Phases in Exile, by Miles Cooper Seaton

Phases in Exile

by Miles Cooper Seaton

supported by

	/

Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Phases in Exile via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 2 days

9 remaining

Purchasable with gift card

£7.99 GBP or more
Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£5 GBP or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Phases in Exile via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 3 days

Purchasable with gift card

£13.99 GBP or more

1.	Out Here 01:45	lyrics
Out here The land yawns on. From and to no where a thousand, million untethered acres christened in the moon's reflection Out here farmers crowd the bars waiting for a shoot between famines Out here the fields are full of soldiers waiting for fever to subside or their hands to thaw Out here children crowd the shops along the seaside waiting for a tide swollen enough to carry them back to the factory Out here all roads lead to limbo Here in my old dream I am steeling myself for the crossing for the chasm for the tundra for the void for whatever lies ahead dallying in the liminal fog swapping stories about the predator and clinging feebly to the lattice of coincidence Another hungry ghost at best a bag of wind and a storyline
2.	Pacts with Beasts 05:43	lyrics
And I make pacts with beasts I make peace with animals and I visit them where they take shelter we talk all night, knowing they won't remember I ask them how it feels to be invisible they wonder how I feel not being free always looking looking anywhere only to wind up no where no where at all seeing nothing, just guessing that there's something more around the corner on the other side just down the road seeing nothing, just guessing that there's some thing more around the corner on the other side just down the road and out here in the street all my friends are cannibals and I visit them where they take shelter and we talk all night, knowing they won't remember they ask me how it feels to be invisible I wonder how they feel not being free when I was younger I used to wonder just who would find me and now I'm older and I want to wander unfound by everyone unknown to anyone unknown to me to be alone ahead or behind it makes no difference when I walk alone.
3.	I Am That 05:00	lyrics
I am I am that I am that which I am that which can't I am that which can't be I am that which can't be broken Born of totemic imagery and dreams of distance Born of the night that always teems with life while hinting death Born of the hunt that always ends in solitude once my mark is made Born of the river rushing, striking awe into the hearts across it's ward Born of the wind that howls across the sand blocking out the sun We are We are that We are that which We are that which begs We are that which begs a We are that which begs a question Saddled by an archetype and ridden by the past Born into a ladder leading nowhere but the end Born into a tunnel, turned to hallway, turned to maze Born into a story, full of drama start to end And me I just want to be satisfied And me I just want to be free And me I just want to hide my face until it's over But it seems I've got no choice so here I am
4.	It Just Does 03:09	lyrics
(And) I watch the world turn round and I watch the sun beat the ground I watch the clouds filling up just to let out again it just comes down again it just does I don't question the night The magic of electric light I've hardly seen the sun come up when it goes down again it just goes down again it just does I lie and wait on the beach throw rocks at birds hovering just out of reach I wonder why I wonder what is going down again it just comes down again it just goes down it just does
5.	Little Prince 03:22
6.	Persona 05:58	lyrics
The billowing fog of persona The dream of the dream The dream of dreaming Some face appearing Some kind of fool Some kind of dancer Some kind of sage Some kind of beggar Some kind of vision Some kind of King Some kind of cancer Some kind of kingdom Some kind of cancer Some kind of kingdom Some kind of cancer Some kind of kingdom Some kind of cancer Some kind of vision Some kind of rapture
7.	Division 01:52
8.	Nothing Lasts 03:27	lyrics
And there will come a time when the breeze has turned to wind and when the sun will dim to almost nothing in the sky Nothing Lasts And there will come a time all our tracks have disappeared and every trace will be unreadable to the ones that walk behind Nothing Lasts
9.	Death and the Compass 06:05
10.	Homes by the Sea 03:23	lyrics
Leave Home live lost for awhile and then tire of it all and settle where you'd only hoped to summer Grow old give up on the hustle and then laugh at all the little ones and beg them to slow down Start counting stars naming each after someone long lost or some old street you once walked on before you settled down And we'll all have homes all have homes all have homes All have homes all have homes by the sea

about

This music and any other I make is an expression of some inner emergency, and Phases in Exile is the resulting process of inquiry. Its narrative emerged wearing several masks until it finally started to resemble a woozy, asymmetrical structure. A derelict place off a crooked road. Now suddenly it seems critical to share that maze with others, if only as an attempt at some human conversation.

To me, music and art may be the closest we come to an encounter with divine energy in our brief lives. They can provide a catalyst for real sharing, an occasion to gather and construct a temporary shelter inside the existential crisis of life. I consider art a blood pact with the people it serves. When someone gives me or my work their attention, their time, they are giving me their life. So to blindly tether this sacred work to the haze of transactions in contemporary western culture is not only to drain the spiritual energy and magic from its practice – it is an affront to the offering of all involved.

Over the last 20 years of making music I have seen the contexts for this type of transformational work become devoured and commodified and eradicated with such force, and at such an accelerated pace, that it now seems inconceivable to younger artists that they can function as anything other than a content machine. I’ve gradually realized I simply cannot, or will not, do it. I refuse to function as an entrepreneur. There is no nice way to say it: living this principle as unflinchingly as possible has come at a great personal cost. People I had known and worked with for years started to distance themselves from me. My attempts at puzzling out this emergency with my peers were largely met with confusion and exasperation and finally silence. I titled this record even before I wrote it, so palpable was the feeling of being an outsider – culturally, economically, conceptually and spiritually exiled from my contemporaries and culture at large.

Now, five years after I made it, my past relationship to this album, to my place in the world, feels offensively foreign. I am more than ever acutely aware that however deep my sense of marginalization in America, being afforded the time to make a record, and engage in the requisite process of personal investigation, is an expression of extreme privilege. As I write I keep erasing sentences, because nothing seems important enough to justify exercising this colonial energy – another white man, claiming his voice.

But I believe an artist’s purpose, if tuned, can provide a vital service. An artist can brave the void to stand before us as a mirror, reflecting our inherent worth and reminding us of the nobility in our choice to live in spite of suffering and imminent death. Perhaps this sense of purpose is the only currency I can justify accepting as compensation.

If you haven’t guessed already, party music this is not. This is music that I imagine many people listening to, on the train, eyes closed, trying to imagine they’re alone. In the car, in the morning, as dawn breaks; late at night, windows rolled down, wind rushing in. It’s music for transient moments, liminal spaces, music for moving while sitting still. It’s lonesome music. But it is not about running away or being defeated, although I had to do those things to get here.

I’m done with escapism. I want to dive deep enough into the interior to discover some common water. I want to make a home at the heart of things, where we’re all hurting. If I’ve done my job well you will know that I was looking for you there. Not through some quantifiable list of aesthetic features, but because it’s written in blood.

This is my love letter. This is my offering to all people alive now, living in the heat of a wildfire that not even the most prophetic of us could have named. If I’ve done my job well we’ll find each other, those of us seeking refuge. If I’ve done my job well you will know that this is not a death knell but a rallying cry.

credits

released November 10, 2017

Words and music by Miles Cooper Seaton

Produced by Miles Cooper Seaton
Recorded by Brian Haran at the Pinebox, North Carolina *
Mixed by Jim Bob Aiken
Mastered by Douglas Henderson

* Additional recording / orchestration / realization occurred at:
Green Machines MK II, Los Angeles, California with M. Geddes Gengras
O.F.F. Studio, Torino, Italy with Paul Beauchamp
Vaggimal Studio, Vaggimal (VR), Italy with Francesco Ambrosini
and Studio in Exile by Miles Cooper Seaton

Additional musicians:
Zeno Baldi: percussion
Bradley Cook: bass guitar, guitar, organ
Phil Cook: slide guitar
M. Geddes Gengras: modular synthesis
Leanne Pedante: vocals, piano, Wurlitzer
Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo: viola
Joe Westerlund: percussion
String arrangements by Jeremy C. Simon

Photography: Ana Blagojevic

All songs © & ℗ Miles Cooper Seaton 2017.
“Persona” after A’yunini, or the Killer (Jerome Rothenberg translation).

Thank you:
Leanne Pedante: my light, heat, rock and reason. The Seaton, Pedante, Fischer and Vanderburg families. The mighty Emily Moore, Trevor Baade, Patrick Gookin, Ana Blagojevic, Marco Stangherlin, Tobia Poltronieri, Filippo Brugnoli, Niccolò Cruciani, Giulio Deboni, Alioune Biaye, Gigi, Verdi, Jack, Gio, Giovi and Zy, and all my Veronese famiglia. Gianluca, Robin, Andrea, Leo, Damiano and all the Trovarobato crew. Ossian Foley, Alessandro Cau, M. Geddes Gengras, Bobby Kittleman, Fabrizio Palumbo, Paul Beauchamp, Joe Westerlund, Carson Efird, Brad and Phil Cook, James and Leah Toth, Zeno Baldi, Francesco Ambrosini, Brian Haran, Jim Bob Aiken, Sean Newsham, Brad Kulisic, Ismini Adami for typography, Andrea Belfi, Stefano Pilia, Fabio Cerina, Lucia Gasti, Chris Angiolini, Enrico Martinelli and all at Bronson. Matteo Botteghi, Pisa, Pietro Poltronieri, Janine and Sadaat Awaan, Angel Deradoorian, John Colpitts, Erin Fitzgerald, Greg Wooten, Kammer Klang, and always Seth Olinsky, Dana Janssen and Ryan Vanderhoof: what we made will always move in me.

Dedicated with loving memory to Celia Anderson Seaton.

license

about

Miles Cooper Seaton Los Angeles, California

Miles Cooper Seaton is a nomadic artist, performer, composer, poet and educator. His work aims to transform each context it encounters into a temporary home inside the crisis of life.

Recommendations

contact / help

Contact Miles Cooper Seaton

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Miles Cooper Seaton recommends:

Winter Storm
by Chihei Hatakeyama

I have had "don't ask what" on repeat for the last year. Miles Cooper Seaton
go to album
Clipper Ship
by Wooden Wand

JT's here: Heavy deep and real as always. This record's honesty, unmitigated beauty and gentleness draw me in for multiple listens every time it goes in the CD player. Elegant and dignified music. Miles Cooper Seaton
go to album

If you like Miles Cooper Seaton, you may also like:

Promises
by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra

supported by 9 fans who also own “Phases in Exile”

Magic in its purest form. I love Floating Points, I love Pharoah Sanders, I love The London Symphony Orchestra. It's a match made in heaven, and the result is absolutely gorgeous. I have loved this record since its release, and realized I don't own it for some reason. So its time to change that. 9.5/10 honestly could become a 10/10 on an indepth vinyl relisten. angrypizza98
go to album
Everywhere at the end of time
by The Caretaker

supported by 7 fans who also own “Phases in Exile”

Actually astounding and emotionally moving, creating a community that I have been proudly a part of for 2 years OrsonXD
go to album
Trip
by Messyl & Wolf City

French poet Messyl offers work in the tradition of the Beat Generation over atmospheric experimental rock from Wolf City. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 11, 2023
go to album
Chimère FM
by Chimère FM

John Cravache and I:Cube present a "phantom radio station" inspired by the weirdest corners of the techno scene; easy listening gone alien. Bandcamp New & Notable May 4, 2022
go to album