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.

Rare Knives Of Light

by American Grandma

/
  • Streaming + Download

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

      $5 USD  or more

     

  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Limited Edition Cassette tape, designed by George Bangs and manufactured by National Audio Company. Will throw stickers in with every order while they last. Edition of 50.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Rare Knives Of Light via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 50 

      $10 USD or more 

     

1.
I was three years old when the new millennium came We will watch our fathers return eternally Making peace feels like preparation for a long goodbye One man plans and finds peace I have the ocean in me We tape our innermost feelings coiled inside (I was three years old when the stranger showed up) Weak plastic casing screwed on tight (I’m convinced my shadow could talk to me) One man plans and finds peace I have the ocean in me I was three years old when the new millennium came We will watch our fathers return
2.
Hope Loop 04:17
Folding over time, you are the only one Folding over time, like I was one of them I only became myself three years now Rare knives of light found me throughout Folding over time, you are the only one (Debating politics and personal experience) Folding over time, like I was one of them (Back of a motorbike leaving campus) I only became myself three years now (Pick up the white phone til I answer) Rare knives of light found me throughout (They’re dying and I’m not sure who’s going first)
3.
Stone Cross 03:25
Roses growing up from the dirt Raised hand, the father looks at me Does the sun shine bright forever? Will you play music for me when I’m gone? Fleeting, he could be dying What’s on Apple’s mind today? Does the sun shine bright forever? Will I commemorate you with a painted sign? Oh I want to know, I want to go so high Every concrete block in my window's eye
4.
Shenna 03:22
I can see your soul In everyone you meet I still believe in God, Shenna You treat them with respect I come here every week She looks across the bar, Shenna
5.
I’ll always feel guilty for being the difference between What was, and what could have been You could have gone to Oregon The truth is self evident
6.
Lead 03:06
This is the first love song I wrote for you I don’t like pictures from then Years soften the edges Or harden them and line them with lead Even the sky was crying Tell myself I’m not who I was when - Years soften the edges Or harden them and line them with lead
7.
“I feel blinded”
8.
Third Winter 03:08
Do what you want to me Be what you always wanted to be I will remain in Colorado as your dutiful son

about

The music on American Grandma’s latest recording, Rare Knives of Light is not tense, per se, but its magic does spring from a certain tension. “As a person, you’re way more private than you are as an artist,” Caden Marchese says to his longtime collaborator, American Grandma’s songwriter and vocalist Jensen Keller.

Direct and intimate, if not always literal, Keller’s narratives are laid bare. But they are laid bare within a dreamworld of sound. Cyclical, chimelike guitars, airy synths and tape sound swirl around Keller’s clear and candid voice, recalling Hood and early Dave Fischoff. On album opener, “All Hands Lost,” Keller sings: “I was three years old when the new millennium came / We will watch our fathers return eternally / Making peace feels like preparation for a long goodbye.”

It’s no wonder American Grandma and Midwife have found a longstanding collaborative friendship. There are certainly parallels in the way the poetically confessional situates within contexts of otherworldly sounds. Keller and Marchese in fact recorded a significant portion of Rare Knives of Light with Midwife’s Madeline Johnston at her studio in Las Cruces, New Mexico. American Grandma and Midwife are linked via the Denver DIY scene, a world brimming with adventurous experimentation and deep feeling. Again, productive tension: it is the warmth of a fire against the cold black of night, or the warm glow of haphazardly strung Christmas lights and blinking guitar pedals at a warehouse show someplace where beyond the walls the ocotillo or aspens and cottonwoods rule vast and vetiginous expanses.

But that feeling isn’t only one of comfort. Profoundly, it is also one of hope; the hope of kinship, the promise of communication.

Hope is central to American Grandma’s project. On “Hope Loop,” Keller briefly details and juxtaposes a few memories, “folding over time” and “debating politics” or riding on the back of a motocycle, before gently but surefootedly singing the eponymous line: “Rare knives of light found me throughout.” That phrase, Keller says, is an evocation of the sense that while one may find oneself lost in spiritual or emotional darkness, “there will always be that flash of something that will keep you on track or at least remind you that you’re not completely fucked.”

Fans of Bark Psychosis and Flying Saucer Attack will find something comfortably familiar in the textures and pacing that characterize American Grandma’s Rare Knives of Light. And because of these qualities, Low may also come to mind. And it is also Low’s penchant for adventurous studio experimentation that finds a parallel here. But it may be that sense of leaning into hope that is American Grandma’s most prominent character. “I usually don’t feel hopeless,” Keller says. “And if I do, it’s not for long.”

credits

released April 7, 2023

Lyrics and vocals by Jensen Keller
All songs written, arranged and performed by Jensen Keller and Caden Marchese
Additional instrumentation by Madeline Johnston and Bryce Slavick
Mixed and engineered by Caden Marchese
Mastered by Corey Coffman
Art by George Bangs

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

American Grandma Denver, Colorado

americangrandma.net

not currently booking shows

contact / help

Contact American Grandma

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like American Grandma, you may also like: