1. |
Seeds
02:36
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In the dark night, I spark bright
Mandarine glow emanating
From the bar, dive
I was in the deep end
Didn’t turn out all right
Floating bloated after drowning
In the well of hard light
Spirits still shining on they shelves
This is not a good sign
A reminder to myself
Tatted on the arm
Could be mistaken
For an act of vanity
I am my enemy
2010 to infinity
Let me plant seeds
Mandarine, mandarine
Mandarine, mandarine
Glorious day
Feels like a glorious purpose
What more can I say
I guess the sorcery’s working
The formula surfaced
Should’ve recorded with urgency
I took it for granted instead
And of course it submerged again
I trust the process more than I trust myself
What’s underneath the hoods
A job for someone else
Mostly
I can check the oil
And give myself a little jump
Just running off anxiety
Tank dry as Mojave
Praying for the rain
I got these seeds
Let me plant seeds
Mandarine, mandarine
Mandarine, mandarine
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2. |
Start Over
05:08
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Long night
The city sleeps beside me
It's almost peaceful, save for freaks
And last-call retreats to quell the beast
What'll it be
Soft lights
Dizzy down the side street
Sensory feast
Translated electrical speech
Cacophony of man versus machine
Do you remember when
Something made you feel this good
Artificial and conditional
Designer medicinals
Discipline implodes
Glossed eyes
I stumble through your neighborhood
Disciple or despicable
Habits inhibit the ritual
I missed you though
So what's the point of living open hearted
What's the point of sharing what you've got when
Something's lost in you and you can't find it
You can run but you can't hide this
And what's it mean to lead a life you're hating
What's it mean to want to change your framing
And it is worth it all to just start over
Just start over
Just start over
Closing shift, her phone was lit
Couldn't focus, the notifications raging
She anxious pacing
Took a break after the final wave of patrons
Her response, she workshopped with a coworker
Best way to say that things can go no further
Tough sell
She'd been through enough hell
Mislabeled it a rough spell
And told herself countless times
The bullshit just how love smell
She out back smoking
Staring at three dots in a bubble
That keep popping up then vanishing
Psychologically damaging
When she goes back in the manager's like
That was supposed to be a smoke break not a second lunch
Put your phone away and get this mess cleaned up
She feeling disrespected thinking
Fuck this job, fuck this place
She gets home, stuffs her bags
And walks to where some busses wait
Now she on a greyhound, with a few hours to simmer
In that same text thread where it ends with delivered
Trying to walk it back like
Sorry, work drama just had me in a shitty mood
I'm on the bus and I'll be in the city soon
Can I see you
So what's the point of living open hearted
What's the point of sharing what you've got when
Something's lost in you and you can't find it
You can run but you can't hide this
And what's it mean to lead a life you're hating
What's it mean to want to change your framing
And it is worth it all to just start over
Just start over
Just start over
And as I look at where I've come
Disoriented 'cause
The story ended as it began
A palindrome, an orbit rendered
No more pretending
I know there's work still to be done
Miles away from where my mind is safe
Can't find my place, no bookmark
Look hard as what bind these pages
If I give my peace, where does it land
Fly free my stoic pride
Prone to nose-diving
Just this once, don't deny me
I hope to hold it finally
A grateful something in my hand
In my hand
In my hand
In my hand
So what's the point of living open hearted
What's the point of sharing what you've got when
Something's lost in you and you can't find it
You can run but you can't hide this
And what's it mean to lead a life you're hating
What's it mean to want to change your framing
And it is worth it all to just start over
Just start over
Just start over
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3. |
With You
03:44
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So you tell me
Everything's alight
The world's on fire
Devastating
Every standing wall
Inside your heart
Hesitating
Who could bare to
Wait this out alone
Feel the same thing
I just want to make this
House a home
With you
Nina Simone covering Bee Gees
Yeah yeah yeahs
They don't love you like
I love you, easy
No comparison
The garrison upheld the treaties
All's fair in love and war
We've seen the horrors
Of that belief
I'm trying to be the one who
Brings you relief
Every day's a new leaf
My demons are on repeat
I take it back, nothing's easy
But son lucks out in the end
Despite the dark clouds over him
He found him a friend
With an umm, you know
Ends with ella ella
Like Elliot, this page to tell a
New chapter with
Imagine it
Might go outside again someday
To find out we the last ones left damn
Wouldn't be that bad
As long as I'm with you
With, You
No mistaking
Fate is not an obstacle we know
Overstating
Things we need the
Other one to know
Hesitating
Who has time to waste
Our moment's short
Levitating
I just want to keep
Your body warm
With you
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4. |
Mandarine
03:21
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They billed it as the future. twenty-first century
Old problems growing more problematic exponentially
Grew up buying plastic toys, now plastic fills the ocean
They trying to sell us on bitcoin
Digital mining that still needs physical mining
Traditional tyrants rigging the game
New money, old
It's a crypt all the same
You tryptophan sleeping, opiates in the vain
They'll build a million cages but won't rehabilitate one, run
Oh I've been running
But not fast enough
Oh I've been running
Not fast enough
They billed it as the future. twenty-first century
Old problems growing more problematic exponentially
I'm stressed the fuck out from subscriptions I pretend to need
On a social feed resembling end of human centipede
Entropy, but the express lane
Fifteen items or less, yeah but they all express pain
Collecting the best strains and variants
It's quite an experience
Live-streaming from inside a burning chariot
It's very lit
Oh I've been running
But not fast enough
So sit tight for a minute
And maybe catch your breath
So light on my feet
I'm gonna float away to heaven, no safety nets
It's a real good thing baby
Cause you can't pause time
And there's a million different reasons
That the season of the witch will try to change your mind
And how do I even identify
I Boston dynamics
I Cambridge analytics
I scroll, I slow
Eyes fixed on an image
Beauty in the eye of the beholder
Behold, a behemoth data-holder
They know if you're into NFTs or nikes
If thick or skinny excites me
If my own sexuality's more on a spectrum
Than I'd admit or realize even
Hypebeasting
Celebrity gossip, more than politics
In this culture war, we all exist
Hollowness, wait
How the fuck do I know who Tom Holland kissed, yo
Wanda shit
We all the stars of our own Westview
Put the successful on a pedestal
Who impose they vision on the community
That starts to glitch under individual scrutiny
Truthfully, these creed thoughts
Should never be released like Detox
Eavesdrop and let me blow you mind (no doubt)
I go for mine (they hold out)
Always have and always will too
New money, old, it's all the same
Have none, that's gonna kill you
Have some, you can get more
Stakes high when it's just a lil' food
Between surviving and perishing
I'm past my best by date, how embarrassing
Just throw me in the compost
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5. |
Island
03:35
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Jump Back
Back into the skin you crawl out
Every time the world attacks
No path
Constant misdirection
Got your neighbors turned to strangers
Masked, endangered
Cut the eye contact
You can't say the race is over
When the rules change all the time
And is there a plague of mind and morals
Waiting at the finish line?
When I get off this fucking island
I'm swapping out the lens
When I get off this fucking island
Breath more and bitch less
When I get off this fucking island
Well I'm making my escape
When I get off this fucking island
Roll call, sup with y'all
Been trying to keep in touch
To contact trace whenever touch involved
Jade Relics ain't the ones to fuck with y'all
Take it how you want
Perhaps we harmless or perhaps you're being warned
Either or
Keep informed
Read more (Paywall)
Devoid of any ordinary
Contact with the world of many
Never been the more the merrier type
Too excited, little terrier bite
All I see is carriers and barriers
From aerial sight
Whether that's birds eye or drone footage
Comb through this
I can see my home from here
And the moat I dug around it
Neighbors drowning
I'd help 'em out but
All I see is carriers and barriers
And burial sites
It's terrible right (True)
Working on me
Working to breathe
Married to the game of self-blame
Never flirt with reprieve
Got a sidepiece in judging others
Behave as they please
In the face of disease
No mask-ass
Covering they face when they sneeze
This topic exhausting
Before we link
I'mma make you see the process of sausage made
Something like the slaughter of hostages
We all in this together
Wouldn't be an obvious takeaway
But fuck it
Long as you post your obnoxious hot takes today
I'll do the same, I'm doing it now
Before social media had my pad & pen
Hit the cypher downtown
Share my status then
While others battling for clout
I searched for something deeper
Something I still haven't found
Can almost make out its features
Been in the darkness
I'm not new to this, nah
Bane with the darkness, born in it
But when I close my eyes see a brighter day
Where homies get together
Don't have to hide they face, smile away
When I get off this island it's a holiday
When I get off this island it's a holiday
I dream of the day
No longer castaway
They divide by caste, class and race
Sing this refrain with us
For it's a passageway
All my people living as one, all that is one
All my people living as one, all that is one
All my people living as one, all that is one
All my people living as one, all that is one
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6. |
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Who you fucking with?
We nicer
They not fly, they waiting on de-icer
From the land of Just Fam and Pete Miser
Part of history, regardless of the revisers
They say I'm writing dummy over stupid slaps
Whiplash, CTE, brain damage, inducing that
Jade Relics produce the track
Rubble, you reduced to that
Rico James drums will leave no structures that you use intact
Be assured, what you gives what you get
Fuck round and find out or phone a friend
We excel where others lose they step
No compromises and no regrets
Over and outside, that's Oh Aye Oh
A sound that we've crafted over time
Rico, IAME and Elder O
The Relics' sounds here to free your mind
Here to free your mind
Here to free your mind
Here to free your
Live from VT, no ski lodge
Black diamond slopes
Hit a tree, straight to triage
Ain't that a beeyach
How shit gets be-otched
Pain is what you endor like ewoks
Bring it to your door like you e. hawke
In the Purge but it's no Detox
The opps' dome ringing
That's the bells we rock
Fuck twelve, no seahawks
From the P N DUB
To the N E K
I've been deep in a
fucking heady fray
MIA cuz A's just empty space
To burst your bubble like NBA NDAs
So who you fucking with, reprise
We fresher, we promise
When it comes to beats and rhymes
We some b-movie monsters out the swamp
When some folks go missing, means we chomped
Rico chop the samples like North Korean soldiers
Chopping cinderblocks with they face, that's dedication
Elder bring the melodies and fuel for the spaceship
And I get illy with the syllable placement (Jade Relics explained)
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Jade Relics Vermont
Like the four horsemen of the apocalypse except it's three horsemen and the apocalypse is actually a house party in your brain.
JADE RELICS IS:
Rico James
IAME
Elder Orange
Jade Relics recommends:
A Vanguard beat tape from one of Vermont's best.
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Seminal Electro-Futurist rap feat. IAME with production by the brilliant Smoke M2D6.
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Bricks in the Bathwater
by Elder Orange
Future soul/r&b with a backbeat and cutting lyrics.
go to albumIf you like Jade Relics, you may also like:
supported by 10 fans who also own “Mandarine”
Album of the year. In a fair and just world, they would be headlining festivals with this one. Big hooks. Vivid verses. Fingers-crossed, the instrumentals will get the vinyl treatment.
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featured on Bandcamp Radio Sep 7, 2023
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![[joey miller] thumbnail](https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0001927681_42.jpg)
