Transit

by mr sterile Assembly

Transit cover art
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  • Digital Album

    Immediate download of 11-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.
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    11 track album with two books of artwork to illustrate and expand on the content within.

    Drums, two basses, a Javanese gender, saxophone, poetry, rap, and holler, this album offers a slice that differs from the rest of the musical outpourings from Aotearoa New Zealand.

    A beautiful gate-fold packaging, heavy on image, lovely to hold and explore, supported by Tenzenmen DIY distro from Australia, and reproduced through Dualplover, AUS.

    19 High quality images of the art, recording process, and incidental pretty images are included in the download of this album.

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about

Recorded at Mike Gibson's Inca Studios, the old home of the NZ SIS, the Security Intelligence Service, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

credits

released 25 February 2011
mr sterile: Drums, lyrics, vocals, noises
Chrissie Butler: Bass, vocals
Aaron Lloydd: Bass
Jeff Henderson: Saxophone
Nell Thomas: Gender (Javanese gamelan)
Maria McMillan: Poet, words in Drought
Dean Hapeta: Recording, lyrics & vocals
Mike Gibson: Recording, mixing, mastering.

Artisits:
Campbell Kneale
Tao Wells
Garage Collective
James Robinson
Stefan Neville
Jeff Henderson
Andrew Ross
Suhartono
Deborah Barton
Roger Morris
Kerry Ann Lee

For this project, all the above members, musician, word smiths, and visual artists, are included in the pantheon of members-of-mr-sterile-Assembly.

tags

tags: aotearoa new zealand drums and bass outsider punk outsider punk punk transit bass and drums d.i.y drums and voice experimental mr sterile assembly political punk

license

feeds

feeds for this album, this artist

about

A two-piece from Aotearoa New Zealand. Formed in 2001, have been classified as punk, math rock, experimental, noise rock, alt rock and outsider punk, and the band think the latter is as close as it gets.

discography

contact / help

For help with downloads, click here.

For all other inquiries, including help with merch, click here.

Redeem download codes here.

Track Name: Hibakusha
0 8 15 30

Sit here, count the decades on two hands
Living in the shadow of no ordinary sun
Life persevered, I’m amazed that I stand
How did I survive being young?
Twice I saw two suns shine
Twice I saw the world end
Parachutes fell like blossom from another tree
Illuminates all once, and then again

Outside, go walk with my mates
Sky is blue, and nothing here seems wrong
And when danger looms, the sirens agitate
They called before for shelter
But now the panic’s gone
High above splits the belly of Enola
High above, death is giving birth
To Little Boy, looks like pure magnesium
Fed on splitting atoms, delivers a hand-written curse

What now! Get out of this place
Back to my city and family safe at home
Who could know? Fat Man in a secret race
Soared to Nagasaki for his crowd-stopping show
The worst luck, witness monumental moments
The best of luck, survive terror’s history
To be bestowed the cruel honour of the horror
To watch the blossoms burn in ignition’s tree
Track Name: Jesus Heals the Blind
It’s been said time and again that there are no weapons
Other than the ones that you brought
And they cost a bomb, these precious, precious weapons
Yet in this vast purchase you still came up with nought

These are not such fine gifts you give joyously to lovers
Into hands of children or lavish on your guest
They arrive in terror beneath the cross fire of ‘heroes’ cover
Upon the flaky gilded shoulders of your supermanlyness

There’s a challenge in this classic trade
To win the common heart and minds
To get away with murder and maintain confidence
And the monocle shines optical
Why did Jesus heal the blind?
To be watching 24/7 this bloated proud offense

Tight reigned, these monsters
Media, science & belief
These fucked artists gave birth
To a beast called a Daisy Cutter
Tucked in shadow and determined
Orchestrate this ‘Triumph of the Will’
Praise the peace delivered
By the dandy Bunker Buster
Track Name: I Robert
I am a man to gather data's dust
I am a man of sneaky schemes
I am a man of hidden intent
Who is secretly sent, I stoop to any means
I convey the secrets of acquaintance & friends
The ambitious talk & the radical plan
I am entrapment to the wait of police hands
I am a man of sneaky means

I am a man to gather trouble's trust
I am a man who earns a buck
I am a man with powerful friends
Who’ll use any means while I'm in good luck
I travel & meet, I sleep & I play
I live this deceit, and live on good pay
It's espionage in the bold light of day
Don't believe what I say I am a man of errant luck

Gone, it's all finished!
It's all public and kaput!
Leaving Robert named
Crowned king of ill-repute
Hard drive got corrupted
Reveal the evidence in email
It was the
Scores of police contact
That tore away the veil

Is, Is he? Isn't he? Isn't he? Is! S P Y

I am a man of tradition unmasked
I am a man with a decade laid waste
I am a man whose friends have all split
This Judas kiss tastes of shame & disgrace
I collected & kept, I passed it along
The gossip & gas in the big hunt for wrong
To the powers in power who plan & respond
Who have left me & gone
With the fallout of this famed disgrace
Track Name: Whyt
Yeah everybody’s caught in this war
Between better judgment and acquiescence
In the minds’ battlefields perception
Provokes decision so be aware
It’s psychological abuse to deny
What should be, but isn’t
Too quickly discounted are dreams
For debilitation, madness …Whyt (Te Kupu)

Go scan the horizon, for a flag promoting peace
Find a dove with an olive branch, a roasting tray underneath
Look for the holy man, find the filings of his sharpened teeth
Seek the truth behind the spin, get pepper-sprayed by police
Sometimes a shoulder’s needed
They’re compassionless these flocks of shells
Then your confidence fails you and you damn it all to hell

There’s a minefield in the playground, it’s explosive in your mind
Beware those claiming righteousness, advance the might of any kind
In a world set to label you, your moods and shopping needs defined
On the stage the wrongs put right, you struggle to find the time
Sometimes a shoulder’s needed when living’s like a prison cell
Restraint maintains the status quo it’s sugar sweetened I can tell

The sun melts away the night, if you let it you’ll feel warm
Ma said, “Don’t ever play with fire”, now it’s turning up to burn
The camp’s expand in Purity and sing the Lord his love is stern
And proclaim the original sin, was to question and to learn
Sometimes a shoulder’s needed or some shelter or a meal
When freedom’s gained at thrice the price
Can you buy the health to heal?
Sometimes a shoulder’s needed or some shelter or a meal
It’s a miracle you’re an optimist, ‘cos sometimes your hell is real

We fight the fight for improvement
Stop them ecocidal lunatic confusement
Because we nah dead although them continue killing
Maiming, executing, imprisoning, polluting
All this crime that them do cannot defeat
The purpose, the will, the words to speak
The truth, the fact, no hidden crap
Just stay on track, just stay on track (Te Kupu)
Track Name: Pop Sickle
Hidden to the world, just below the Desert road
At war, amongst the tussock, in the cold
Partners? Only partly to these confidential men
‘Til you will not do what you’ve been told
Talk floats free, swimming in the southern sky
Via code, culling chatter, and assess
Fragments of a sound, find exact frequencies
Then deliver all the data at behest

Block Buchanan, there’s no home in this port
Civil stand, no place to anchor, challenge made
‘Know you place’, states the radio-silent reprimand
If compliant, could the Rainbow have been saved?
Penance built on action, construct a second base
Bigger ears, expanded reference, tighter nets
Modern, motivated, collude on rules of trade
Deny complicit when the human targets bled

Hoist on truck Garden tool
Firm belief Wild luck
April night Minus fog
Just as well Ditch the truck
By the fence Wires cut
Father’s snip Has no spark
Bypass guard To the dome
Go on foot In the dark
Stand at base Reason clear
Hesitate? Do the task
Hide the blade To the hilt
Slow exhale Faceless mask
Watch deflate Flaccid tent
Inflate hope In bold contrast

No crown of satellites, no electric fence
No silence or denial, or fear of jurisprudence
With personal around the clock, all resource available
Could not stop the honest work of these three men
And a single sickle
Track Name: March of the Fulfillmen
No one likes mirrors
Unless it’s what we like to see
A storm of smoke and horror
Always shifting in periphery
Love it when ourselves reflect
The flaws all photoshopped unseen
And believe the centre of this universe
Is a continent called ME

Accept me as your online friend
Gratify, again, repeat
Consumption brings fulfillment’s gain
Will I ever be complete?
Contentment gained at twice the price
CREATIVE is a season’s theme
Raised to reach for highest hopes
And settle for a shopper’s dream

This wasteland of new wonder
Offline is out of beat
Where convenience feeds opinion
Here there’s new and obsolete
With no sense of really how it was
And less of how the market schemes
We bailed out the failed capital
And let nostalgia reign supreme
Track Name: Bug my Ride (revisited)
Intimidation and harassment by agents of the state
Outlawing opposition, criticism, manufacturing hate
Restricting what can be said, accessed or read
And if you protest strong enough you may be found dead
Imprisoned, overcome by public fear and suspicion
In the name of democracy exercising fascism!
Tricked into compliancy because you thought your vote could speak
Thought you were really saying something
But ahh, you’re just bugged and weak
To such an extent you can’t perceive this dastardly state terrorism
Brow beaten by conformism, an apologetic fellow necessarily
Upholding and assisting a failed capitalist society (Te Kupu)

Check my house on Google Earth, see me stand in my backyard
I’ve seven different passwords, a PIN code and a plastic card
Watch me on the cameras, in the streets and in the malls
Read the transcripts of transmissions from my interesting calls

Logging on, logging off, checking in, track and trace
The electronic shadow left from accessed stuff in cyberspace

I’m south side now from Huxley, Orwell too is just behind
GPS to check my transit, SIS to bug my ride
Fingerprints and DNA, the electro hum of 0 1
Scan the love songs in my texts from your blow-up house in ECHELON

Privacy has had its’ day, print my face for show and tell
These methods are for hidden men the legacy of
COINTELPROtected by the weight of state, defended by the party line
Profit needs security and progress is a state of mind
Track Name: Stella
My daughter’s with my mother
In my country far away
Gone from home for two years
In search of better pay
I missed her first and second
I might be home when she turns four
And I can not see my star shine
While here in Singapore

What similarity exists
Between this city and my home?
I’m here watching others thrive
While I miss my child grow
I left for hope and currency
From the struggle of being poor
And I can not see my star shine
While here in Singapore

The current of this commerce
Makes me glean across the border
I tell myself it’s normal
And I do it for my daughter
Yet it’s hard to reconcile
To work and work for barely more
And I can not see my Stella shine
While here in Singapore
Track Name: Drought
Who brought this stuff? Falling down for free
Wash the salt from your skin before it meets the salt of the sea
Who brought this stuff? Who owns the tap owns the vein
Who can lock the Commons? Who can sell the air and the rain

I am thirsty, I am parched. I’m contained in a fluid line
Can I buy a glass
I am thirsty, I am parched. I’m coursing in a growing line
Can I buy a glass

Who caught this stuff? That laps around your feet
Runs down from highest hill top, to the flood & thirsty heat
Who caught this stuff? Who owns the pipe owns the dream
Who can bank the current, and cast demands on a silver stream

I am thirsty, I am parched. I’m standing in a fluid line
Can I fill a glass
I am thirsty, I am parched. Ride the swell in a growing line
Can I fill a glass

There’s 5 of us, fitting tight, in 3 rooms
Joe lost his flat and needs to come back home
Baby’s in a mess, I’m under stress
Mother watch the skin to see infections grow
Times are tough, money’s tight. Swelling bills
Gas ‘n spuds, heat ‘n rent, ‘n water in the tub
What wastage is mine, on garden or washing line
You make it my fault when you say I dry the rivers up
The rising costs with no stop. Now user pays
We just about cope, just about most days
Wallet tightly zipped. Cents add up with loose drips
It’s meal or medicine, but can’t have it both ways
Dam the letter box. More demands, they overflow
Plug up the leak but I sense it never stops
Payments have to wait, this thirst never sates
No water for my kids, but you never turn your sprinkler off (mr sterile, Maria McMillan)

Who taught this stuff? This ration of priority
With the fertile words of drought still keep the Cake-Tin green
Who taught this stuff? Who owns the oars owns the course
Who can sets restraints on the leakage of a fluid force
Track Name: Axe and the Olive Tree
Bulldozer blames the broken homes
Bullets blame the broken bones
Fist blame the fallen moans
Bully blames the victim

Tower’s tale of fleeing feet
Sniper’s tale of aim and bleed
Wall’s tale of cordoned peace
Tell tales on the victim

Doesn’t matter who’s the holy one in the promised land
Only who’s continuing the disaster of genocide on man
Blame the soldier not the stone, the throw, the hand
See a murder excused by the invader’s demands
These goliath massacres witnessed by the world
Displacement occupation where imposers build
Upon ancient scriptures used to justify walls
Atrocities and horrors for refusing alien rule
Bulldozers, despair, repel, dismantle
Detention, terror, demolition, torture
Checkpoints, intifada, curfew, lookout tower
A home with no restrictions, no anguish, no slaughter
These misguided axes, vicious in their misery
Seeking to exterminate while asking for sympathy
These mighty olive trees, radiant majesty
Sustenance of land and people universally(Te Kupu)

The axe blames the fallen olive tree
The olive tree falls to the blaming axe
Falling to the axe the olive tree is blamed
The steal of the blade says the trunk of the tree attacked
Track Name: Transit
We take a step, a step towards nowhere
Never leave the known, the now and here
Walk in the rain to the grey sameness
Use a blaming game to fuel our fears
We take a step, a step towards nowhere
All we know is NO, and hope is where?
Keeping the pain in blanket greyness
A cynical refrain, a snide ‘who cares’

Stuck, here in transit
What vision for destination?
What vision is needed
If it’s only now?
If it’s only here?
If it’s always now?
If it’s always going?
If it’s going, gone

We take a step, a step towards nowhere
Make an empty move, no thoughtful pause
Inflame a claim to secure containment
In calamity’s name we change the law
We take a step, a step towards nowhere
In the squalling maul of flapping jaws
Quick change the names to contain reflection
That the the nowhere was the Now Here before

Man swallows his own tail
Open mouth expectant waiting to swallow
Woman swallows her own tail
Open mouth expectant, waiting to swallow