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Not Apathetic

by Human Kindness

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  • Not Apathetic limited edition cassette tape
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Approximately 40 cassette tapes. Made by Ali Jaafar at Ecstattic Studio.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Not Apathetic via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
Dorothy 01:45
Day drinking behind the IWC, yr glasses are fogged up and lipstick’s running onto yr teeth. When I’m nervous, you get nervous too, through and through, and you chew away at the inside of yr cheeks. We imbibe and imply, then describe, all the things we’ll do once we’re alone. Dorothy, the way that you’re looking at me, it’s like you’ve never seen anyone give up so easily.
2.
20 Years 05:16
Sick to death of taking breaths; too scared to not know what comes next. Keep the joy inside yr chest. Looking thru the bottom of the glass the room appears convex and, in reflected lights, bedecked, and you look stressed. So abhorred yet so assured that each thought’s a thought been thought before. There’s no pressure to be new anymore. And she said, “take me to the roof, babe,” but then she spun around and leaned against the door. The fruit has been rung dry; the juice runs through the fissures of the floor. Look at all the brightness and the great warmth in the places where we stayed. I want to watch that beauty wane, cuz this warmth brings complacency that sticks to skin and can’t be washed away, and we become the lesser lights you see. We’re clothed yet so ashamed. When the sun rises on West Lawn, and Wendi Sun rises on Racine, and when the sun rises on Graceland, I know I won’t be received. With my old self drowned to death I’m but a shell with nothing left. The whipped cream cans and silhouettes – tonight we celebrate twenty consecutive years of regrets.
3.
I was looking like a lesson; she was looking out the window. There was sweat between my fingers and the wheel, and I was high-strung like a banjo. She said, “I want to see Chicago, so I act like I don’t care – ride the L for days and fall asleep with eyes I hide behind my hair. It’ll be fun. It’ll be sexy. People will take pictures, and I’ll bathe in rum and Pepsi. It’ll be hip, and it’ll be messy. I’ll act like nothings new, dude, just a flood without a levee.” The rain, it came with heavy weight that seemed to wash away the other drivers. I was hunched over and breathing hard and trying to see through the windshield wipers. She said, “I want to see Manhattan and just pretend like nothing’s there – look through every face and breathe in buildings as if they were made of air. It’ll be cool, and it’ll be huge. I’ll learn the way these kids talk and forget the words I knew. It’ll be touching, and it’ll be nude, and I won’t root for the home team unless I’m just with you.” They said, “Beware the ides of March,” and “April is the cruelest month,” so here’s another Goddamn New Year dreaming of May, and as I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep, and if He sees me unfit, to take away. Beneath me there’s a river that runs deeper than its waters with the hopes and fears of all the years and piss wrung from my socks. The crowd ceases to cheer as I run to take the field and the rival team just yawns and blinks and runs down the clock.
4.
Glass 03:54
You had bed sores like dross on yr floor, yr mouth snared in a sneer like a cheer for a lost war. You rose up to the revel contemplating yr navel. He had two shirts that didn’t cover much skin and burns on his arms. He gripped into a grin and grabbed ahold of yr sweater – said it’s too hot for the weather. And if you don’t feel like dancing, and if you don’t feel much of anything for me, then I’m talking into my glass. And if you don’t feel explored, and if you don’t feel like putting on records anymore, then I’m waiting for this party to pass. Do you suffer with yr cheeks full of color? You’re so stiff-necked, but his words make you rubber. He reaches into yr pockets – composite docket of pleasure and profit. Yr keys are misplaced, but yr place is a mistake. Tonight we’ll make all of tomorrow’s headaches and singed skin. You burn hot into him. And if you don’t feel like dancing, and if you don’t feel much of anything for me, then I’m talking into my glass. And if you don’t feel explored, and if you don’t feel like putting on records anymore, then I’m waiting for this party to pass. You’re hanging out over the bottom three steps, and I hear what I want to hear, and I disregard the rest, and even when empty, I’m talking into my glass, but it’s reflecting my prolepsis back into me, into my chest, and I gasp and collapse right. And if you don’t feel like dancing, and if you don’t feel much of anything, know I’m so insecure, and when you drop me I shatter like glass. And if you don’t feel explored, and if you don’t feel like putting on records anymore, then I’m waiting for this party to pass.
5.
“I need to be alone today,” she said as she unknotted her bare feet from mine. I thought it benign, but leafing thru her copy of Grapefruit, I felt every wrinkle running thru the spine. She pulled up the blinds, and in place of sun we both saw so much snow hanging out against the side of the skyline. The summer hurt, the winter wall – the pain, the pain, the pain, the pain of it all. “I need to breathe alone today,” she said, her face so heavy with bathos. I kept her out sight. She pulled away, and I thought, “I’ll be damned if I blink first.” We are all too human but not so kind tonight. All right. The consciousness, the consequence of parents both so affluent, and I know I’ve got this joy, this joy, this joy, so deep, so deep in my chest. She said, “Historicism will culminate in some finger-crossed, quote-unquote peace.” She said, “Those who fuck kids will later want to teach.” She said, “It’s not just that you can’t, you also look so dumb when you sing.” She said, “I’ve heard of a world that’s not resting on top of yr box spring. Don’t need money, don’t need fame. Don’t need to be an empty sink to feel this drained. Don’t need a single thing at all, so don’t call me Al.”
6.
Interlude 01:43
7.
Rejoyce 05:49
Behind my Presbyterian pauses, I let all flesh scream. I shed all clemencies, and when she pulled off her gored skirt, I finally felt relief; the pain of hiding was drawn like blood from me. Through our summer drives that destroyed the outside, I was Fitchburg dazed and confused but still clutching into you. We talk about high school, we say forget high school, and we do, and the silence is overdue. You left yr nails dug in my back. I left bruises on her neck. She left me on her breasts. (And if my values be so hollowed, and if my moral code be cleft, at least I’m in my Sunday best.) And they’ll know she’s a Christian by the way she said, “Man, just pull out when you cum,” and, Christ, it turned me on, so we got bombed alone together, and we fucked in the kitchen. She talked about Allende: the broken glasses in the refuse; the disappearances and coup. I talked of abattoirs, the graded meat they spew: “I want to go to Bovine U.” We woke up to whiskey and Oreos and alarm-clock radio. We had Ol’ Glory when bored and cocaine for shows and a pill from CVS she dry swallowed, so she wouldn't have to take it home.
8.
Hate Myself 06:31
[a. If I Were a Rich Manuel] These book shelves can’t hold up what you know. The translated stacks of canoned Greek get kicked from ‘neath the pendent feet. We hang together cheek to cheek and wonder why the bushel’s all aglow. The bad seeds still find a way to grow. The parables for the seminar; the Kaddish for the secular; the heavy handed metaphors, and the doctor says the limb has got to go. Periphrasis insists it’s eloquence. The stutter and bruised lower lip; the last words on the first French kiss; in the bluest eyes, the vision quits, but don’t the glasses make me look intelligent? The learned prose construes the way we speak. The boldness and the honesties all absent in the humanities, and yet Mickey did the “Miss You,” and Craigy did the “Lonely,” and Patty did the “Part III,” so what the fuck about me? [b. Prescription Drugs, Part II] When was I beleaguered? When was I enchained? When was I dismembered? Did they burn what remained? When did Dad hit me? When did I feel duress? Did the milk of human kindness run dry at the breast? When did all those who care decide they could not care less? Was it the heel on the throat that began to depress? Were the people all giants? Was the prose too overt? Was I glaring, disgusting, a stain on a shirt? Or was it just teenage angst that I never outgrew? (Pillows placed in the windows; hair shorn and shampooed.) And like a stray dog that follows one home from school, I fed and I fostered it ‘til it replaced you. My heart is yr heart, but the beating is softer. (We rise to such heights to be dropped out of helicopters.) My heart is yr heart, but the beating is softer. (The filth in the food and the ash in the water.) My heart is yr heart, but the beating is softer. (This awful awareness I’d give to a daughter.) My heart is yr heart, but the beating is softer. My heart is yr heart, but the beating is softer.
9.
Blunder Road 04:48
We keep our hands hid up our sleeves to keep the chapped skin from the cold, missing hanging off the heat of the stove. Yr prodigal son’s cup overflows. Yr arrogant boy won’t call home. Yr idiot wind just blows. “Home is where the heart is,” but my heart has never been complacent – binge drinking on vacation until waking up frozen and naked, skin rough and grey like pavement, and if I ever had potential, where it used to stay is vacant. June 16th, dude: I want to be disowned. I want the only expectations chained to my neck to be my own, so when the weight is too much and leaves my back disjointed, I’m the only person whom I've disappointed. Midwest midwinters and microwave dinners; the only people who call me call me a sinner; foot caught in the river as the ice gets thinner; we’re licking the liquor but the taste’s so bitter; we fuck and we shiver; we both beg to differ; the snow on the street clothes the crashes with glitter. Dorothy, I've got humility, but the human kindness melts within. Keep me caught on yr skin with yr safety pins and honey, have some sympathy, I only ever wanted to be Craig Finn. I heard it’s a town full of losers, so I thought at least I’d fit in. Tap my heels thrice: I want to go back home. I want the only expectations chained to my neck to be my own, so when every obligation has been completely avoided, I can run from Minneapolis and hide out in my fortress. Two summers wasted with nothing written. Two years through, dude, with nothing new, and every opportunity afforded me, I threw away with gusto. Now I’m sleeping on the bus home, head pressed against the window.
10.
Anna, Anna 02:54
11.
My backpack is packed with unread books bought for skipped classes. Yr pipe’s in yr glove box beneath all the maps and sunglasses. Our old lives as new punks and new lives as old ones crashed and collapsed the last time you sat on my mattress. We called out for nurses though yr cut couldn't cleave through my dermis. You were visibly sick each time I’d make an infecund purchase. We wanted class struggles to beget more than mumbles, but when we held hands, man, we had still had these virgin-white knuckles. We had migraine auras and minefield walks and tattoos we could hide behind long-sleeves and socks and make ups and break outs and make outs and break ups and calls made in the morning when clearly still fucked and notes that we wrote and semicolons accrued and drives through Wisconsin and stops for shit-food and words that you knew that I never knew but still tried to use around you. Fingertips pulled away from lips; and hips, away from hips. The joy we kept inside our chests is now the joy we split. Fingertips pulled away from lips; and hips, away from hips. The joy we kept inside our chests is now the joy we split.

about

This is our first full length album, our first professionally recorded album and our first mastered album. It's great.

"Minneapolis rock quartet Human Kindness packed a lot of ambition into their full-length debut, Not Apathetic. The eleven guitar-fueled songs are catchy, anguished explosions." Erik Thompson, Gimme Noise, City Pages.

credits

released March 27, 2015

Human Kindness is:
David Lawrence Anderson: bass; guitar; loops; synths; tambourine; vocals.
Alex Brodsky: guitar; loops; samples.
Josh Olson: drums; guitar; loops.
Willem Vander Ark: guitar; piano; synths; vocals.
&
Courtney Bolton: viola; violin.
Alex Browne: trumpet.
Ali Jaafar: vocals.
Katie Hare: vocals.
Dallas Petersen: trombone.
Andrew Tomten: saxophone.

Music written by Hugh McIndness. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Ali Jaafar at Ecstattic Studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. (Except “Interlude” which was recorded by Alex in David’s apartment and mixed by Alex in his apartment, both in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.) Recorded November to December 2014. Album artwork designed by Ali Jaafar with photos by Jenny Holmberg. Alternate album artwork designed by John Koerner with photos by Nina Perkins.

Ali Jaafar and Ecstattic Studio: ecstatticstudio.com

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Human Kindness Minneapolis, Minnesota

Rock 'n' roll friends from Minneapolis.

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