TEAR GARDEN

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Release date and tracklist

July 17, 2012
NL MP3 self-released on Bandcamp

• Center Bullet Live in Strasbourg 1​.​5​.​1988

Credits

• Edward Ka-Spel
• cEvin Key
• ?- guitars

Notes

A rough rough recording but as a document it’s priceless. Tear Garden appeared on stage twice in 1988, basically playing “Center Bullet” as an encore for EK’s solo set.This is an audience recording, given to EK some years ago on CDR by the taper (thank you!!).  If anyone has a better quality recording it would be most welcome.

THE TEAR GARDEN

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Release date and tracklist

September 3, 2020
NL MP3 self-released on LPD’s Bandcamp

1. Strange Land
2. Made In China Part 2
3. Amy’s Personality
4. Calling Time
5. Figures In The Mist
6. Castaway
7. Sinister Science
8. The Double Spades Effect
9. The Tragic Carpet (edited)
10. Lola’s Rock
11. Seven Veils
12. Have A Nice Trip

Notes

“Crystal Mass” kicked off the 21st Century for Tear Garden and was the last to feature such an extended lineup on all songs.

The biggest reason for this change was the reformation of Skinny Puppy, as well as The Pink Dots’ dependence on touring to survive. It meant recordings for “The Secret Experiment” (2007) were conducted by the mailing of cdrs from cEvin in Los Angeles to myself in The Netherlands and vice versa. Even so, there’s a pleasing sense of unity which binds the album together, making it much more than the sum of its parts.

I did manage to spend a week in LA for the follow up, “Have a Nice Trip”, and this spawned the epic “Made In China Part 2”, surely one of the finest songs in the history of the project.

Even so, I vouch that TG’s finest hour arrived in 2017, with “The Brown Acid Caveat”, where cEvin and I enjoyed rich contributions from Dre Robinson, Patrick Q. Wright, Ryan Moore, Martyn De Kleer and Ray Steeg. It’s one Hell of a ride and much of it can be heard in this third and final part of the Tear Garden Anthology. EK

Tracks 1,3,4,7,10,11 from “The Brown Acid Caveat”; tracks 2,5 & 12 from “Have A Nice Trip”; tracks 6 & 8 from “Crystal Mass”; track 9 from “The Secret Experiment “.

THE TEAR GARDEN

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Release date and tracklist

September 3, 2020
NL MP3 self-released on LPD’s Bandcamp

1. Sheila Liked The Rodeo
2. Judgement Hour
3. Ascension Day
4. In Search Of My Rose
5. The Running Man
6. Empathy With The Devil
7. White Coats & Haloes
8. Circles In The Sand
9. Isis Veiled
10. Romulus & Venus
11. A Ship Named “Despair”
12. Malice Through The Looking Glass

Notes

The 90s was a spectacular decade for Tear Garden as the lineup expanded, incorporating all of the Pink Dots.

“The Last Man To Fly” was recorded in 1991 at Mushroom Studios in Vancouver following LPD’s second U.S Tour and there was a beautiful anarchy infusing the month-long recordings. The mood was epitomised by “Isis Veiled” – a song composed in 10 heady minutes in the chill out room by Dave ‘Rave’ Ogilvie and your humble narrator, and then recorded in 2 takes with everyone playing unfamiliar instruments. Improvisations could last for an hour, often with 6 or 7 people taking part. For one part we asked a friend (Jo) to bring us some children’s toys to record – she brought us a sack of them!

Ultimately we couldn’t decide on a track order, so we opted for chronology with the first finished song beginning the adventure and the last closing it. Sadly the label hated this psychedelic extravaganza and did their best to smother it at birth – happily they failed!
Fast forward 4 years to the creation of “To Be An Angel Blind, The Cripple Soul Divide” ( not a typo, the label changed the title without letting us know) in an altogether sadder atmosphere.

The whole band was reeling following the tragic loss of Dwayne, who was a key member of Tear Garden and Skinny Puppy. A deep sense of melancholy hangs over the album, yet it’s arguably as strong as it’s wild predecessor. This collection presents a delicate balance of both outings. EK

Tracks 2,3,4 & 12 from “To Be An Angel Blind,The Cripple Soul Divide”; Tracks 5 to 11 from “The Last Man To Fly”; Track 1 from “Sheila Liked The Rodeo”.

THE TEAR GARDEN

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Release date and tracklist

September 3, 2020
NL MP3 self-released on LPD’s Bandcamp

1. Deja Vu
2. Ophelia
3. Coma
4. Splatterflick
5. Perforated Man
6. The Center Bullet
7. All The Stars Are Falling
8. You & Me & Rainbows
9. OO-EE-OO

Notes

1986. I’m on a plane high over the arctic wastes of Greenland en route to Vancouver, Canada. I’ve been invited to play a three show residency at a small club named “Channel One” and I’m nervous…..

I’d built up a mental picture of North America from a stream of ‘horror’ news reports, which had left me a little afraid to step out of a car upon arrival. In short, it felt like I was flying into a dangerous landscape of gangs, guns and glittering blades.. no place for a naive boy from Dagenham.

It was in this mindset that I wrote the lyrics to “Center Bullet”. In the years leading up to this adventure, I’d built up a long distance friendship with cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy and he asked me to write lyrics and add vocals to a long instrumental piece of theirs. Don’t ask me for an explanation of those words…they are pure train of thought, but you could say there’s a lot of blood.

CEvin manned the mixing desk for my shows, and the recording of “Center Bullet” went so well, we decided to keep a good thing going. It’s 2020, and Tear Garden just turned 34!
As for my American fears, Vancouver was a city where the cars stopped for a pedestrian to cross the street and it seemed like everyone smiled all the time.
I’m sceptical when it comes to news broadcasts in there more informed times.

This collection focusses on the 80s recordings, including a few songs from “Eye Spy with My Little Eye”, an album where many of cEvin’s instrumental pieces from that decade were finished by us both 20 years later.

Tracks 1,3,8,9 & 10 from “Tired Eyes Slowly Burning”; tracks 2 & 6 from “The Center Bullet EP”; Tracks 4,5 & 7 from “Eye Spy With My Little Eye”

THE TEAR GARDEN

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Release date and tracklist

July 7, 2017
US MP3/CD/2xLP Subconscious Records SUB 47, Metropolis Records MET1084

July 10, 2017
US MP3/CD/2xLP self-released on The Tear Garden’s Bandcamp page

1. GEORGIE P */**/ GOOD EVENING HOUSTON
2. GOOD EVENING HOUSTON PART 2
3. MESSAGE III */**
4. FORBIDDEN ZONE
5. NOTHING’S SET IN STONE
6. GREENER GRASS
7. DEMONS (THE 3AM MIX) */**
8. THE THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT */**
9. IT’S YOUR KARMA **
10. TEARS
11. EMPATHY

Credits

• cEvin Key
• Edward Ka-Spel
• Ryan Moore (*)
• The Silverman(*)
• Martijn de Kleer (*)
• Frank Verschuuren (* /**)

Recordings made in Los Angles, Vancouver , London and Nijmegen. ·
Mastered By Brad Vance at Red Mastering. Artwork by Edward Ka-Spel and cEvin Key.
Layout by Simon Paul.

Notes

From Metropolis’ Bandcamp page– The Tear Garden is a psychedelic/experimental/electronic band, formed by Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots & cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy. The duo has collaborated on 6 albums, 2 EPs, & the first volume of “Eye Spy With My Little Eye”. Like the first volume, “Eye Spy Vol. 2″ is a collection of unreleased tracks, demos & rewritten or original material made over the life of The Tear Garden.

“FORBIDDEN ZONE”, GREENER GRASS” ,”TEARS” originate from lost TG pieces dating back to 1987 which were recently finished.

“GOOD EVENING HOUSTON” is a re-interpretation of a rare bonus track which originally appeared on the Russia only compilation ,”For Those Who Walk With The Gods” (1999) Part 3 is taken from this collection and has been remastered. Other songs are remastered, having been collected from various compilations.”DEMONS” is an alternative/home-made version of a song from “Crystal Mass”.

“NOTHING’S SET IN STONE” is an alternative version of a song from “Have A Nice Trip” (2009).

From LPD’s bandcamp page– History resolved.Parts of this bumper anthology have been heard before on hard-to-find compilations. More songs were unearthed from old tapes gathering dust for 30 years, but finished in the last 12 months.And there are pieces that were never heard before. A trip, with a cover to match.

Lyrics

TEARS

BEEN TOLD THE ONLY CERTAINTIES OF LIFE ARE DEATH AND TAXES, A SWORD ABOVE OUR HEADS AND THE ACCELERATING YEARS.
PERPETUAL QUESTIONS. WHERE’S THE SENSE IN SLOWLY SWINGING AXES. WERE WE BORN TO DROWN IN ENDLESS OCEANS OF OUR TEARS.

THERE’S ALWAYS TEARS ,FORGET HOW GOOD IT GETS
TEARS….. FLOODING THE KITCHEN
TEARS I ITS RAINS , IT POURS .WE’RE WET
TEARS THATS OUR CONDITION /
TEARS TEARS TEARS

AND ITS NOTHING THAT YOU DID ,RELAX .YOU ARE NOT BEING PUNISHED.
THERES METHOD IN THE MADNESS.JUST BE GLAD THAT YOURE ALIVE.
CONSIDER THIS A TEST – THOSE WHO SUMMON UP SOME COURAGE will .SURVIVE…..

THERES ALWAYS TEARS…

THE TEAR GARDEN

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Release date and tracklist

pre-order June 23, 2017
official July 7, 2017
US CD / 2xLP / MP3 Metropolis Records MET1096 / ? / ?

1. Strange Land
2. The Stars On The Sidewalk
3. Amy’s personality
4. Calling Time
5. On With The Show
6. Sinister Science
7. Lola’s Rock
8. Kiss Don’t tell
9. A Private Parade
10. The Sound Of Space escaping
11. Seven Veils
12. Object

Credits

Notes

4-panel Digipak case.
Pledgemusic supporters were shipped orders before the release date.
And there was a pledge option for the CD that included a signed sticker by cEvin Key and Edward Ka-Spel.

It’s been nearly 50 years since the first Brown Acid Caveat was issued to a million hippies in a field at the first Woodstock Festival.  In these dark, more-knowing times The Tear garden felt it was the perfect moment to mark their 30th Anniversary with a similar warning, especially as their first album back in 1987 bore the declaration, “We Will Pour Our Jars in Reservoirs” on the cover. In fact, we were joking. Despite the madness you may perceive all around you right now, those jars were stashed on the highest shelf of a kitchen cupboard and the key was tossed into the ocean.  Our sole wish is to introduce beauty to the medieval landscape we appear to be trapped in right now.  There will be no brown paint splashed around.  Beauty survives, even underneath the ugliest, heaviest rock.  This is The tear Garden’s 8th record and is testimony to an enduring friendship that spans the aforementioned ocean.  After 8 years, The Tear Garden (the psychedelic/experimental/electronic project of Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots & cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy) return with “The Brown Acid Caveat”, the culmination of the duo’s 31 years of working together.  Psychedelic electronic melancholia, fearless experimentation & improvisation combine to take the intrepid listener on a mesmerizing voyage of the mind. Feel the Love.  Don’t touch the brown acid.

Reviews

How to characterize The Tear Garden, the more than 30 year collaboration between Skinny Puppy’s Cevin Key and The Legendary Pink Dots’ Edward Ka-Spel? The threads that make up their discography aren’t hard to identify; there’s a baleful wit couched in heartbreak and a melancholic psychedelia that are easy to spot on every LP, EP and non-album track with few exceptions. But just being able to identify those repeated moods and ideas doesn’t get us any closer to understanding the essence of what these two friends have together, or how their divergent musical paths keep leading them back together to make such lovely music.

The Brown Acid Caveat is the first LP of new material since 2009′s Have a Nice Trip and in contrast to that record’s jammy experimentalism (a thing both Edward and Cevin excel at unsurprisingly), the songs here feel more purposeful and concise. Even when the songs stretch out past the seven minute mark, their deliberate construction hearkens back to the latter era-Nettwerk Tear Garden albums, when many of LPD’s members were involved in the project. Probably not coincidentally, some former Dots – guitarist Martijn De Kleer and dub maestro Ryan Moore – are present here, although it’s unclear to what extent they pitched in or influenced the proceedings. That said, opener “Strange Land” hearkens back to 2000′s underrated Crystal Mass, playing out as a sad travelogue through places real and imaginary, all carried by delicately strummed guitars and Ka-Spel in the wounded sage persona he’s been growing into since his very earliest recordings.

Indeed, while the group has always thrived on a mix of straight songwriting and trippy outer space journeys, Ka-Spel and Key are working hard to reconcile those ideas here. Functionally that means you get more than a few songs, like “On With the Show” and “Kiss Don’t Tell”, that start fully formed before slowly unravelling into ambient tapestries of modular synthesizer, samples and reverb. And while every song feels as though it could go in that direction, The Tear Garden do show some restraint, allowing the lovely repeating synth figure of “A Private Parade” to play itself out fully before swapping in a solo that lands somewhere between a violin and a theremin. Especially pleasant is the excellent “Calling Time” (which features one of Ka-Spel’s best bits of contemporary wordplay “I’ll serve until it’s time/I’ll serve until this bar runs dry”) which marries a propulsive bassline with off-kilter mechanical percussion and a bubbling lead, all delivered in a relatively trim 4:29.

Still, while this is unmistakably a Tear Garden record, from the dubby half-spoken “Sinister Science” to the cathartic exotica of the string-infused “Seven Veils”, we’re no closer to insight beyond simply identifying familiar components. And maybe that’s where some of the magic comes from really. It occurs while listening Ka-Spel crack a little while he partakes in cute rhyming games on plinky-plunky closer “Object” that the Tear Garden is almost an in-joke, an insular and obscure province charted by two long-time friends who found a creative unity many years ago and have never let it go. It’s their trip, but we still have the privilege of being guests, and that can’t help but still feel somewhat special.

Source: idieyoudie.com

Lyrics

1- STRANGE LAND

Tried the swirling mists of Avalon
The suburbs of Pompeii
Trod the Himalayan foothills
Stopped in Denver for a day
I sampled sweet Siberia ,
flew whales ’round Tampa Bay.
I Pitched my tent next to the Palace in
the Republic of No Way

And I’ve been One with the people
I walked on water and on clouds.
– not trying to impress you but
I just cannot cope with crowds…
I was touched by your concern…and I’d be thrilled to show you how..
Just be assured I’ve liked it here, I recommend the view…
If I had to do it all again…Id wear my better shoes
My friends are so accommodating .Even you

Know This World is full of Wonders
Under each and every stone
The Song of Sam
The Crack of Thunder
The alarm bell on your phone.
And I have dipped my feet in waters that would
chill your fragile bones..
But even though I’ve liked it here, …I Sense I’m out of place
So for my next trick I will show you to make some space..
I’ll slip inside this now,and count o 1338… Im away………(My way…..)

6- SINISTER SCIENCE

Has to be room temperature
We need to wear our masks.
No more than 15 droplets or there will be a blast.
Ripping through the complex.
Flying fingers, flying glass.
At last the virus will escape the test-tube…
But I promise you …you’ll feel nothing.

8- KISS DON’T TELL
The 3.30 shadow slips under the sofa,
The fat lady sings and the room comes alive..
And Sally is petrified, wants it all over but that’s how things are on an average night..
And a scream is sucked in and imploding inside her.
She’s shouting for help at the top of the stairs,
No sound will come out as they creep up behind her,
The music’s too loud down there

11- SEVEN VEILS
She wished mankind could just be kinder
She’d take the bus , not look behind her.
She’d wear the clothes that made her tall.
Not hunched up in the shopping mall.
A prim white mask to block the fumes.
A mace for offers she’d refuse.
A pillow stuffed inside her blouse to reap respect
outside the house.
Though inside things were even worse with talk so tight she nearly burst.
Her lurid tales of lust and sleaze lost over lunch.
He’d not say “Please”.
Just took her when he felt the need,when he’d grown tired of that screen
Mechanical, on even days.He finished then he turned away.
She wished her man could just be kinder
and wished that she could simply
find the place where she belonged…

Don’t let them get to Seven , Batgirl
Set the dial to Four
They’ll all pretend they know you Batgirl but
will toss away the core.
You’re bigger, braver than you seem
And everyone wants more.
Don’t let them take it all now Batgirl…
Cherish what is yours.

12- OBJECT
Object . I’m an object you can squeeze with 2 strong hands.  Object.  Im an object you can trade in for a can of ice cold cola,hand me over to a geriatric groper….
Second prize in games of poker.
I’m yours to prod, to fondle, choke.Uhhhh….
Your Object .
Object. Im an object in your private Hall of Fame…
An object … how you treat me…….(?)
You should hang your head in shame.
Yet all the pain and all the blame’s on me.
No rights ,no personality.  I’m here to creep.
I’m here to crawl.
Why don’t you hang me in your wall?
Your object.