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Bratislava

by Big Block 454

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    Immediate download of 12-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

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1.
THX 1138, divided by Atomic Weight 1 2 3 5 8 13 / Fibonacci, Golden Mean Tommy Flowers, Colossus 1, Golden apples of the sun Snow White, 1954 / Alan Turing knows the score Jackdaws Love My Big Sphinx Of Quartz They must see it as an idol of sorts What causes me pain gives you great joy Motorcycle Au Pair Boy Sunbeam Rapier, Ford Corsair, three men waiting on the stairs, dressed in elegant gabardine / "Leave your hats behind the screen" Abyssinia, Aberdare / Asia Minor, we all went there I saw the whole of the opium crop, spread out beneath my feathered prop. Chorus Aerial gunner stayed with the plane / we left him on his own again Cut our way through liana vine / sowed the fields with turpentine Made it back to Timbuktu / semaphore, red white and blue Sandstorms made our eyes grow dim / Quick-blowing zephyrs vex Daft Jim Chorus
2.
Anglezarke 03:41
Underneath the yellow owl flight guided by the gentle moonlight how can you say you know where we come and go Take you walking through the hedgerow show you pine trees where the bats go how can you say you've dined until you've dined at mine Brother lying in the roadway thousands murdered in the same way how can you say you know you didn't see him go
3.
Kané rekum Kané rah Gritty, Gritty, Gritty, Gritty ! (do you love me?) There is a well within the wood we wish sometimes we might have could we kicked a bishop down the stairs we had a hard time getting there I rue the day I ever saw Old Bratislava's lumpy shore I rue the day I paid the fair I had a hard time getting there There is a soldier built of sand he has an apple in his hand put vaseline all in his hair he had a hard time getting there (dishwasher / earthworks / grass-blower / haystack) Kané rekum Kané rekum Kané Kané RooRah RooRah Voodoo Doodah Gritty, Gritty, Gritty, Gritty !
4.
Ebenezer / Machpelah / Canaan / Abraham The looms never stopped whilst I prayed
5.
Birds sit ragged on powerlines White throat offered to the sky Wind is singing Valentines ravens shiver on powerlines
6.
Lush Ulan Bator (free) 04:19
Strapped to the mast with a Siren in my ear (must have been a lubber, must have been a rubber lubber) Three jackdaws and a bottle of beer, oh no ! (must have been a lubber, must have been a rubber lubber) Swallowed whole by a jealous whale, oh no ! (must have been a lubber, must have been a rubber lubber) Drowned my skipper in a half-full kitchen pail (must have been a lubber, must have been a rubber) And it's hey for a life on the ocean blue, Sixteen months since I last saw you, nothing to see and nothing to do, rolling home We made land fall in Lush Ulan Bator Killed a pigmy with a bent guitar, oh no ! Bought my wife with a bag of beans, oh no ! Took to the road with a German netball team And it's hey for a life on the ocean blue, Sixteen months since I last saw you, nothing to see and nothing to do, rolling home Three black stars in the southern sky to guide me, guide me Waiting for Leviathan to find me, hide me, hide me A bath house madam in Lush Ulan Bator Made her home in the back of my car, oh no ! Tried to call you on the telephone, oh no ! Wrote you a letter with a stolen Tuvan bone And it's hey for a life on the ocean blue, Sixteen months since I last saw you, nothing to see and nothing to do, rolling home Back to the Land of the Living and a fine black cat What's your mother think about it? Why don't you tell me that romance is never over?
7.
Goodness me, there's a cow up a tree The firemen look on in antipathy They're playing chess anatomically I use sign language and it uses me Foreign Aeroplanes They found The Ear of The King For Goodness' sake, there's a fly in my cake The bee-keeper's landscape is rendered opaque by the liberal application of a thick crimson lake Talking too much makes my wisdom teeth ache Foreign Aeroplanes They found The Ear of The King Foreign Aeroplanes Upset Sleeping Tirana They found The Ear of The King Good for you, work with scissors and glue When I scratch my head, all the blackbirds turn blue A swarm of bees will invade your canoe The tram will arrive at a quarter to two Foreign Aeroplanes Upset Sleeping Tirana They found The Ear of The King Jepandah ad cognos pro totalis mit dem vulgarum Good for Hans, they have torn up his plans His ifs and ands have become pots and pans Alsace-Lorraine has become part of France Don lederhosen in a Brownian dance Foreign Aeroplanes Upset Sleeping Tirana They found The Ear of The King Foreign Aeroplanes Upset Sleeping Tirana They found The Ear of The King Foreign Aeroplanes Upset Sleeping Tirana They found The Ear of The King
8.
Three Sevens Clash Tantalus bacon & mash Nonchalant sightseeing in Saddleworth Implicating Methodist Magician's birth Three Sevens Clash Acknowledge my 1975 moustache Picnic administrators park Hide your head in the dark Khrushchev ! Nikita Khrushchev ! Dynamo Khrushchev ! Sputnik egg, Kennedy's leg Three Sevens Clash Suppository rash Flop fogging allot ho carroll Travel the Huddersfield Canal in a barrel Three Sevens Clash Dot Dot Dash Long Causeway / Bird i'th'Hand Your odious sucrose pineal gland Khrushchev ! Nikita Khrushchev ! Dynamo Khrushchev ! Sputnik egg, Kennedy's leg Khrushchev ! Nikita Khrushchev ! Dynamo Khrushchev ! Sputnik egg, Gagarin's leg
9.
Melamine 02:51
building silos like invaders red in tooth money spiders total darkness bandaged hands lost my cover wasted glands all by my naked eye all by my naked eye real explosions set to go hope we make it never know dancing monkeys living ciphers sulphur water melamine all by my naked eye all by my naked eye
10.
Greasy clouds hanging low up there Howling ravens cut and burn A-hoo A-hoo I’m crawling in to town for a rendezvous Steel eyed and hungry You’re the one that I want You’re the one that I want Scarecrow eyed and hammer tongued Sweating buckets of rain I’m scared and frozen and ready to go Big black blood flowing over my clothes You’re the one that I want You’re the one that I want
11.
A change of direction a hundred machines we pick up a needle a planet in birth She lived with her daughters a yearly tribute attributed to Chattox confessed but not forgiven
12.
Packing Away 04:28
I’m packing away I’m packing away all my mother’s things The things that she kept from my father’s things I’m packing away I’m packing away And there’s photographs of people whose names have gone And there’s letters that should not live on But I’m packing away Packing away And there’s a ship out on the horizon, trailing smoke, leaving here And there’s a boy waving as it disappears I’m slipping away I’m slipping away And there’s a line And there’s a line And I’m standing, standing at the head of the line I’m not a boy I’m not a boy I’m packing away I’m packing away

about

Big Block 454 are Colin Robinson / Mark Joell / Alex Stone.

Review in Progression Magazine:
Track 5 is entitled "I was Arthur Browns Health & Safety Advisor" The Cardiacs along with Frank Zappa, Gong, and the Residents are listed as influences. The warnings were there: Strap yourself in before playing. Bratislava is one wild ride. Compositions are all over the place. To say the instrumentation is unorthodox would be a gross understatement. If you don't like a passage, wait a few seconds. Dont be fooled by the opening numbers relatively straight yet humorous rock maneuvering... that just lures you in. The next tune sounds like a crossbred Sun city girls/Coyote Poets of the Universe. An Arabian acid trip would best describe track three. This is followed by an indescribable dub influenced piece with accordian and crazy mumbling. The aforementioned "Arthur Brown" is strangely beautiful with acoustic guitar, electronics, and clattering percussion. The next cut sounds like it's lifted from one of Eno's early vocal albums! And thats just the halfway mark! Each successive play reveals clever instrumentation and subtle background vocals. An original and enjoyable release, Bratislava is a gift that keeps on giving-- Warren Barker

"Of all the albums I ever heard this is up there as one of the greatest. Groundbreaking, original, timeless, inventive, fresh, complex and engaging." - Jo Bramwell

credits

released June 1, 2008

All songs written by Big Block 454

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Big Block 454 Hebden Bridge, UK

Since the late 80s, Big Block 454 has been making exploratory, highly individual music that encompasses rock, funk, electronica, folk music, Dadaist collage and much more besides.
Each band member is a multi-instrumentalist, but Big Block 454’s approach also encompasses the creation of sound on instruments they don’t know how to play, and those that hadn’t been invented before the band made them.
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