We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Visiting the Well

by Pleasure Systems

/
  • Streaming + Download

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

      $100 USD

     

1.
Blur 02:59
When we first met you seemed embedded in my brain I thought I finally found the antonym of pain And you showed me the light inside I felt broken, then I felt alive I fell into you like the snow upon the roof I knew that I could love and you offered me the proof And I loved you, and I always will And you loved me, I can feel it still This summer stretches to an empty swollen blur I spend the days making mosaics out of hurt And I miss you It’s dumb to say, but I miss you Every hour of every day I can’t believe you told me everything’s okay That we would find each other somewhere else one day And I hope so, but I get confused I can’t ask you, I don’t know what’s true When we first met I saw the light was coming through It’s getting darker now but I remember truth In the morning, when the day is new I remember - I remember you
2.
So in time it grows: the absence I don’t want to know, but I know The feeling of my skin on snow, the cold seeps in 
 On a different plane maybe we would never know this pain Maybe we would have been born the same age Maybe this is just the way you show me nothing goes away I’ve been feeling well, but then I feel so bad again, then it quells Then my world is shattering, oh well I will never understand the swell I don’t want to write another empty eulogy out of spite Another song of you and me every night I don’t want this - I want the light to return Are you listening? Can you hear the feathers fall from the wing? Can you hear my throat go raw when I sing, when I tell you what the day brings?
3.
When your beard fell out Coloring the bathroom sink in doubt I told you you could rock a mustache Well I lied But you tried it anyway
 When your hair turned white  Overnight, it looked just like the moonlight I didn't tell you that it was a sign  Of the color we were soon to lose
 Is it raining? Did I dream that too? Is it fading? I don't want it to Am I waiting for a sign from you? Is it coming? Is it all confused? Now the leaves turn brown  And scatter on the concrete coated ground And people somehow find this charming There is beauty in the color palette of demise
 The day after you died I found your hair on my shirt by surprise  I remembered that I trimmed your beard So you'd feel clean Or something I don't know
4.
Wasps 04:19
In my dream I was a wasp inside your attic I'd always leave but then I'd come back out of habit To stay in place And buzz around the drywall And see your face I just wanted to feel small
 Could you hear me chewing out the insulation? Always trying to find some cohabitation To build a home and greet you every morning I felt alone I woke up with no warning
 I remember when the wasps died that November The air got cold and they decided to surrender And one by one They fell onto the carpet I swept them up And I thought nothing of it
 Is this pattern always churning in the background? We start to fly and then we freeze and then we fall down? You fell so hard I never saw it coming The wasps are gone But I still hear their buzzing
 Every spring they hatch a brand new generation Your roses smile with the gift of pollination They bloom for you I wish that you could see them The world renews With every passing season I'll spread your ashes on the beach in late September Your bones will scatter on a landscape you'd remember And join the sand And something new will grow there You'll leave my hands You'll be everywhere and nowhere
5.
10:13 03:22
Sunlight through the trees Coming through the window with a breeze Blood in the sink I can hear you empty yourself to disease From the bedroom, was that real? You said don't listen You never wanted me to feel The fever weighing on your shoulders But I did It was mine too 
 Flushed out to the bay The rocky shore, the kelp, the floor receive your DNA Nothing goes away The salmon eat your blood They are consuming your decay And they survive it, every day Will I survive this? Or will I crumble to the weight? People die every day Will I survive you? Or will you take and take and take and take and take? 
 Lying helpless trying to breathe Lying breathless trying to leave Then you left us, you'd always leave I can't find you, I can't breathe
6.
Another storm rolls in It’s getting under my skin It reminds me that your trail is incomplete 
 Is this the same wind That blew you off the mountain Back when every time you landed on your feet? 
 And were you in the meadow when I couldn’t help but cry? Everything I see I wish I saw it through your eyes The eyes that filled with love and then with fear and then went blank I see them every hour I’m asleep or I’m awake 
 I don’t have the words I finally found that orchard Where you saw us picking apples in a dream 
 I came back alone There’s nowhere left to call home You’re as fleeting as your image on a screen 
 And are you still beside me in this bed we chose to share? When I reach to hold you all that I can feel is air But could it be the same air that contained your dying breath? Are you in my lungs? Can I still hold you in my chest? 
 I’m wearing all your clothes It doesn’t even come close To the feeling of you wrapping around me 
 But when it starts to pour I slip out of the front door And I wander to the middle of the street  
 Are you in the water as it washes over me? Are you in the mud that’s running underneath my feet? Can I find it in me to suspend my disbelief? To gaze into the thunder And see you dancing in the heat?
7.
Something goes away Words I couldn't say Something I won't find Something I have lost to the tide When I look for you 
 Like an heirloom scar Words don't get me very far I've surpassed the bend Pleading to my pillow again When I look for you
8.
Corpse Pose 04:02
Sunlight obscured It's morning, I'm grasping at words Today is full of birds 
 Their songs in my head I'm drawn to the edge of your bed The stitches in your head 
 Picture you there I'm washing the blood from your hair I'm crying in the stairwell 
 You fold out of corpse pose You rise again I open the window I can't hold you in 
 Six months gone by I'm haunted by symbols And light refracting through the window 
 I want to see through There's more to this void than the blue The sky is full of you I fold out of corpse pose I rise again You're standing in deep snow I hover the brim I watch as you lift me I watch as we glide Away from these bodies Away from these lives
9.
Safe 03:15
I dreamt of one more summer And woke in a sweat With snow in my bed The things I can't let go of Shake out of my head Like sand in the tent Sleeping on the beach in Oregon When the world was so enormous And we swam in it, it was ours The calamity wasn't far But we were safe then I dreamt I was a statue Frozen in bronze Outstretching rusted arms Reaching over towards you The pace of your heart The nurses and alarms With my face against the window And that rattle in your lungs Then the silence, then the cold Then the emptiness unfolds From where there once was I dreamt of snow on hot springs Of patterns in trees, of life without debris That snow is always swirling And only I can see Unfolding over me Going back into the forest Where our love was so enormous And we swam in it, it was ours Dancing underneath infinite stars You were close to me, never far You're still here with me, there you are And we are safe again
10.
Life Sized 04:00
Eddie I know, it's hard to let go of an echo My hand on the stove, your face on my phone A memento And that's all that I have left An idea, a memory compressed But you were life sized And you had brown eyes I won't forget Mom, is it real? Oh I swore he would heal, I could feel it Now the dust of his bones In a jar in my home won't reveal anything And that's all that I have left A love, an entire life compressed But he was life sized And he had brown eyes I won't forget Eddie I see Through the fog of disease you're still with me Eddie it's me I am falling in love with the mystery
11.
When I picture you now As a stone holding warmth in your mouth Where erosion is shaping the sound I will find you And I will lay my burden down When I picture your hair I draw a map of the alkaline air Say your name like a bathroom stall prayer I will find you Sitting in your favorite chair Maybe this is the last song Or maybe it's not Maybe I can let go now Or maybe I'm wrong Maybe you are still searching for sky Maybe I'm still just searching for signs Maybe I'm still just reading way too far between the lines When you're here in my dreams As the grass on that hill in Eugene The place I know but I never have seen I will find you And you will be completely free
12.
The Maze 03:40
I saw it as a window I saw it in a frame Rephrased as something different Abstracting my worst pain But I lost it in the rain It got carried away I will lay down in the maze It will find me every day I was hoping for a portal Thought I could write my way back to you Reinvent you as immortal But my voice wavered out of tune And I lost it in the wind Floating embers, aching skin I never know where to begin Looking outside, looking in I saw you in the garden You were showing me the sky Our limbs became the flowers Our petals intertwined

about

credits

released March 26, 2021

All songs written, performed and recorded by Clarke Sondermann

Matthew Anderegg plays drums on Track 2
Paul Frunzi plays drums on Track 9
Curt Oren plays saxophone on Track 4 & bass clarinet on Track 10
Mixed by Clarke Sondermann, except for Track 3 mixed by Warren Hildebrand

Mastered by Warren Hildebrand
Cover painting by Tina Scarpello

––

“In loving him I saw great houses being erected
that would soon slide into the waiting sea
moving films of stone buildings
freeing myself from the silence of interior life”
- David Wojnarowicz

For Ed

––

Thank you: Allyson Yarrow Pierce, Baby Timm, Basil Ann Rhodes,
Ben Varian, Beth Town, Brett Moyer, CR Douglas, Chris Taylor, Dan Brennan, Deb Armstrong, Delaney Mills, Emily Burtner, Emily Lyon, Erik Phillips, Erin Birgy, Eve Alpert, Grant Chapman, Greer Cohen, Hugo Stanley, Heidi Kleder, James Knowlton, John Riggi, Joshua James Amberson, Kasra Sarikhani, Kate Schneider, Katrina Sondermann, Liv Klutse, Luke Csehak, Matthew Anderegg, Mia Lauer, Mom & Dad, Nat Grandbois, River Smallflower, Simon Golovcsenko, Steven Perez, Tina Scarpello, Tommy Freeman, Warren Hildebrand, Will Segerstrom, Zach Burba.

Special thanks to Gerry, Kasra, Sean and Steven for lending me the instruments I used to record these songs.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Pleasure Systems New York, New York

"Everything I Need" ft. Melody English out now :)
clarkesondermann@gmail.com

contact / help

Contact Pleasure Systems

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Pleasure Systems recommends:

If you like Pleasure Systems, you may also like: