like bleeding snakes, like poison, like the hell-fire that you paint in vivid colours. Well I guess that he’s a saint while I’m the one that’s in the way. The one that keeps you tangled up in chains. So very much I have to say.. I can’t make it. Well, it was only yesterday when you told me that you loved me. Will you write it? I need to see it – black and white. I’ll read it. I will read it once again and maybe one day I’ll believe it. But will you tell me where you’ve been – everything in detail, every second, every moment. Every thought. I need to know. It’s just because I love you. Well, isn’t that enough?

Zoo

No pets allowed! No pets allowed! That’s what the placard said so they left us out her floating upside down, our ankles bound. Protective coating, cos we’re very cute – but sinters here don’t hesitate. They shoot! (It’s raining crocodiles). And I really want to sleep with you but cannot stand them watching. They encourage us outside the glass – throw barbie dolls and stockings. Oh, but I’ll retain my dignity and gaze up at the moon until my buddies come and rescue me. We will rise! We will find a place that’s just for us.

Fate’s Faithful Punchline

Lined up between the arrows at your heart – is this a charmed life that I lead? Now could it be that some place. Some time, you will stop believing and things that once were charming will feel like sand against your eyes? When I walk into your space, you’ll see a thief by night. To send away or lock away or run away from… Will there come a day? Will we have the courage just to walk away while something still remains? Will we keep it pure? Now let this death be noble. Let this death be grand. Don’t keep it on a lead… When I think of you I want to see you on a summer day. My treasure. My lover. Together. Alone.

Cheating the Shadow

Jello man cuts comers, creeps unseen between the sheets. When you’re asleep, he creeps inside you. He’s sinking in his teeth. He’s breaking legs! He’s laying eggs… you should see him play the organ. He whistles “Dixie” no your pipes, and you (?) – you simply die of fright. He slithers clean away and not one single soul survives. Now I’m starving in my shrinkwrap. I’m lying in the road. I know he won’t get me, because I will live forever!

Abracadabra
(No Lyrics available)

Slaapliedje

Can’t stand this cage cos there’s no place to fly to. My future’s been cancelled, my past’s just a lie. You say, “Do it alone”, and I’m trying like hell to rise up from the ashes, be somebody else. I shout my rage from the rooftops, burn down this shell, but you smile from the gallery, ringing a bell. And I jump, and I’ve jumped but the bars are still there. I know deep inside me you don’t really care. You say, “Sleep baby. Sleep. It’s all just a dream.”