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This Is My Name Now

by Noel'le Longhaul

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nomazlab
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nomazlab Clever, powerful, raw, deeply moving, and beautifully queer music and words.
James Clayton
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James Clayton One of my favourite albums ever. I feel so lucky to have come across this. Favorite track: Little Wanderer.
Ryan Wyrick
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Ryan Wyrick incredible. everything noel'le creates is beautiful and seemingly so earnest. her music fills me with overwhelming sentiment. thank you for sharing your world with us and making mine a little more remarkable. Favorite track: Chame(leon).
teags
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teags Noel'le's music is wonderful. It's got a really diverse sound and just when you think you have the melody pinned down they switch something up and take you by surprise. I'm such a fan. Favorite track: Easter Bird.
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1.
You are a stranger to me as I am trying to leave. I look back for one last reprieve.
2.
What We Lost 04:57
well in my life, there is a darkness as cold as winter and bright as now. I've prayed for rain and I've seen the floods turned from the river and walked through the mud and oh how we've grown and not changed at all another summer one last fall and these are truly the last days through all this changing, we stay the same oh New England, how I love you. Maybe more than you deserve. But as my bones brace against your cold, I know you are my home. Carry me through the cracks in between waking up and dreaming and the confusion that comes with sleeping. I remember once we ran away dug a hole in which to hibernate in the warmth of the roots and ground we threw what we lost and knew what we found.
3.
Easter Bird 04:06
where are you now, oh little Easter Bird. Maybe you're curled up on a bed, writing a letter, with your whole future stretched ahead of you. A whole life around the bend. But when a chapter's over the book doesn't end. In the waning pages that've been yellowed by the ages, I would ask that you would read or write the tale of the two friends. I wish that we had met at this time in our lives instead of when I was just a kid but forty candles in a place beautified by vandals i saw our lives flickering. I'll be fine. I'll find what's mine. Our path is no longer a beginning. I've chased your bus. I've felt your touch. I have loved you too much and not enough. Maybe you will leave with a uke and a backpack on a trip from which you won't come back. I will leave with the leaves with my feet pointed East, my roots are strong, but they sure as hell aren't deep. And maybe we will meet in the streets or in our dreams when we're far too drunk to fuck. When you wander off into the world with a name that's finally yours, I wish you friendship, love, and the best of luck.
4.
5.
Little Wanderer (free) 03:52
You left with bare a whisper. I stayed behind without a whimper. But you gotta know when to walk away, maybe suddenly or it could take a couple days. I just hope that you make it home safe. A promise it blackened when the dusk came. the air it escaped from me as the light changed. and a smile crept and it took over the train and dust was in our nose and rust colored our clothes and our lives are not lies but we're not the only light so we grasp at what is real while crying "stay here." all that i remember is your pack didn't fit and your back kept giving you trouble. so cut the cardboard, your back it was bent double. we painted the cardboard, our backs they were bent double. you changed your name to little wanderer. you hoped it would prove to be something they'd remember. but all that i remember is your pack didn't fit and your back it kept giving you trouble.
6.
Spoon River 04:44
Just because you no more could love me nor pray for me nor write me letters the eternal silence of you spoke instead. my boy, my boy, my boy... wherever you are, work for your soul's sake that all the clay of you might yield to the fire of you. til the fire is nothing more than light.
7.
If On a Winter's Night (free) 01:36
Lyrics improvised and at times indistinguishable. we fell... you know that I know... we're not just this... and we live without fear of wind or vertigo...
8.
Hush 04:08
sometimes i have moments when I want to cut off all my hair go and wipe my skin clean, erase my tattoos, and just be bare. my jewelry's a distraction at times to who i really am and my body's all that's forcing me to think i am a man. but there is a secret world buried beneath this one. there is music under the concrete, and secrets to be sung. my clothing is a billboard and my words are just a mask. our lives are quiet as a whisper--we think we have to be loud to understand that. and I'll wear my heart as a patch upon my sleeve, but even punk rock metaphors fall short of what I mean. I know that I'm not an artist, but I think that art gets at the truth of what it means of being buried by the weight of what it takes to be me and you don't depend on music or the pen while i try not to be a burden on my friends but it's like Adam said: I don't want to be alone when this world ends.
9.
We Got Lost 03:00
aaah.... wait whisper winter but i'll be left, little lover. I would be lying if i said I wouldn't want any other in the wild woods we met, you said well ain't that oregon wanted her to know this city won't be called home again ain't no words to be tellin a friend put them in a box with a bit of paper and a pen might never know what it means to me but then there are some things that I will never understand, and that's fine. she clutched at her coat because he was selling shivers so naked we returned to those smoldering ruins. we felt the size of the dark and knew the hush of the stars knew the world isn't ours in a summer night we got lost in a summer night we got lost there's an old bridge that bears the weight of our bodies. the clumsiest things we've ever been allotted. But they are burning now, in a summer night they're burning now.
10.
My Hollows 04:13
you've heard my hollows. felt my highs and deep lows. and we awoke in the soft snow grasping brittle bones. we reach for some fiction a teacher who would listen. But we know that no one is coming. as the seams split and the beat stops the afterglow of dry rot or tired companions we walk on dry land. And rose up tried to touch with fingers the rafters. But in the distance it glistens. the water froze solid.
11.
This Is It 02:46
12.
Chame(leon) (free) 05:22
we have all found secret teachings deep within our bodies. But when we look up we see everything preaching, "you're not yourself, you are pretty at best" and the sea is seething. when mallory said "there is nobody coming" i think that's the truth. it was a shot fired in warning. when your friends don't recognize you throw away all of your disguises look where the seams rip that's where some truth is find where the light lies and not where the lies hide and I am searching with you. a place on earth could be enough for the yearning. a pure place within us is quietly burning and i am older now but i can't say how. caught a glimpse in a mirror: just a ghostly reflection. that isn't me. it's just chameleon skin. this is my name now. so much has been written down. but there's been so much left out. i know i'm doing badly when I think that I know me.
13.
this track was entirely improvised, and inserted into the album over a year after its initial release. I think it makes no sense but I thought I should include it anyway, and I can't find the original file to clip out the weird and stupid ending.
14.
You are the stories i have told for all these years. (lyrics improvised) Death was silent. We're not just stories, we're not just songs, these are our lives and they'll soon be gone. Why do we do this to us? In waking up we found leaves rotting on the ground.
15.
Sometimes 05:04
those places left a mark on us, for sure. which trains carried you how far? and what names gave you which scars. did fingers create contours? your hands were travellers and the water named them makers. you're made of lines and quiet disaster. you're made of mountains and laughter. And you ate the moon like she taught you to and fell asleep at dawn in the morning dew and a nightmare knows where you are sleeping i trapped that bad dream and skinned it swiftly bound that book in its mangy pelt i closed my eyes as the smoke came pouring in fire makes fog and the fog was hiding us on the bridge where i swear i saw lightning all of our gifts got hung on handles love was a noose, we held hands up on the scaffold when the floor gave out it felt a bit like flying I can't tell if you're as scared as i am we threw our windows and our eyes wide and fearing for our lives we stayed inside. and we looked out at a dying world. we have felt our shape and felt our size hung our laundry on old barbed wire the farm is a flood and the town is empty deserted dirt road in the pioneer valley after that it rained for three weeks straight so we changed our names and hoped they'd help us float we were praying for rain and we nearly drowned in a chair on a porch in a county called Franklin we threw our windows and our eyes wide and fearing for our lives we stayed inside and we looked out at the coming storm, bringing apocalypse and newborns. is it a gift or a mistake? in the last days, we love it for the night's sake. I suppose I love this life, sometimes. Finally found words they're pretending to be something to hold (but even hands are fleeting) and I suppose I love this life, sometimes.

about

"...spacious, wordless interludes with a haunted woods loneliness...'This Is My Name Now' is definitely a travel record, but it constantly looks towards home and the meaning of that place."
--The Free George


"An example of what I believe to be gorgeous storytelling."
--Alex Krokus (Woodspider)

A collection of songs written, improvised, recorded, and forgotten between the summer of 2010 and New Years, with couple of later tag-alongs. The violin sample in "Easter Bird" is an Andrew Bird song. The lyrics to "Spoon River" are derived from an 1800's collection of poetry called "Spoon River Anthology" by Edgar Lee Masters. The sample at the beginning of "Sometimes" is from a poem called "Birthday" by Andrea Gibson.

All instruments played by Noel'le Longhaul.

This album is because of, and dedicated to, Nicholas Francis and Haley Handsdirty.

credits

released March 1, 2011

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Some rights reserved. Please refer to individual track pages for license info.

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Noel'le Longhaul Montague, Massachusetts

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