Hundreds of Thousands of Hospital Beds

It's only been a few weeks since I checked in, but it feels so much longer. Things have been mighty busy, and the past month has been unlike any other. Thank you to everyone who made that possible. Hospice has truly taken flight, and as surreal as that is, I couldn't be happier.

To those asking for the lyrics for Hospice, you can download the liner notes by clicking here.

Some bigger press has been picking up on the new album. NPR's All Songs considered named Hospice the best record of 2009 so far. In addition to that, there was Flavorpill, New York Press, Wall Street Journal, Brooklyn Vegan, and a bunch more.

We just came home from our tour down to SXSW and back. Along the way we recorded a Lounge Act with Cincinnati's excellent WOXY. That session is available for free download here.


And last, but not least, pictures. These are pretty close to being in sequential order, though we never had cameras with us, so there's some major time-gaps. Also, these were just what I could dig up quickly on flickr and whatnot. Please forgive the incompleteness...if you've got more, please send them to theantlersmusic@gmail.com

"Hospice" Release Show at Union Hall - Brooklyn, NY
(photo by Vanessa Fleming / FreeWilliamsburg)


at the Black Cat - Washington D.C
(photo by Jon Sajetowski)


Sneaking into a kitchen - Austin, TX
(photo by Alex Marvar / VanityFair.com)


Soundcheck Magazine Day Party at Emo's Annex - Austin, TX


WOXY Lounge Act - Cincinnati, OH
(photo by Brian Niesz / woxy.com)

Letting People In

The night of the release is finally here, and to be honest, the feeling is strange. Mostly, I'm excited to feel things moving in such a positive direction, to have life be so different than it once was. I've honestly never been more excited in my life, and I've probably never been happier to be doing what I'm doing.

But I can't help but send Hospice off into the world with somewhat of a heavy heart. This record was the most difficult record for me to make, and the hardest to to let go. But ultimately, I'm optimistic, truly believing these things become easier with time.

I could go on and on about this, but it's very late and I'm needing to try and sleep. I've been trying to put together an enormously long thank-you list for everyone who made Hospice possible, for anyone who has ever helped in any way. But there's absolutely no way I can do that without forgetting someone completely vital by accident, or out of lack of sleep. So I'll just say this:

Thank you to all of you, my family and my friends, and everyone. You know who you are, and you know quite well that I'd be lost without you.

-Peter

Excerpt #2

Bear
or, Children Become Their Parents Become Their Children

There’s a bear inside your stomach, a cub’s been kicking from within. He’s loud, though without vocal cords, we’ll put an end to him. We’ll make all the right appointments, no one ever has to know, and then tomorrow I’ll turn twenty-one, we’ll script another show. We’ll play charades up in the Chelsea,
drink champagne (although you shouldn’t be), We’ll be blind and dumb until we fall asleep. None of our friends will come, they dodge our calls, and they have for quite awhile now. It’s not a shock, you don’t seem to mind, and I just can’t see how.

“We’re too old.”
”We’re not old at all.”
“Just too old”
“We’re not old at all.”

There’s a bear inside your stomach, a cub’s been kicking you for weeks, and if this isn’t all a dream, well then we’ll cut him from beneath. Well we’re not scared of making caves, or finding food for him to eat. We’re terrified of one another, terrified of what that means. But we’ll make only quick decisions, and you’ll just keep me in the waiting room, and all the while I’ll know we’re fucked, and not getting un-fucked soon. When we get home we’re bigger strangers than we’ve ever been before. You sit in front of snowy television, suitcase on the floor.

Pre-Order Hospice, Receive It Early!

PRE-ORDER A PHYSICAL COPY OF HOSPICE NOW, RECEIVE IT BEFORE THE RELEASE DATE!!!

Why are we doing this? Each CD is hand-assembled and shipped by us, and take a bit of time to prepare. We'll start shipping immediately and you'll receive the CD well before March 3rd, and you'll get it for cheap if you order now!

"​HOSPI​CE"​ TO BE SELF-​RELEA​SED MARCH​ 3, DOWNL​OAD "​BEAR"​

On March 3rd, 2009, we'll finally be releasing Hospice, the album nearly two years in the making. It will be a self-release, mostly digital with a limited CD release. As the time nears, we'll let you know exactly where you'll be able to download the record for yourself.




In the meantime, you can download another track from Hospice for free. This one is called "Bear", and you can download it here. You can also still download the first single, "Two", here.




And here is the cover art, designed by Zan Goodman:







Tracklist:
1. Prologue

2. Kettering

3. Sylvia

4. Atrophy

5. Bear

6. Thirteen

7. Two

8. Shiva

9. Wake

10. Epilogue

2009

Things have been a bit ambiguous here in Antlers land for a few months. Hospice was completed over the summer, after about a year and a half of working on it, and now it's almost been another half-year without it seeing release.

But everything is being sorted out. Shortly after the New Year, we'll be telling you the plan, and not long after that, we'll finally be getting the record to you.

Also, soon after the New Year, we'll be playing a very special show at Cake Shop with some good friends, a few of whom were involved in the making of the new record.


Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
Cake Shop
NYC
w/ Sharon Van Etten, Pet Ghost Project, Lucinda Black Bear


Here's somewhat of a live chronology of 2008 in pictures:
Pictures


Stay tuned. Thank you all for such an interesting year. Onward to 2009!

love,
The Antlers

Excerpt

Two
or, I Would Have Saved Her If I Could

In the middle of the night I was sleeping sitting up, when a doctor came to tell me, “Enough is enough.”

He brought me out into the hall (I could have sworn it was haunted),
and told me something that I didn’t know that I wanted to hear: That there was nothing that I could do save you, the choir’s gonna sing, and this thing is gonna kill you. Something in my throat made my next words shake, and something in the wires made the lightbulbs break. There was glass inside my feet and raining down from the ceiling, it opened up the scars that had just finished healing. It tore apart the canyon running down your femur, (I thought that it was beautiful, it made me a believer.) And as it opened I could hear you howling from your room, but I hid out in the hall until the hurricane blew. When I reappeared and tried to give you something for the pain, you came to hating me again, and just sang your refrain:

You had a new dream, it was more like a nightmare. You were just a little kid, and they cut your hair, then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying. They should have listened, they thought that you were lying. Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up, built the gears in your head, now he greases them up. And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating. “Eighty-seven pounds!” and this all bears repeating.

“Tell me when you think that we became so unhappy, wearing silver rings with nobody clapping. When we moved here together we were so dissappointed, sleeping out of tune with our dreams disjointed. It killed me to see you getting always rejected, but I didn’t mind the things you threw, the phones I deflected. I didn’t mind you blaming me for your mistakes, I just held you in the doorframe through all of the earthquakes. But you packed up your clothes in that bag every night, and I would try to grab your ankles (what a pitiful sight.) But after over a year, I stopped trying to stop you
from stomping out that door, coming back like you always do. Well no one’s gonna fix it for us, no one can.

“You say that, ‘No one’s gonna listen, and no one understands.’

“So there’s no open doors, and there’s no way to get through, there’s no other witnesses, just us two.”

There’s two people living in one small room, from your two half-families tearing at you, two ways to tell the story (no one worries), two silver rings on our fingers in a hurry, two people talking inside your brain, two people believing that I’m the one to blame, two different voices coming out of your mouth, while I’m too cold to care and too sick to shout.

You had a new dream, it was more like a nightmare. You were just a little kid, and they cut your hair. Then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying. They should have listened, they thought that you were lying. Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up, built the gears in your head, now he greases them up. And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating. “Eighty-seven pounds!” and this all bears repeating.

Something In The Wires Made The Light Bulbs Break

At Cake Shop, 10/21
Courtesy of Pop Tarts Suck Toasted

Hospice Alive

So, I just realized that in my last post (some ages ago), I said there were more announcements coming soon, but never actually announced anything. My bad. The announcement was the tour we just came back from - our first.




(Photo by Bryan Bruchman, in Portland, ME)


A million thanks to everyone who came out to the shows. Special thanks to Tyler from Virginia who filmed our show in Harrisonburg. We were mostly playing songs from Hospice along the way, and he caught a bunch on his camera. Here's "Kettering":




The rest of the set can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/stairstothemoon

And This All Bears Repeating

Loyal readers, here is a song from Hospice, for free.


Two



Stay tuned. More big announcements this week.

Tracklist

I often see musicians and bands announce the tracklist of an upcoming record. I'm not exactly sure why people do this, but at the moment this is the only info I can really share about Hospice, and I'd hate to leave this blog dormant. Hopefully I'll be able to share a release date, artwork, and tour dates soon. Until then...

HOSPICE
1. Prologue
2. Kettering
3. Sylvia
4. Atrophy
5. Bear
6. Thirteen
7. Two
8. Shiva
9. Wake
10. Epilogue

Done

Still so much to take care of, but the record is finally done.

I think I'll go for a walk...

The End Is Near...

Decided to go upstate for the weekend, been recording vocals. Scarily close to done. Spending time with an old friend...

Atrophy

For Your Convenience...

The website was down for a couple days because my bandwidth was exceeded (which is awesome. thank you everyone for downloading so much). But things are back in working order, and by request I've posted the individual tracks for the EP below.



1. Nothing Matters When We're Dancing (Magnetic Fields cover)

2. Sylvia (An Introduction)

3. Tears Are In Your Eyes (Yo La Tengo cover)



Some very nice people have written some very nice reviews/features on the EP so far:

Analogue Magazine

The Culture Of Me

Electronic Voice Phenomenon

No Ordinary Fool


Also, the recording of Hospice is so close to being finished that I'm in complete disbelief...Come hear some of the new songs at Cake Shop monday, June 16th...

New York Hospitals

In honor of After The Jump Fest on June 21st, one of the curators of the spectacular bill, Pop Tarts Suck Toasted, asked me to record an EP. I had already been working on one of these songs, and suddenly found myself with a reason to finish and record a few more. So here it is, FOR FREE.

New York Hospitals EP



Tracklist:
1. Nothing Matters When We're Dancing (Magnetic Fields cover)
2. Sylvia (An Introduction)
3. Tears Are In Your Eyes (Yo La Tengo cover)

Lyrics for "Sylvia (An Introduction)" can be found here

Liner notes:

The New York Hospitals EP came about rather unexpectedly. Two covers from New York-ish bands from around 1999 surround an original, entitled "Sylvia (An Introduction)", intended to introduce the focus of the soon to be completed Hospice LP. Sharon Van Etten contributed vocals to "Nothing Matters When We're Dancing" and "Tears Are In Your Eyes", and Michael Lerner unknowingly drummed on the same tracks (I hijacked a part he recorded for Hospice). It was recorded in Watcher's Woods in Brooklyn in 2008. The cover is the manipulation of a picture that can be found here.

Lyrics

Sylvia (An Introduction)

When you were younger, you had nightmares
You had scissor-pain and phantom limbs
And things that kept you nervous
Through that twelve-year interim

When you fell crossing that street
South of Houston, old Manhattan land
Those nightmares fell from building-tops
And took you by the hand

And you were brought into those rooms
With sliding curtains, shining children's heads
And one of them, that boy
Was not as lucky as you then

But he returns to you at night
Just when you think you might have fallen asleep
His face is up against yours
And you're too terrified to speak.

Oh, Sylvia
Oh, Sylvia
You may think that I'm not listening
But I am, god damn, I am.

I won't pretend I understand
Because I can't, and know I never will
But something makes you sting
And something makes you want to kill

It made you crawl under that house
And stick your head under the stove
It's all connected in those complicated nightmare that you wove

Oh, Sylvia
Oh, Sylvia
You may think that I'm not listening
But I am, god damn, I am.

(An Introduction)

Check back here and/or Pop Tarts Suck Toasted late next week for something exciting...

In A Nightmare

From Leonard Michaels's Sylvia.

Progress

This album is taking far longer than I expected. I think that's probably a good thing, but it's still hard for me to believe I began writing this a year ago.

Things got very busy in March and April, and recording came to a bit of a standstill.

BUT...


Progress is being made. Several weeks ago, Michael put down some drumming and Darby contributed trumpet and some of his patented banjo-bowing. Now Justin is emailing me bass parts from his new place, and things are finally starting to come together. There's still a ton of work to be done, but there is an end in sight, even if it's a far-away light. It's all sounding very different than previous Antlers recordings, but I think it's a good direction.



PICTURES:
1) Darby writing a trumpet part
2) Darby just built a Theramin from a French Press

A Bear

Reading Material.

Sylvia Pt. 2

Briefly Defined As

hospice
n
2: a program of medical and emotional care for the terminally
ill

Sylvia pt. 1

Prologue

I don't know exactly what I'm going to use this for. That remains to be seen. I'll likely be posting pictures, scans, sound clips, and miscellaneous etceteras relevant to "Hospice", the album I've been writing and recording for nearly a year now.

So I guess you could think of this as an addendum to that album, or perhaps an introduction.